₦airaland Forum

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In recent times, one of the biggest arguments in the leadership of African countries and the continent as a collective has been about the age(s) of current leaders and how this factor has become a neo-hindrance to the development of the Afrispace. Given the way young men and women in Africa have joined their friends in other parts of the world, in terms of the info-tech revolution and all that pertains to contemporary lifestyles despite the pervasive poor access to education -kudos to the neglect of their leaders- the age talk is a valid point for discussion and demands attention from all well meaning Africans.

This has raised the big question: does age matter in leadership? Well, as earlier noted, I reiterate: it is a valid argument for the young (or pro-young) advocates to say it matters. I give it to them. Many African leaders seem to hold on to the over-rated patriarchal nous that present them as custodians of what is right or wrong, holding off some kind of resentment, disenchantment and opposition like the region is still being run by deity-instituted monarchies. Many of them have enjoyed ‘democratic’ dynasties with little or no resistance, leaving the people they should cater for to fend for themselves via scavenging whatever they can find wherever; consequently, many African settlements (wrong word in contemporary speak) have been struggling to evolve from near jungles to pseudo-societies, yet far from what modern societies look like. And since the overseers of this mediocre and rigmarolish system are anything but ready to move for dynamism or give way for new minds to drive the nations, the argument of age has come up, gaining momentum every other day.

However, that should be a subtopic in a chapter, or, one of the last chapters in the book we may title Leadership Failure in Africa: Causes. We should not give it all the energy or prestige because we are faced with more important issues that should be precede this round-aboutish age talk. We face monumental decays from the failures of all, or nearly all, who ever dreamed of chasing the white man out of the black world with an egalitarian anthem and vigour. Exhausted from the chase, they only began to eat from where the ‘canker-worms’ had stopped, to regain some energy. But they never remembered why they started the chase in the first place. In a way, what was their motivation, as we have seen since the independences, was nothing near pan-African liberation as they would have us believe (save for a few of them), but a jealousy of the privileges given the white leaders in their (the blacks’) own countries. If it was true emancipation and salvation of their mother/fatherlands that had driven their actions, they would not have turned round to become new slavemasters: talk of a fraternally-inflicted injury being more painful than the bite of the most venomous snakes. I did raise, in an earlier essay, the question of priorities: what was the priority of a, say, president or governor or prime minister or legislator in Africa? Obviously, that priority is far from the people and the society: they always wanted, as from the beginning, personal gains.

That tendency to become a dictator once in a public office, rather than respecting the laws and advancing societal cause, seems to be the helpless lot of whoever becomes this or that in his/her country, irrespective of the person’s age. It overshadows the old, it overshadows the young. Look at this juxtaposition: while the whole world was berating the nonagenarian in Zimbabwe, who has ruled for thirty-eight unproductive years and would not want to let go despite his age, there is another young man in charge of small Burundi, scheming his life out to stay there for eternity, whether or not he is the people’s choice, or, whether or not he is living up to the expectations. The same man whose insistence in remaining there has caused violence that injured some, displaced some and killed others, yet he one of the youngest presidents in Africa! What is the difference between his motivation and that of a Mugabe?



Age is not, should not be the debate. The whole ensuing inter-generational conflict is an unnecessary distraction, yet. You can call an Emmanuel Macron in France but remember that there is a Donald Trump in the US, the country with the highest modern revolutions driven by youth! The common denominator between Macron and Trump is the system that they met and operate in and in such systems, under-performance is an immediate end to one’s rule, so there is no space for unproductive leadership.

For us down here, the penchant for corruption and destabilising the very system we usually swear to uphold, to maintain our unwelcome hegemonies have become the common denominator. The old is corrupt; the young learn from them. I can nearly ask the young advocates if their drive is to build the always postponed Africa in our blueprint, that we never had, or if they are merely jealous of their fathers, who were earlier jealous of the Europeans.

Now, here is the biggest blow to this age debate: of the ten African dictators who are ranked to be the worst, their average age is 45! Besides few names like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Murtala Mohammed of Nigeria, many of the past African leaders who got to the apex office of their nations were young men but they were interested in other things! They were the ones with the blueprint of Africa and they tore it to shreds and ensured that their successors (if they ever had one) never had a glimpse of what it looked like. We never saw it come to life. It is not the old people that ruined the region, young people did. That alone deals a deathblow to the argument that these leaders are too old to rule, not like I am saying they should hold on to power anyway. In the US, the average age of all the presidents, from George Washington to Donald Trump, is 55. Why should Nigeria, for instance, front age as their problem, when the average age of those who led before the 1999 transition to democracy is ten years younger than all the American presidents put together?

Take the count. There was a certain Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic. He was born in 1921 and started to rule his country at 45 (1966). The stories that followed his leadership were not the best of them and they were perpetrated by a young man. What precepts did he set for the country for the twelve-thirteen years of his superintending his own nation? What was his priority? Was it to supervise the killing of a hundred primary school children for not wearing uniforms made from the materials his wife sold or to have a coronation that gulped a whooping $20m as at 1977? You can imagine the cost in today’s valuation.

