Two different personalities in two different places but connected by one denominator: Power! Willie Obiano, the recently re-elected Governor of Anambra State, one of Nigeria’s most enigmatic states. In far-away Zimbabwe unfolds the story of one of Africa’s most enigmatic leaders, Robert Mugabe, who was compelled by a torrential force of popular revolt to resign. Two disparate incidents from which we can deconstruct the mind of African leaders, good or bad.
Both incidents happened at a time another great African mind, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, dissected, most eloquently, everything that is wrong with leadership in Africa at the Realnews magazine 5th anniversary lecture. Her disquisition on the anatomy and prognosis of African leadership deserves further inquisition but that is for another day.
Here, we’ll focus on Obiano’s victory and Mugabe’s forced resignation as contextual specimens to weigh up the leadership puzzle in Africa. Without a doubt, and this is backed by existential evidence across the continent, power is the opium of the African leader. Whether it is leadership in the often quiet but fuzzy private sector or the boisterous and swashbuckling political space, the African leader at any level is a victim of the addictive influence of power. Power turns the mind of the African leader, spins his head, bends his mind and at the end remodels an otherwise good guy into a Frankenstein monster.
Just what would a man be doing on the seat as president of a nation for 37 years? Within the period, he had caused the constitution to undergo several spasms of metamorphosis just to allow him grab the longer end of the lever of power. Mugabe started well and was the best choice to lead a nation he rallied his troop of feisty revolutionary fighters to win her independence. But like most African leaders, he crossed the redline, morphing from a hero to a villain under the stupefying effect of the opium called power. Power is a mind-bender just like opium, cocaine, morphine or any of the addictive stuffs. Mugabe could not resist it. He submitted to the mistress of power in much the same way he submitted to a mistress who became his missus, even Grace.
In 37 years, Mugabe led, ruled and ruined. He led a once vibrant economy with strong agriculture export; then he transformed from a leader to a ruler and brought the economy of his country to soggy ruins. He printed banknotes at his own warped whims; he transited from a man in power to a man with power. In fact, he became power itself, a principality; a potentate. Like a sheep in a salt market, Africa’s most educated head of government (Mugabe has seven academic degrees and 11 honorary degrees though three were revoked) lost his soul, lost his rationality and became, in a weird sense, a burden to a people he was supposed to lighten their burden. The revolutionary became a reproach. The same man who enjoyed grace in the beginning became a victim of Grace at the end.
As they scurry out of Government House without the appurtenances of power and officialdom, Grace Mugabe, the woman who caused a cessation of grace in the life of Mugabe, must ponder her inglorious and manipulative role in the latter years of Papa Mugabe. She and her husband must appease their souls by reaching out to other sit-tight African leaders to convince them to re-consider their stance. Mugabe as the forerunner of Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (President since 1986), Paul Kagame of Rwanda (since 2000), Idriss Deby of Chad (since 1990), Paul Biya of Cameroon (President since 1982) among others would do well to reach out, privately or publicly, to these sit-tight African leaders and counsel them on the danger and delusion of abuse of power.
But no matter, Mugabe leaves office as the poster child of everything wrong with the African leader: megalomaniacal, despotic, corrupt, intemperate and above the law. This is an epaulet he would not like to wear.
While the Mugabe soap opera evolved through the streets of Harare, a more edifying story was scripted in our backyard, in Anambra State where good triumphed over bad. Obiano won an election that would see him maintain his tenancy of Anambra Government House in Awka. He won by a landslide. His vote tally was superior to the aggregate votes garnered by the garrison of opposition parties that squared up for the polls. He won in an election that was devoid of blood-letting; shorn of vicious violence, the type that hallmarked elections in the country in the past.
The Anambra election evidenced a saner side of the Nigerian election coin. It showed we can conduct credible election; that both the umpire and the electorate can apply themselves to the fundamentals of good conduct; that the nation’s security apparatchik can discharge their duty professionally without dancing to the conga beats from the Presidency or any power bloc.
Anambra election more than anything else indexed the fact that good governance can triumph over politics at the polls. If politics was to win, Obiano would have lost woefully. He did not play his politics well largely because he is not your typical lecherous, late-night keeping Nigerian politician. A private sector boardroom technocrat shooed into politics, it showed in his conduct. During the electoral debate, he was not fantastic but he was realistic. He committed many forced errors that could have de-marketed him but you could see through him and discern his sincerity. While some of the debaters demonstrated language sophistry, elocution, on-stage comportment and Victorian panache, Obiano evinced Oriental realism complete with home-grown brogue. He won hearts, others won heads and it showed at the polls where he trounced all.
The greatest credit should go to the electorate. Anambra voters showed that when the chips are down, all that counts and should count is good governance. They did not allow the threat from IPOB or the schizophrenic build up to the election to get in their way. Those who wished to vote came out in their thousands to exercise their franchise in the most orderly and peaceful manner. A good template going forward but INEC must revisit the issue of dysfunctional card readers. We have walked this path before and it must not continue to define our election. Elsewhere, card readers are used maximally in elections and other critical national data-gathering exercises and they work.. Nigeria must not be an exception. Now that the law has given teeth to electronic voting exemplified by the use of direct data capture machines to register voters and card readers to verify the registered voters, we cannot continue to make light of the effectiveness of these machines. INEC must strive to get it right before 2019 elections.
While Mugabe tars the African leader in a dirty veneer, Obiano paints the African leader in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours. His victory was the triumph of good governance over prickly politics, a sign that Nigerian democracy is getting better with age. Anambra event shows that out of our murky electoral process, good can come.
Aside the provision of infrastructure, one area that has stood Obiano out is the restoration of security and sanity in Onitsha. As he prepares for a second term in office, he must not take his eyes off the ball, meaning he must commit to good governance not politics.