Africa: The Challenge Of Leadership And Development By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim

Not very long ago, Mr. Donald Trump, the incumbent President of
the United States of America (USA) was reported to have said the
following things about the African leaders:

“It is shameful for African leaders to seek exit from ICC. In my
view, these leaders want to have all the freedom to oppress their
poor people without anyone asking them a question .I think there is
no shortcut to maturity and in my view, Africa should be
recolonized because African are still under slavery .Look at how
those African leaders change constitutions in their favour so that
they can be life presidents. They are greedy and do not care about
common people. When I saw them gang against ICC yet they can’t even
find an amicable solution for the ongoing quandary in Burundi, I
thought to myself these people lack discipline and humane heart.
They can’t lead by example. The only thing they are interested in
is accumulating wealth from poor tax payers. Before they think of
exiting from ICC, they should first restore peace in Burundi and
other war-torn countries rather than gathering like hyenas with the
aim of finishing the poor people.”

I doubt if there is any patron of the social media who did not
come across this Trump’s verbal missile against African leaders. I
have not come across any rebuttal against this missile by any
African leader. Although many of them may not be comfortable with
this home truth, but the fact still remains that what Trump had
said is the reality in Africa. In recent American history, have not
seen an American leader that speaks his mind like Donald Trump. You
may decide to agree or disagree with him but you cannot ignore him.
Most problems being faced by Africans are caused by their leaders.
If African leaders have discharged their responsibilities as
expected of them and live up to expectation , why must they be
afraid of the International Criminal Court (ICC)?

If you are well familiar with the history of Africa, you will
not easily forget the African dictators like late Gnassingbe
Eyadema of Togo whose son Gnassingbe Faure is now in power; late
Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo which he
renamed Zaire when he was in power. Mobutu who was reputed for
being richer than his country. Blaisé Campaore who overthrew and
killed his friend Thomas Sankara, ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years
and was still not satisfied. He conspired with his country’s
legislators to amend the constitution to allow him to be in power
till 2020 but his country people revolted against this and he fled
the country. In Gambia, Yahya Jammeh after being in power for
decades and lost election was reluctant to relinquish power just
like Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast. Zimbabwe people will not
forget Robert Mugabe in hurry. Idris Deby of Chad will now remain
in office as president till 2033 while Paul Biya has taken the 7th
oath of office. Africa is a continent where you will find in
abundance leaders who have been Presidents of their countries for
decades and are still not ready to relinquish power.

When we talk about dictators in Africa , that does not mean that
Africa did not have its share of good leadership. In the class of
good African leaders ,you will find people like Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South Africa,
Nnamid Azikwe, Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa and Obafemi Awolowo of
Nigeria. These were people that fought for the independence of
their respective countries and served their countries selflessly
but unfortunate their tenure in governments were short-lived as a
result of successive military coups that greeted many post
independent African countries. Most of those military regimes did
not help matters but rather complicated issues. The military
leaders that did not transform themselves to civilian rulers put in
place puppet civilian regimes that could not stand the test of
time. Most politicians that were products of this purported
democracy were extremely corrupt. They engaged in capital flight of
their countries’ resources to foreign countries.

The African democracy was characterized by Godfatherism and
election rigging that got into power those who ought not to have
anything doing at the corridors of power as they were only
concerned about their personal interest rather than that of the
generality of the people. In Nigeria, when the Second Republic was
sacked and sent packing by a military regime, many politicians were
arraigned before a military tribunal who sent them to various jail
terms for various offences including breach of public trust and
self enrichment. Even under the civil regimes, many politicians
have equally being sentenced to various terms of imprisonment while
other are still facing various charges before the courts.

One continues to wonder, why must a politician who is duly
elected to power and entrust with the commonwealth of the people
for their benefit will turn round to abuse the trust. One is
seriously baffled when story is read about the likes former
American President, Barrack Obama retiring to a rented apartment
after serving his country in such high position. Can such thing
happen in Africa? Despite the fact that Africa is blessed with
abundant human and natural resources, many African leaders have
failed to use those resources to the advantage of the African
people. The resources that should have been used to develop Africa
have either been abandoned or misused by the African leaders.