Sani Abacha took control of Nigeria’s government at 50, in 1993. For five years, the country was thrown into turmoil and his death was jubilantly celebrated in 1998 for the country to have some peace. Abacha simply stayed ‘in charge’ without creating any direction or a legacy that is worth following.

How about the Guinean Ahmed Sekou Toure who was only thirty-six when he took the reins in Guinea. Like we would ask in Pidgin English, looking at Toure’s government, how market? The same man who, at the age of 15, was expelled from a technical school for leading a student protest against the quality of food, would later rise to determine what quality of food the entire nation eats; did he remember? Maybe it was just the rebellion in him that was rehearsing. Another of his ilk in Equitorial Guinea, Teodore Mbasongo, was also thirty-seven when he became the leader. How much did he do for the continent and country?

While there are controversies surrounding Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, he is still notorious for being the law himself and ruling Libya however he pleased. We might argue sentimentally about how Afrocentrism made enemies for him and eventually led to his death, but Gaddafi’s leadership had a lot of pitfalls that make his hall of fame portrait have holes in it. He too was young when he began, at 35.

The much talked about Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the answer to Mirror, mirror, who is the oldest of them all? was a Prime minister at 56 and became president at 63. He did not become the Zimbabwean head of government at 90! There is no evidence that should Mugabe drink an age reducing concoction now to return to forty-five and take back Zimbabwe, that he would turn the country around. No. It was not his age that wrecked his country so the argument should not arise.



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South African police are hunting for three attackers who cut the throat of an imam and stabbed and seriously injured two other people at a Shia mosque.

The attack on the mosque on Thursday in Verulam, a town 27km north of Durban, left the Muslim community outraged and demanding answers.

Major Bheki Langa, KwaZulu-Natal province’s acting police commissioner, said in a statement the motive was still unclear. The assailants also set the mosque on fire before escaping in a getaway vehicle.

“Such criminality cannot be tolerated. A team of investigators has been dispatched to solve the case and bring perpetrators to book,” Langa said.

Emergency rescue services said the imam’s throat had been slit and he later died, while the two other men had been stabbed. Both victims were in hospital in critical condition.

The incident drew immediate condemnation from the Muslim leadership across the country.

Faisal Suleman, chairperson of the South African Muslim Network, told Al Jazeera his organisation would not want to speculate on a motive given it was still not clear.

“We condemn this attack and we are urging the law enforcement to spare no effort in apprehending the perpetrators alive so that the reasons become known,” Suleman said from Durban.

“South Africa has not had such attacks in the past, so we caution against speculation.”

The Muslim Judicial Council denounced the bloodshed and said the core of Islamic teachings and principles are “respect for all human beings”.

Islamic scholar Shaykh Rafeek Haseen told community radio station Voice of the Cape that Durban’s Muslim community is in shock and urged people not to jump to conclusions.

“It may be a case of money laundering or a personal issue between the perpetrators and the victims. I do not think we should jump to conclusions that this attack is motivated by sectarianism,” said Haseen.

Also Read: Sudan: Teenager Sentenced to Death

Muslims make up about 1.9 percent of South Africa’s 55 million population, with most following the Sunni Muslim denomination. Attacks on mosques are extremely rare, but observers note anti-Shia rhetoric has been on the rise over the past few years, especially on social media.

Farid Sayed, editor of the Muslim Views newspaper based in Cape Town, said there have been attacks on mosques before, but usually from the “racist, white right-wing”.

Sayed said many Muslims in South Africa deny the fact that there is intra-faith intolerance in the community.

“One can dismiss this as a once-off attack, it may not even be a sectarian attack. But I think it alerts us to the fact that we could actually be facing a situation where there could be violence [in the future].

“In the past, it was always verbal attacks, not physical. I have some [social media] posts that suggest that it ‘was just a Shia mosque’, in other words, they deserved to be attacked,” Sayed said.

The country’s parliament also released a statement condemning the violence.

mynd44

APRECON

https://www.theafricanprogressiveeconomist.com/outrage-after-deadly-south-africa-mosque-attack/osahon/

anibirelawal:
24 Billion not too much jor.

Does the building contain precious stones?

Download and enjoy

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Only Ramos, Benzema and Nacho retain their places from the side that drew 2-2 with Barcelona on Sunday. Casilla replaces Keylor Navas in goal, while Vallejo and Hernandez come into defence in favour of Varane and Marcelo. Modric and Kroos are replaced in midfield by Kovacic and Ceballos, while Vazquez and Asensio will join Benzema in attack.

Real Madrid substitutes: Luca Zidane, Oscar Rodriguez, Achraf Hakimi, Marcos Llorente, Alvaro Tejero, Borja Mayoral, Luismi Quezada.

