EX-PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday again bemoaned the leadership crisis that he said has, for decades, stagnated the development, growth and economic prosperity of Africa.
News Point Nigeria reports that Obasanjo stated that “Africa is not a problem to be managed but a promise to be fulfilled through honest, courageous, selfless, incorruptible and transformational leadership.”
The former president also described genuine leadership as burdensome, explaining that his incarceration and near execution under the military junta of the late Sani Abacha after what he called a kangaroo trial was part of the burden of leadership.
Obasanjo further said that at 89, he would not die anytime soon, condemning those he alleged were circulating a fake letter in which he was purported to have written about his death.
He said such persons were wasting their time because “I dey kampe.”
The former president made the remarks on Wednesday while delivering a colloquium titled “Burden and Blessing of Leadership: Reflections from Global Africa to the World,” held as part of activities marking his 89th birthday in Abeokuta.
He said that by every measure of natural endowment, Africa should be a continent of prosperity, stability, peace, security and global influence.
Instead, he said, a major part of the continent remains “a theatre of preventable disease and suffering, starvation, conflict, insecurity and poverty.”
He said, “The primary cause is not geography. It is not history alone, though history has certainly dealt this continent grievous blows.
“The primary cause is leadership failure the failure of those entrusted with power to lead for the people and serve them rather than against them; to build institutions rather than subvert them; to welcome accountability rather than flee from it, to ensure equity and justice rather than enthrone injustice, inequality and inequity.”
He added, “I have seen it too many times. A new leader arrives with promise. The people celebrate. International partners extend goodwill. And then, gradually or suddenly, the leader begins to govern for himself — for his family, his clan, his party, his bank account.
“The same man who spoke of democracy begins to grossly engage in undemocratic practices, enthrone corruption and mismanage diversity and the economy.
“The same young reformer who promised accountability begins to silence the press, harass the judiciary, and intimidate civil society. All institutions become perverted only to serve the interest of the leader — his family, political accomplices and business interests.”
Obasanjo said that to close the leadership gap, the continent must invest in leadership formation, not merely leadership training.
“We must invest not only in teaching leaders what to do, but in forming leaders who are constituted and imbued with attributes and values to do the job the right way,” he said.
The 89-year-old elder statesman said what matters most in addressing Africa’s leadership challenge does not lie solely in what his generation did or failed to do, but in what the younger and incoming generation is willing to do to change the narrative.
He urged young Africans to “take democracy seriously and not as a system to be manipulated for electoral advantage, but as a covenant with the people, a genuine commitment to good governance that is accountable, transformational, transparent, selfless and oriented toward all-embracing development, growth and the common good.”
Obasanjo said democracy may be imperfect, slow and frustrating at times, but that the alternatives many Africans experienced in the past were costly and no substitute for democratic governance.
He added that the continent may consider reforming inherited democratic systems to suit its peculiarities in order to advance equality and good governance.
The former president also identified the need to build strong institutions that strengthen an independent judiciary and protect freedom of expression, among other measures required to move the continent forward.
He said, “We must invest in our young people. Africa’s median age is below 20. That is either a demographic dividend or a demographic disaster, the difference depends entirely on whether those young people are educated, healthy, skilled, employed, and empowered.
“A continent that fails its youth does not merely waste a generation; it plants the seeds of instability that will haunt the next several generations.
“With 24 million Nigerian children that should be in school out of school, you have surely got waiting recruits for the next generation of Boko Haram and bandits.”
Reflecting on his experience as former military Head of State and two-term democratically elected president between 1999 and 2007, Obasanjo said one of the burdens of leadership is loneliness.
He said, “The loneliness I speak of is the loneliness of final decision. The moment when all the briefings have been received, all the arguments have been made, all the options have been presented — and you alone must decide. And your decision will affect millions of lives.
“That weight does not distribute itself. It settles on one pair of shoulders — the leader’s shoulders.
“I remember a few days before the Nigerian Civil War ended in January 1970. I was commanding the Third Marine Commando Division.
“My troops were positioned for the final push. Hundreds of thousands of Igbo civilians were trapped, starving, dying. On one side was the imperative of ending the war quickly to stop further suffering.
“On the other was the risk that a military advance would deepen the humanitarian catastrophe. No textbook told me what to do. No senior officer was going to make that call. It was mine alone. I made it. We saved lives by not shelling Owerri. History has rendered its verdict.”
He said leadership also carries the burden of being the repository of people’s hopes, which are often larger than any individual can satisfy.
“When I was elected President in 1999, the Nigerian people had endured years of military dictatorship, economic stagnation, and institutional decay.
“They did not elect a president, some of them thought; they elected a miracle performer. And when the miracle did not arrive in full measure overnight as it never can I could hear the murmurs of some of them. This is the burden: to be elevated by hope and measured by time, often simultaneously.”
“True leadership requires the willingness to hold a position when it is unpopular, to say no when yes would be more convenient, to name a truth that powerful interests wish suppressed.
“This costs friendships. It costs alliances. It sometimes costs your freedom — as I learned in prison under Sani Abacha, where I was held for three and a half years, tried before a kangaroo tribunal, and very nearly executed.”
He warned that leadership is not a picnic and that the sacrifices are real, urging anyone who aspires to lead at any level to brace up for the task.
However, he said the burden has not come without blessings, including the opportunity to serve and make a difference.
“When our administration secured the Paris Club debt relief, we did not merely restructure numbers on a ledger. We freed resources that went into schools, hospitals, roads, and infrastructure for millions of Nigerians who had never heard of the Paris Club and never would.
“When we established the EFCC and began the anti-corruption drive, we were not merely chasing headlines; we were trying to redirect the stolen patrimony of a people back to the people. And the intent — the daily, determined effort to make the lives of ordinary Nigerians better — that was real. And the blessing of having tried, earnestly, is something no one can take from me.
“I understand that someone, with the collusion of political and non-political accomplices, is regularly allowed to cart away billions of naira monthly for what he claimed was due to him from debt relief.
“There was and there’s nothing done by anyone to deserve such outrageous action. It is all fraud and corruption. And I can testify to that.”
He added, “I also think of the moment in 1979 when I handed power peacefully to a civilian government. Nigeria had never done that before. The men around me — some of them — did not want it to happen. There were arguments, pressure, insinuations about ‘stability’ and ‘readiness.’ I held firm.
“And when President Shagari was sworn in, and I shook his hand and walked away from power, I felt something that I have never been able to fully describe. It was not pride, exactly. It was more like relief — the relief of having been tested and not been found wanting.
“The blessing of having done the right thing when doing the wrong thing would have been easier. That is the first blessing of leadership: the opportunity for moral self-definition. Not who others say you are.”
Obasanjo said that at 89, he believes God has kept him alive and reasonably healthy for a purpose and dismissed those wishing him dead.
“For my final note in this address, I want to point your attention to the work of some never-do-well. They publish and circulate a fake paper credited to me that I am writing, giving notice of my death, pafuka.
“That is their wish and surely not God’s wish for me. God has assured me that He has more for me to do on earth and He has given me the wherewithal to do it. And those who wish otherwise are going to be dealt with by God Himself. I dey kampe as usual.”