Are Presidencies the African curse?

Comrade Bob has destroyed Zimbabwe and her people, yet. He has ruled the Southern Africa nation since December 1987!  In neighboring Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has suffocated the country’s economy and democracy. He has held onto power since January 1986! Others like Tedoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has been in power for 34 years and has showed no signs of leaving office! And now, Jean Pierre Nkurunziza is setting Burundi on fire! The nation’s Vice president has already Bujumbura and sought a safe haven in Brussels, Belgium. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Burundians are fleeing to neighboring Rwanda and Tanzania with every dawn of the sun!

Something must be terribly wrong with a majority of African presidencies! The greed for power has caused bloodbath, agony and war crimes on the very people they are supposed to lead! Unlike, the West where the institution of presidency is a noble one that leads the nation to prosperity and unity, presidencies in Africa are the cause of untold suffering, agony, depressing economic states stinking shame! From Somalia, Central African Republic, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan, Rwanda et others, the name president elicits fear in the people. In these nations, the greed for power and evil desire to stay in power has scarred the citizenry. Many have been physically and psychologically maimed, women and girls raped, men and boys sodomized, innocent children turned into cruel merchants of death, starvation and all manner of humanitarian crisis! Kenya too is no saint! In 2007-08, post- election violence nearly burned the entire nation as the fight for State House turned vicious!

No continent on the planet is endowed with natural resources than Africa! Sadly, these vast deposits of mineral wealth have led to tears and anguish on the very people they are supposed to benefit! Democratic Republic of Congo has never known peace since 2002, and we all know how the rich gold, diamond and fluorspar deposits have created rag-tag militias, from Goma to Kivu! In Nigeria, the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) nearly decimated the Nigeria populace in the Niger Delta, in the vicious fight to control the vast oil wells! In Sierra Leone, we are remember Foday Sanko, the slain war merchant whose child soldiers chopped off the limbs of innocent civilians. It was the bloody race for control of the ‘Blood Diamonds’. South Sudan split from the larger Muslim-dominant North, but the deadly battle for control of the oil-rich Heglig region saw mass killings, displacement and war crimes committed against innocent civilians.

Most presidencies in Africa epitomize the dire standards of poor leaderships that Africa continues to suffer from. Massive rigging of elections, coup d’états and assassinations have been accepted ways of ascending to power in Africa. Intimidation of political opponents, disregard for the rule of law and use of government machinery to ward off any opposition from sitting on the coveted seat of presidencies are accepted evils in Africa! Morals in the institution of presidency in Africa are a near un-palatable idea! Some turn into presidents-for- life, others change constitutions into personal wills and most use presidencies to entrench wealth, loot public coffers and appoint wives and next-of kins to cabinet positions and other political seats that they barely merit! They regard themselves as demi-gods and their loyal lieutenants are no better. They become the lyrical sycophants who dance in the king’s dance-yard and can never tell the king when he is naked! Truth and honest become obsolete to them and deceit reigns supreme, all to please the king! That is Africa for you and the sick mindset that has plagued this otherwise noble institution!

Unless a change in mindset comes thick and fast, most African nations will languish in poverty, abuse of democracy and civil wars and conflicts whose cause are mainly the presidents.  A change is inevitable if democracy and socio-economic development are to blossom on most of the African countries. Morals should find a place on the African leadership tables! Otherwise, if the same old traditional minds on presidencies reign, wars, conflicts and poverty will forever be the synonyms to describe Africa; the richest continent in mineral wealth. 

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis is getting dire with every dawn of the sun. Somebody should teach Nkurunziza et co these noble lessons on leadership morals!