In Nigeria for instance, nature blesses the country with wide
area of land that are very useful for agriculture. Before the
discovery of oil in Nigeria, various regional governments were
deeply involved in the agriculture with which they developed the
regions. In the North under Sir Ahmadu Bello, groundnut and cotton
were used to build pyramid which were exported out of the country
to earn revenue to develop the region. While Cocoa was a very good
business in the Western Region under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, palm
fruit ( kernel ) thrived well as a business in the Eastern Region
under Dr. Nnamid Azikwe. The earning from those agricultural
produce were used to develop infrastructures in those regions. But
what do we have today in this part of the African continent? We
have Governors who are not interested in building agriculturally on
the legacy of the past leaders in their areas. We have Governors
who are only interested in going to Abuja to share the money earned
from the oil income.

The failure of the most Governors to meet the demand of the
labour on the minimum wage of Thirty Thousand Naira (N30,000) is
informed by their inability to look inward and partner among
themselves on how to tap from the resources they are blessed with
from their various regions. Imagine what would have happened if
most states had borrowed a leaf from the kind of partnership that
came into being between Lagos and Kebbi States to come up with the
LAKE RICE. Other states should have gone into partnership to
produce other things that would be of benefit to their respective
people. Some time I keep wondering that with the rate at which
local people around Ejigbo and Iwo in Osun State manually produce
red oil in abundance from palm kernel, would the government of that
state not have done well if it establishes a big oil mill or
industry in that area and recruit the local people to work therein.
If Osun state cannot do that, should another state not have taken
that initiative? The other day when the idea of ranching was
suggested, some Governors in the east, when on air to say that they
would not give out land for ranching in their area, but I was of
the view that it should have been an opportunity for them to
negotiate their terms on accommodating ranching in area if the
hosting governors have a deep thought on setting up of dairy or
allied industries the area to the advantage of their people in
terms of job creation. It will be of good benefit to all if states
can think along the line of partnering where necessary whereas a
state that is financially buoyant can partner with the one that has
no financial capability to enter into joint venture.

While I do not agree with Donald Trump that Africa should be
recolonized as the Europe had already sufficiently exploited the
Africa to its advantage as narrated by Walter Rodney in his book
titled: “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” , the favour the likes
of America can to do to Africa and its people is to continue to
expose those corrupt African leaders and repatriate whatever fund
they stolen back to the Africa. Many African leaders rather than
being deeply involved in the development of their various countries
are the ones involved in what brings backwardness to their
countries. Those African leaders that are found involving in the
killing of innocent people in their countries must be made to face
the International Criminal Court for their crime against humanity
just like the way Charles Taylor of Liberia was made to face the
music.

REMARKABLE PRONOUNCEMENT ON CONFESSIONAL
STATEMENT

“It is now too late to question the rule whether voluntariness
or otherwise of a confession must be decided by the judge before
its admissions, even where the judge is sitting without a jury,
since the courts of this country have applied that rule for many
years; but we see no reason to extend the scope of the rule to
cases where a confessions is challenged, not because it is alleged
that it is not voluntary, but because it is alleged that the
accused never made it at all. We are of opinion, that in such a
case the question whether the accused made the confessions is a
matter to be decided by the judge in his fact finding capacity at
the conclusion of the case, and that the alleged confession can
properly be admitted as part of the evidence when it is tendered by
the prosecution.”

Per HUBBARD, Ag. FJ (as he then was) in The Queen Vs. Igwe
(1960) NSCC Vol. 1 Pg. 39 Lines 35-45

THE SETTLED PRINCIPLE OF LAW

On what amount to valid arraignment in criminal trial

“In a valid arraignment of an accused person the following
requirements must be satisfied failing which any subsequent trial
and conviction of him will be a nullity. The requirements are: (a)
The accused person must be present in court unfettered unless there
is a compelling reason to the contrary; (b) The charge must be read
over to the accused in the language he understands; (c) The charge
should be explained to the accused to satisfaction of the court;
(d) In the course of the explanation, technical language must be
avoided; (e) After requirements (a) to (d) above have been
satisfied, the accused will then be called upon to plead instantly
to the charge.
It is now settled law that all the above requirements must co-exist
and must be satisfied because they are mandatory.”

See DIBIE Vs. STATE (2004) 14 NWLR (Pt. 893) Pg. 276 Paras
D-G

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