Real Madrid XI (4-3-3): Kiko Casilla; Nacho, Jesus Vallejo, Sergio Ramos, Theo Hernandez; Mateo Kovacic, Casemiro, Dani Ceballos; Lucas Vazquez, Karim Benzema, Marco Asensio.Sevilla substitutes: Joaquin Correa, Ever Banega, Daniel Carrico, Roque Mesa, Nolito, Sergio Rico, Sandro Ramirez.

Sevilla XI (3-4-1-2): David Soria; Gabriel Mercado, Clement Lenglet, Nico Pareja; Miguel Layun, Guido Pizarro, Steven N’Zonzi, Sergio Escudero; Franco Vazquez; Wissam Ben Yedder, Luis Muriel.







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The acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, yesterday faulted the corruption index on Nigeria by Transparency International (TI).

He said politics was already creeping into the indices being used by the international body.

He also said having special courts to tackle corruption will help to accelerate trial of looters.

Magu, who made his feelings known at a briefing preparatory to the inauguration of the N24billion new office complex of EFCC, also said the EFCC will not punish the innocent.

He said: “There is a lot of politics in these indices. I don’t believe it is right. You are in this country. Would you say the situation is the same as when we took over?

“So, I don’t believe it but we are doing all we can to improve on our ratings next year. We should all work together on this. The job is not for us alone.”

On Special courts to try corruption cases in Nigeria, Magu described it as “a good idea that would go a long way to reduce the long years it takes to prosecute one case in all the courts from the Federal High Court to the Supreme Court.

“It would go a long way to speed up the tackling of corruption. The current system takes too long to conclude one case.”

He assured Nigerians of fairness by EFCC and clarified that the innocent will not suffer.

“We are doing a lot to make the agency serve Nigeria and Nigerians better. It is an institution that will stand the test of time.

“We will ensure that only those who genuinely looted the treasury are investigated, prosecuted and jailed and innocent persons not arrested indiscriminately,” he said.

Magu said contractors of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) will now be henceforth monitored by EFCC.

He said: “There was a time we met with the NDDC and civil societies. So, for instance if you have abandoned projects in Rivers State, we have civil organizations, we work together, we monitor and we go and inspect the abandon project, we bring them to book.

“We have been working on that even though it has not been very effective but we are on it. We deal with the HoS and civil societies in that particular state because it occurs across states. So, we have been working on it. It is very annoying that the NDDC gives jobs, people collect monies and they do nothing.”

The EFCC chairman said the new N24billion office complex will be inaugurated on Tuesday by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Magu said the cost of the 10-storey complex was not too much as being alleged.

He said: “How can N24bn be too much for this building? That is not fair. We were able to even do it at that cost because we procured most of the equipment. If you bring any valuer here, they will value the property at no less than N100billion.



“This shows prudence and transparency in the transaction. At that price! Go and see the transformers, the water filter and even the main building. How can it be too expensive?

“Somebody can even claim to have collected N24bn for constructing our clinic alone. It happens. They will collect that money and this place would be the same.”

When asked how he was able to finally complete the project after nearly 10 years, Magu attributed the feat to hard work and prudence.

“As long as you give them (contractors) money, they will work. I told them I wanted honest work and I gave them all the money. I warned all of them against sharp practices. I can tell you that before you can get a property like this, people will ask you five times the current price.

“If you like you can go round the whole of this country. You cannot get this kind of property with the equipment worth N24bn. No. You can go and bring valuers and ask them to value it.”

mynd44

https://www.theafricanprogressiveeconomist.com/transparency-internationals-corruption-ranking-of-nigeria-faulty-magu/femi-ojo/

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The president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has reassured Nigerians the reasons he is into politics and why he recently declared his intention to re-run.

President Buhari said that he was in politics to make a difference in the lives of Nigerians.

He made this statement during the Ward Congresses of the ruling party – All Progressives Congress (APC) – is in his native Katsina State where he participated in the process in his village of Daura.



He stated: “I am not in politics for fun, frivolity or to amass wealth. I have always been driven by a deep sense of commitment to make a difference to the lives of our people.”

“And my decision to seek a second term in office is informed by this passion to truly serve Nigeria and Nigerians,” he tweeted.




He said the Ward Congresses were also a reminder that politics should be driven, not by selfish ambition, but by a desire to serve the people and improve their lives.


https://www.theafricanprogressiveeconomist.com/2019-election-i-am-not-in-politics-to-amass-wealth-buhari/news-desk/

The Islamist Ennahda party of Tunisia has claimed victory in the country’s first municipal elections since the 2011 uprising which sparked the so called Arab Spring.


Exit polls show that its secularist rival, Nidaa Tounis, is 5% behind. Both parties make up Tunisia’s ruling coalition. The Tunisian prime minister, Youssef Chahed, described the poll as an important step that would complete the move towards democracy.



Turnout stands at just under 34%.



Commentators say voters are disillusioned with a lack of economic progress. Tunisia currently has an inflation rate of around 8% and unemployment stands at more than 15%. The government’s new austerity budget was met with a wave of protests earlier this year.



https://www.theafricanprogressiveeconomist.com/tunisia-islamist-party-claims-election-victory/news-desk/