Africa, as many of you will agree is a continent full of milk and honey, yet the milk and honey doesn’t seem to flow in her homes, streets, villages, towns and Cities. You ask me why? I can spew out a whole load of reasons as to why the diamonds in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the cobalt and copper in Congo, the oil in Angola and the Uranium in Namibia is not flowing to the people in Kananga and Lubumbashi in Congo, Divundu in Namibia or Camissombo in Angola.
Nevertheless, anyone looking for hope for African democracy might take encouragement from the events of the last few months where the despotic President of the Gambia Yahya Jammeh was ousted from power unceremoniously after his attempts to clasp on to the throne were thwarted by pressure from West African regional leaders. After that we went to Ghana where the opposition leader Nana Akuffo Ado seized power through the ballot from John Mahama a onetime president adding to a select group of African countries that have seen democratic handovers.
Such gains, nevertheless, have been at best uneven. There is no uniformity in the application of real democracy in most African politics. Democracy is only a word whose actual understanding and application has not found inroads into the continent typically for the simple reason that power is perceived as an end in itself and not a means to the end. As I write this nine African presidents have each been ruling for more than 20 years and then worse still we have witnessed in Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia politicians oppose the issue of term limits. The question to ask is, will democracy work in Africa or we need to try other locally engineered options?
One thing stands out as we often philosophize, the lack of good leadership and the curse of none issue based politics. We then ask ourselves, what is good leadership in Africa’s context? What do we do so we end these many politically instigated conflicts every five or four years? It’s a difficult one, because from what I know we don’t seem to have a standard we can measure against. Against this background, I have a suggestion based on my acquaintance with the African history. Just thinking, but tell me how leadership was in Africa before the coming of colonialization? We had kingdoms like in Old Ghana, Mwene Mutapa Empire, the Kingdom of Kush in Ethiopia, the Wanga kingdom, the Buganda kingdom all led by Kings, the Ntemi chiefs of Nyamwezi and the Laibons of the Maasai and Orkoiyots of the Nandi, the Atumia ma Kivalo and the Nchuri njeke all leadership positions based on some principles. That way for one to qualify it will be through apprenticeship (thorough training before ascending the throne-as you know the young bird does not crow until it hears the old ones) and heritability (focus is on progress not on the leader). There were no leadership wrangles then and where they arose it was solved by a council of elders whose wisdom surpasses a million magistrates in our courts. Judgements were made on merit basis and there was no bloodshed for power.
The issue is simple let us adopt a practice where we have the highest level of power (presidency) be held by one designated individual for as long as it goes. Let it be then either hereditary or have a predetermined heir who does not have to be subjected through an electoral process. There will be limits to the power they wild and hence we have another level of leadership below that like the Leader of government. We then have so many opportunities for elections and appointment as the Buganda did with their Omulamuzi, Omwanika and the Lukiko chiefs. This will make the issue of killing for power something of the past and power will be shared rather than individualistic and maybe we will have come up with our own African solution and maybe call it Africocracy which will be better to the African people than democracy.
The africocracy system will closely resemble that of Britain who have the Queen and still they are some of the most stable countries on earth not to mention others like Spain and the Netherlands. It will be based on the African values of community unity, respect for elders, training and growth of young ones, protection of women and unity of purpose. It will however not conjure any form of oppression, inequality or isolation; instead it should be better than democracy, a system that lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures undeterred. That so many people in so many different parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for democracy due to its enduring appeal, is testimony that anything better is a welcome. Why would this not work here or why not try it, as we say from where I come from the best way to eat an elephant in your path is cut him up into little pieces, can’t we feast on this one or even think of it? Have you ever heard the people of Swaziland fight? Lesotho? Morocco? Let the rest of Africa adopt a system structured like their kingships but its foundations better than theirs and we will do away with these perennial conflicts once and for all. As mother Teresa would say alone one cannot change the world, but can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples; it’s all I already did.
lebcal 