When leaders focus on themselves, they break bond of trust with people
What you need to know:
- Legitimate elections — not just those declared legal — should produce a social contract between those in power and the people that they will do what they promised, within the confines of the law.
- Often in Africa’s case, leaders have completely different aspirations than what they declare.
During the last World Cup, the Black Stars of Ghana caused a stir when they demanded their promised payments in cash before they played their last game in the group stages.
History was made when the government airlifted $3 million cash from Ghana to Brazil to avoid a strike.
Earlier, the Cameroonian team had refused fly to Brazil until they were paid.
And at the Smithsonian cultural festival in Washington DC, Kenyan artists refused to perform on opening night until their payments were sorted out as promised.
Each of these incidents was followed by pleas, led by government officials, to the players and artists to be “patriotic” and to play and perform while their issues were being “sorted out.”
How ironic! The same people trying to illegally make cash off the sweat of players and artists calling for patriotism! Why can’t they be the patriotic ones and not steal so blatantly?
I was discussing these issues with my Ghanaian friend Franklin who pointed out, amid chuckles of disbelief, that the greater issue is one of trust: That the regimes in many parts of Africa have, by their actions and corruption, eroded so much trust and values that unless transactions are in hard cash, and in advance, few are willing to believe governments.
AFRICA DECAYING AGAIN
In the Ghanaian case, not even phone calls from President John Mahama could make the players budge. His presidential assurance that the money would be transferred into their accounts counted for nothing. No, they wanted hard cold cash. Hence the expensive airlifting of money, adding unnecessary costs.
So amidst all the exhortations of Africa rising, amid the wooing and seducing of Africa by East and West, we are confronted by an issue that could well lead to Africa decaying again, if our leaders keep doing the same things they have done for the last 50 years and focus more on themselves than on the people.
The bond of trust between the governed and their governors is set during elections. Legitimate elections — not just those declared legal — should produce a social contract between those in power and the people that they will do what they promised, within the confines of the law. Of course sometimes incompetence throws a spanner into the best laid plans.
But often in Africa’s case, leaders have completely different aspirations than what they declare. For many, the idea of leadership is to amass as much wealth — and as fast — as possible. Hence the rise of corruption, for which Kenya has been a poster-child since 1963.
And yes, this corruption can be clothed in all manner of propaganda such as the need for a campaign war chest to ensure victory again.
Or legal niceties about losing in tribunals abroad which were shrouded in secrecy until the negative judgments have to be executed.
TRUST AND GOODWILL ERODE
But ultimately, it is about using taxpayers’ resources for services and goods that were not delivered, or delivered at exorbitant prices.
Whatever the excuses, the sad consequence of regimes that deliberately thwart the social contracts is that trust and goodwill in society erode. Because we know that no matter what they say and do, it is really all about them.
Thus it is not lost that when the roads in Othaya were re-done, the tarmac went to and ended at, Mwai Kibaki’s rural home. If you live on the way to his home, lucky you! And it is not lost that Kenya’s first superhighway (barabara ya gorofa) is to Thika, and not to Machakos or Nakuru on the busier Mombasa-to-Kampala highway.
Trust can be regained and restored, but only if leadership thinks and acts differently.
It requires a Mandela-like approach of genuinely reaching out to those most opposed to you and working with them to be part of the society. And it demands a real and total zero-tolerance to corruption, where not even brothers, uncles, mothers, nephews and old schoolmates are sacred cows.
