Obama’s deferred dream a wake-up call for ‘Uhuru generation’

President Barack Obama’s exit from power this month provides a fitting preface to the second part of our trilogy of articles on the “Clash of Generations” in a war fought primarily at the ballot box.

“For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back,” said Obama in an emotional farewell speech in Chicago on January 11, 2017 in which America’s 44th President conceded that his brand of progressive politics has stalled in Washington thanks to a raging clash of generations on a world scale. In Europe and America, the odds are stuck against the younger generations and in favour of the older ones.

As in the West, Africa is rent by a generational divide. In 2017, eight of Africa’s 54 countries, including Kenya, will hold presidential elections. With its rapidly growing demographic power, the increasingly assertive youth in Africa are set to decide the winners and losers of these and future elections.

The generational battle line is clearly marked. Africa has the youngest population in the world with a median age of 19.5 years, according to United Nations sources.

Yet Africa’s leadership is also the oldest – with the vast majority of African countries led by people who are in their 70s, 80s and 90s – and the average age of the 10 oldest African leaders standing at 81 by January 2017.

On average, only 15 to 21 per cent of Africans were born when most of their contemporary presidents ascended to power.

RISING GENERATIONAL TENSIONS

This age gap between the leaders and the led is partly responsible for rising generational tensions since the onset of the third wave of democracy in 1989 and more increasingly the onset of the dual crisis of the youth bulge and of capitalism, including massive unemployment and poverty.

As theoretician Frantz Fanon once aptly stated: “Each generation, out of relative obscurity, must discover its own mission; to fulfill it or betray it”. Today, four generations are rocked in the struggle to gain power and fashion Africa’s future.

The first, exemplified by Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe (92), are the remnants of the “liberation generation” still holding on to power and presiding over what scholars have described as the “politics of interregnum” – where the old is dying and the new has refused to be born.

Although Africa’s living nonagenarians like Kenneth Kaunda (92) have steered clear of politics, Kenya’s former president Daniel arap Moi (92) continues to exert immense influence on political choices across generations.

The second generation is Africa’s equivalent of the American “baby boomers,” born between 1940s and 1950s. This generation entered teenage in the 1960s and early 1970s, and are now senior citizens who should be out of power.

Blissfully, sections of Africa’s older generations have retired or are set to retire. In Angola, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos (74) announced on March 2016 that he will retire after the 2017 presidential elections. And in South Africa, Jacob Zuma (74) will have to leave power when his second term expires after the next presidential elections due in 2019.

UNDERMINED DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

But Africa’s septuagenarians have undermined democratic institutions and repealed constitutions to remove term limits and extend their stay in power, leading to serious reversals in democratic progress. In 2005, the Ugandan parliament changed the constitution, allowing President Yoweri Museveni (72) to seek re-election and to remain in power.

Despite its aging, Africa’s older generation has made remarkable return to power, successfully rolling back the victories of the younger generations. In Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari (74) defeated the 57-year-old Goodluck Jonathan to become Nigeria’s president in 2015 after three failed attempts to win power.

Inspired by these successes, Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is set to be on the ballot for the fourth time this year after three losses (1997, 2007 and 2013).

The third age cohort vying for power is the “Uhuru” (freedom) generation”, borne in the 1960s after independence and the early 1970s and entered teenage in the lost decades of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Some members of the Uhuru generation have been part of Africa’s long-serving presidents. For example, Joseph Kabila, now 44, has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2001 and is embroiled in an attempt to seek a third term.

Similarly, in Burundi, the move by President Pierre Nkurunziza, 52, sparked protests and plunged the country into a profound political turmoil when he decided to seek re-election to a third term.

RISK LOSING POWER

Despite the gerontocratic nature of African societies, members of the Uhuru generation such as Senegal’s Macky Sall, 55, have won power. But the young generation risks losing power to the older leaders. Recently, Nana Akufo-Addo (72) defeated John Dramani Mahama (58) to become Ghana’s 14th President in January 2017 after two failed attempts.

However, Africa’s older generations are outnumbered and out-voted by the younger generations.

The fourth age cohort shaping the future of power in Africa is the “Millennial generation” born from the 1980s and 1990s and entered teenage in the new millennium. Africa’s millennials are the fastest growing part of the population with Africa having more people under age 20 than anywhere else in the world.

People under 25 years constitute 60.8 per cent of the total population in Kenya; 62.2 per cent in Nigeria; and 60.2 per cent in Zimbabwe. More than 200 million Africans are between the ages of 15 and 24 years.

Whether Africa’s youth bulge becomes a blessing or a curse will depend on how the generational divide is resolved.

However, the millenials were key players in the Arab Spring revolutions in North Africa, which were ignited by the self-immolation of a 26-year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Bouzazi, in January 2011.

During South Africa’s 2016 municipal elections, youth coalesced around the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of Julius Malema (35) and Democratic Alliance of Mmusi Maimane (36) collectively gaining control of 35.1 per cent of the popular vote, poised to expand in the coming years.

As the main block of voters in 2017, the millennials are the decisive force in the clash of generations at the ballot box.

Prof Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute. This article is the second part of a trilogy on the Clash of Generations and Elections