Frederic Kwesi Great Agboletey

Sweden.

 

Ideal Leadership

Contemplations on How Developing World Governments Can Generate National Growth and Increase Fiduciary Integrity in Nation Resource Management by Proactive Infrastructure Development – Well it ended up being a sharp take down on the leadership role position occupants in developing African Nations. Justified Anger if you ask me-

 

Introduction

The nations which show the greatest energy, invention, resource, and patience, have won the great economic prizes, and we Americans have settled and developed our splendid country by virtue of these qualities. Who then is to judge what portion of gain is to come to the pioneers, and how did these judges learn their chosen high task, namely, to judge rightly?—for judgment is a great gift, which results from much knowledge, reflection, and high conduct.–

by Henry Lee Higginson 1900.

 

The developing nations face the daunting task of developing their infrastructure base to provide the adequate basis upon which national growth and development can be sustainably evolved; at the same time they are faced with dire lack of resources to implement the needed infrastructure development projects. The lack it would seem is not per se in the materials for infrastructure but a general lack of will for extending the boundaries of the accepted norm. This overly desire on the part of national leadership to occupy zones of comfort while slowly working out what next in a social setting where so much needs to be done has become a detractor to individual life goal aspiration approximation and a threat to nation stability and progressive development.

 

These nation’s also, for some hard to configure reason have a tendency towards taxation policy development and implementation that has a too narrow base for effective tax accumulation owing to the general low level development of organised employment.

 

The question posed by this article is how these seeming system deficits be re-configured to become advantages as these nations re-poise themselves to take advantage of the existing knowledge base attained by humanity and propel their socio-economic system to the level commensurate with the collective attained knowledge state of the human specie.

 

First, however some basic questions need to be posed. What is the state of development desired by most nations, irrespective of categorisation of attained states of development or failure to develop thereof?

 

The answer, simply put, is that level of development that gives each individual life dignity of material existence. Dignity defined within the physical constructs of knowledge attained possibilities in any era of human history. In which sense this era provides ample evidence that much remains to be done to upgrade the quality of existence for the majority in the developing nations of Africa.

 

The Party versus Nation Growth

Democracy, especially youthful democracy is a fierce struggle to harness resources to maintain positional stance as a ruling party, while attempting to accomplish some meaningful goals for the nation. The two activities are often combined where development goals are touted to project the ruling party, on the other hand is the compromise that exacting efforts to maintain one stance undermines the honesty and dedicated calling of the sacrificial job of leading a nation.

 

Some suggest that a strong leader ruling with a “solid” development agenda, executed within a stable leadership framework within which progress can be attained in developing nations, especially in Africa.

 

Others having seen the effect of that form of delusion and its excesses of abuse of power repudiate the aforementioned dedicated leadership argument, extolling accountable leadership judged through the ballot box. Whatever the position favoured one thing is accepted all round.

 

Political leadership in the developing nation’s must shift focus from “less system constructive” activities of political ball man ship of lobbying for position and individual end aspirations and become nation development goal-centred through actual project implementation activities, where verifiable end states are materially evident. It is within this construct that some do advocate less emphasis on “politics of affliction” to greater orientation towards nation building with a strong leader freed of the worry of lobbying for positional relevance through cultivation of favour to maintain political stability through activities that, in effect, by focussing on the individual at the expense of the “social whole” undermine nation building efforts.

 

The evidence in validating this latter form of thinking, in practice, as in the case of Cote D*Ivoire, Libya and Togo as against immature democracies and poorly grounded social systems with erratic changing leadership and idea shifts is unambiguously justifiable.

 

Dr. Sam Vaknin notes in an article on leadership that: -

To be acceptable, life must be honourable. To be honourable, certain conditions (commonly known as "rights") must be fulfilled and upheld. No life is deemed honourable in the absence of food and shelter (property rights), personal autonomy (safeguarded by codified freedoms), personal safety, respect (human rights), and a modicum of influence upon one's future (civil rights). In the absence of even one of these elements, people tend to gradually become convinced that their lives are not worth living. They become mutinous and try to restore the "honourable equilibrium". They seek food and shelter by inventing new technologies and by implementing them in a bid to control nature and other, human, factors. They rebel against any massive breach of their freedoms. People seek safety: they legislate and create law enforcement agencies and form armies. Above all, people are concerned with maintaining their dignity and an influence over their terms of existence, present and future. The two may be linked : the more a person influences his environment and moulds – the more respected he is by others. Leaders are perceived to be possessed of qualities conducive to the success of such efforts. The leader seems to be emitting a signal that tells his followers: I can increase your chances to win the constant war that you are waging to find food and shelter, to be respected, to enhance your personal autonomy and security, and o have a say about your future.

 

The interesting point of this observation is that irrespective of the form of political system a developing nation system has, it must meet basic obligations to its populace, in the absence of which social turmoil is inevitable as the populace lose confidence in their leader’s capabilities to adequately meet their social obligations to the society over which they have assumed leadership role position responsibility.

