Dear Voters,

I have come to the conclusion that the ambitions of African leaders are not smart enough, not far-sighted enough, and not bold enough. Everyone under 30 may already know that the current candidates are a cancer, and old-age will rid the next generation of them all in the almighty name of God.

The Boqor
The root of the Warsangali (Somali) word for king “Boqor” is “belt”. Leaders are meant to unite their people and harness their abilities for the good of the nation. Our leaders have used division to rule and in so doing have sacrificed the potential of solidarity to solve African problems. Division leaves bitterness and carries grudges into future generations instead of a “public memory” of achievements.

The food supply
The public purse and investment has been used to enrich the few. While regional conflicts and below average literacy levels flourished, funds were not used to build a system that avoids growing trade deficits, depreciating currencies, debts in foreign currencies and growing interest pays.
Africa is one of only two continents to domestic rice, the other being Asia. How is it that Africa does not produce most of its own rice but imports most of it? $5.6 billion across all African countries is spent every year importing rice, one of the top 5 most important foods in the world. 26% of rice in the world is imported by Africa. How come African leaders did not identify the stupidity of importing a food that we can produce locally at a cheaper cost and that is scientifically the more nutritious species of rice?

The political system
The word senator comes from Latin for “elder” or “old man”, from “senex”. A senate is the assembly of old men or the assembly of elders. The bicameral legislature is not democratic. It existed in many cultures that were not democratic, that did not ensure the prosperity of the “many” and that were not lead by democratically elected leaders. Rome was led for longer under “emperors” and “kings” than the equivalent period for “proconsuls”. 18 of 45 US presidents were slave owners of Africans. “Democratic Athens” only allowed men with property to be citizens. Until 1820, white American men needed property qualifications to vote. Until 1920, white women could not vote. Until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, most black Americans couldn’t vote. Until 2017, the United States had never elected a Native American to the Congress.

Both American and European systems, which African leaders copied, functioned from inception with a bicameral legislative without representation for black people (9% of the population in the US), women (50% of the people in the US), and people without property. Even the UK Parliamentary system was originally created in the 13th century by Simon De Montfort to get representation from the richest people who he wanted to tax, not to give a voice to all adults.

Today, party candidates are selected in primaries based on their ability to defeat candidates in the largest rival party, not based on whether they are the best candidate available for the country. If two parties are full of poor candidates, Africans have to pick between two parties resourced with poor candidates. In Africa a stranger thing happens, candidates can switch between the two largest political parties without consequence, any time they want.
Why do African politicians think that the younger generation is blind to the fact that the political system is not designed to speed up change but to maintain power in the hands of the powerful.
Unelected power
Many decisions in Africa are made by unelected persons and not necessarily the best person to make those decisions:
- ¬Once a president is elected, most presidents are able to make up to or more than 1,000 appointments. Presidents can elect anyone they want into a position of trust handling money, power and decisions about people’s lives.
- No elections are held to decide who can become the attorney general, the head of police, a board member of all the most powerful companies in Africa, a board member of all the most powerful NGOs in Africa, a decision-maker at ports, airports, in churches, in mosques, in educational institutions, in professional bodies, or in radio and TV networks.
- No elections are held to decide who can become permanent secretary at state level or permanent secretary at federal level

The environment
Before 5,000 BC, lake Chad was a Mega Lake occupying 1,000,000 sq kilometres, larger than the Caspian sea today. After the end of the Holocene period, it shrunk to the size of close to 1960s Lake Chad, measuring 26,000 sq kilometres and an elevation of 286 metres above sea level. By 2000, it was only 1,000 square kilometres wide. Water is fundamental to all aspects of life: agriculture, drinking, raising livestock, fishing, construction, maintain a military and avoiding domestic armed conflicts.

When the Garamantes lived in the Sahara Desert from 500 BC to 600 AD, even then they had the common sense to mine “fossil water” from underground, and this sustained their civilisation for 1,100 years. Not many people know that apart from oil and gas, “fossil water” is the next abundant natural resource found in the Sahara Desert underground. The Garamantes could extract underground water.
How is it that these so called “old men”? The best politicians that political parties have to offer, don’t have the common sense to link deforestation and over usage of water supplies to the ensuing scramble for resources. Also, how is it that they cannot link this to their failure of leadership?

Attitudes to Education
Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have few natural resources of the kind exported by Western companies in metric tonnes to manufacturing economies out of Africa. If we were to examine the World Bank’s estimates of national wealth, 80% of national wealth in developed economies comes from their labour force. Developed economies train their population to out-think “developing economies” so that Africa exports raw materials and imports finished goods, and so that each generation after the next repeating the same stupidity of the previous curriculums. The G20 elite mine people, the African leaders mine the environment – destroying the inheritance of Africans yet to be born.

Public health
An effective public health programme is fundamental to technology transfer between older generations and younger generations, having less widows and orphans, having not only a healthy military but also a public prosperity.

Pensions
If you survive to 60 and hope that pension payments will land in your bank account, ask yourself if you could safeguard the predictability of 30 years of retirement income by electing any of the current presidential candidates?

The International Image of Your Country
The international value of money is based on trust. It’s called “fiat money”. The international system of currency exchanges is based on trust, not gold or something tangible; for the basic reason that something tangible cannot keep score or keep up when production capacity of intangible outputs is infinite. You can’t print enough money to pay for the future products that human creativity will bring to the “market”. African leaders are too stupid to go abroad and sell the potential of their citizens. While the president of Israel will say “Our people are the most brilliant in the world”. Some African presidents will claim their people are the worst. As trust falls, currency depreciates and the cost of imports rise. Voters then elect another president that will make them poorer.
When your president opens his mouth to speak in international environments, are you embarrassed? Will your wealth rise in the world?

Concluding remarks
I submit that we are being ruled by idiots. I also submit that those idiots are a danger to their voters. If you are wise, I submit that you should sacrifice everything you can to make sure your children become educated and target not money, but every position of power where decisions about your life is being made, and train them to have integrity so the next generation will have reasonable candidates in every respect to pick from. Like arrows, fire your children at the post of senator, House of representation, company director, professor, minister, cabinet member, judge, head of police, head of Navy, head of the air force and every “head of” role, so that people who care will be the only candidates your grandchildren can choose from.

What do you think?