 

Thus, it can be construed that, inasmuch as democratic political systems of orderly change of leadership have vaunted values, its plausibility pale before the fundamental leadership requirement to create the basis for growth supportive social system evolution and emergence through appropriate policy measures and implementation procedures that meets the aspirations for meaningful existence of those over whom leadership is exercised. There cannot be any assumption of growth when there is all round retrogression in Africa as the rest of humanity takes advantage of its collective knowledge to improve upon their physical state of earthly existence.

 

To wit, one steady and good leader achieving the social and developmental aspirations of a social system is of equal worthiness to several stable and well organised leadership changes, each of which leaders follows a well laid-out national development plan adjusted to reflect changing system values without necessarily advocating dictatorship over democracy.

 

What is implied here is that any grouping of nation systems must have well elaborated programs that leaders supervise, the accomplishment of objectives within which development program is what a leader’s degree of effectiveness or outright failure is measured against.

 

Development programs have always existed but they have not actually served as a non-arbitrary report card for independent judgement of a leader’s accomplishment in office according to some well calibrated measure of comparison. Thus, leaders are evaluated against non-validated achievements. There is a need for a measure that is independent of any manipulation, which specifies to all and sundry that this is what the nation’s development plan is and this is how much has been done under a particular leadership in the four years in office and this document must be available to each and every citizen.

 

Leaders by default assume transferred responsibility for managing the collective wealth allowing those over whom leadership is exercised to configure their practical participatory role as active contributors to social development of their communities to narrowly defined activity schemes enabled within a well ordered social arrangement. Ordered social arrangement, feasible only under disciplined and accountable leadership enables effective organisation around collective responsibility towards the social well-being, distributing specified and limited, manageable task to each constituent for the collective well-being.

 

Fraying Edges and Needle Points

Ordered societies by pooling their collective capabilities under organised responsibility of mutually engaging ends, derive greater value for the society as a whole and each individual constituent of that society. Under unstable and disordered social organisation consequent on poor leadership, the individual constituency lose trust in society and its unpredictability and tend to take upon themselves too much responsibility to safeguard their existence, responsibilities that under social stability would have been shared among the collective with benefits accruing all-round.

 

A failing leader causes citizens to widen their scope of social engagement to fill in where poor social organisation on a wider social scale causes closely integrated dependency roles to breakdown thus weakening the social framework of role interconnectivity that yield higher social stability and aggregated developmental focus.

 

While a leader may reflect the society from which he or she emerges, leadership in general is based on an assumption of forward thinking that in its action consequence should project the populace to vaunted heights of social growth and altogether improved quality of life for the populace.

 

Thus, the individual leader bears a responsibility for social progress configured from a perspective not yet evident within the governed, (much as it can be configured within the general aspiration of improving upon attained states of development) that consequently in being defined and implemented gives a developmental expression of the society.

 

 A leader in effect defines the society by idea generation and action implementation congruent on those ideas. While the populace seeks to establish within appropriately configured settings evolved under those leadership configurations of appropriateness the fulfilment of simple aspirations leading to worthy existence and high control over the fundamentals of human existence around which survival, social stability and progress are achievable. Under the desired “good leadership” that promotes the predictable attainment of these individual aspirations is human social viability and creative development anchored.

 

A leader whether good or bad, embody the hopes; expressed and unexpressed of their societies. The good leader provides the social  medium within which the positive aspirations of the society find realisation. Bad leaders are criminal elements who misuse the collective trust and national resource to undermine the social stability of the societies over which they assume leadership roles.

 

Forward thinking leaders are not only in perfect resonance with their societies but are capable of harnessing the idea generational capacities of equally progressive thinking elements of the societies they govern to create societies that in construct reality supersede the individual aspiration or assumption of possible states of attainment. The issues as to whether such leadership quality is expressed within democracies or dictatorship (without, the negative connotations, were that possible) is inconsequential to the achievements of the leader.

 

The need for diversity is fundamental to social behaviour, sometimes, even where a change does not improve existing states; it enables a different framework for society to reconsider its existing states and may give added value to a former state that by comparison is better than a newly ushered-in arrangement as governments change. If that assumption is a fact then the good or effective leader must open itself to ideas and suggestions in an open, all-embracing effective interaction format for improving its own visions, from an altogether wider perspective that may spice a set of worthy visions conceived from a narrowly defined perspective.

 

While espoused social orientations of the society under consideration in terms of establishing appropriate social decorum for change of leadership to ensure social stability more than any other consideration determines the political system. The outcome of its actions may not necessarily reflect a any conceived sense of objectivity other than society’s whims. That consideration, even when fulfilled to the highest expectation of fairness does not guarantee the actual substance of leadership quality which is what matters most.  ( A hundred Idi Amins elected under the most trustworthy electioneering mechanism of democracy will not draw a scratch on one Houphouet Boigny; and that is leadership substance over leadership process; the argument can be extended in any conceivable direction ad nauseam). A consideration that has little to do with whether what the leader does in terms of accomplishment during tenure is an incomplete conjecture on social stability.  That conjecture must extended to ensure that all hindrances to idealistic leadership are instituted such that good leadership emerges without any mediator determinant.

 

If a democratic leadership shifts focuses leadership action far too excessively towards political lobbying to curry favour as means of safeguarding the next election victory as against focusing on nation development, appropriate adjustments must be made to remove the inadequacies in democratic leadership change process to enable the national development agenda to be systematically realised without undue preference given to activity forms of leadership preoccupation that undermine its social relevance through lapses in implementation performances expected of the government and exacting social costs due to lapse to correct deficits of borrowed social organisation artefacts of foreign cultures (that last bit requires further explanation. What is meant basically is that there is a loose assumption often brought into administering nations, that there is a certain perfect way of doing things that can be copied from “developed nations” for direct implementation and that assumption has implications worse than a loose cannon in a rampaging field of wild buffaloes.)

 

The Criteria of Work Quality

Leaders must be judged in terms of what they have attained in verifiable accomplishments during tenure and society must generate the appropriate measure for making such leadership assessments. It only under those circumstances of verifiable truth within the social medium of how close each individual in the society, in real terms see the leader as enabling them approximate their aspirations facilitated under the provision of the appropriate social and infrastructure construct that a leader should be acknowledged as worthy of being a part of that society.

 

Leadership that mismanages society’s collective resource and become obstacles of hindrance to the development of their society are criminals of the highest order, given that their deliberate acts have unavoidably caused betrayal that inflicts long term damage in the lives of those who have put their trust in such leaders.

 

Before any society can judge a leader it must specify clear goals in the absence of whose concrete realisation a failed leader must be judged with harshest of social punishment. The leader who has betrayed his or her responsibility by failing to deliver without adequate basis for social acceptance of circumstantial failure ought to be condemned as a social outcast; publicly. An action that will make any one think carefully before assuming the great social sacrifice of bearing upon self the weighty responsibilities of millions of mostly unthankful populace.

 

The world, is intellectually developing to acknowledge and accept the commonality underlying its diverse expression as a specie collective in diverse, colourful, expression.

 

That being the case, the world is more accommodating in all its greed and materialistic orientation to accommodate differences and given the opportunity by discerning leaders to expand their scope of attainment to any social setting irrespective of geographic location and colour and culture of its populace, so long as their exists in those settings the socio-economic-political structures, stable enough for them to expand the scope of their activities to an appreciative audience.

 

Every effort of creativity blossoms with widening scope of influence and numbers impacted, this is a pride of attainment that meshes with the purely economic rationalizations of making profit. Any profit is better than no profit. That being the case given the appropriate incentives, free hand, encouragement, the industrialists of the Western and Eastern world will with glee transform the developmental deserts of Africa into thriving landscapes of economic viability.

 

That there has not been much interest in these potential markets is not due to poor leaders in Africa, arrogant in their backward claim to some inconsequential identity of nationhood, managing poorly developed economic systems faltering and sputtering in the inadequacies of immaturity due to cutting the umbilical cords of colonial dependency before they had gained the appropriate level of civility. (Some are of the opinion that on the contrary, sustained colonial dependency would have further undermined the collective confidence of the already severely eroded confidence of a continent depleted by 600 centuries of slavery.)

 

The reason why there is under-development when the ease of the opposite, is easily attained, given the attained knowledge base of humanity as a whole is more construed in terms of leadership incapacitation to convince investors of the long term prospects of developing sustainable economic systems in virgin territories with unimaginable potentials. Worse still is the inability of the leaders to invest to the appropriate level for system re-orientation. Government development projects and establishment of industries is what this self investment implies.  It is an inadequacy rooted in leadership self-incapacitation due to inadequacies in idea generation to create the stable basis by evolving monetary resources to turn a generally de-monetised populace into credible consumers. There is a two stage social development process being implied which will be developed further. However, a thriving economy depends on ready consumers; ready consumers come from a working population. There is a disparity of non-availability at the critical mass level required in most developing nation economies, between these two states for viable dynamic economies that can adequately take advantage of external investment in a local economy. This is where leadership failure leads to severe shortcomings that undermine efforts at nation system improvement due to the general inability of a large proportion of the population to find economic solace due to the gap between state industrialisation’s work creation efforts effects and economic enablement at the individual level. (As will be elaborated in ue course, there is no conflict of interest between aggressive government industrialisation and encouraging private sector investment).

 

Development is not mediated on the limited quantity of plastic that existing knowledge base can produce to support global population, it is more or less  a general accepted inadequacy consequent on idea stunted leaders, who foister their inadequacy on their pliant and ignorant populace. Harsh and judgemental as it may sound, a society’s progress is inseparable from visionary leadership. That is where social progress and development starts and ends, once a great idealist emerges of the calibre of Mahatir Mohamed of Malaysia, who between 1981 and 2002 created a truly rags to riches story of nation development (albeit with a little push from petro-dollars; irrespective of the petro-dollar factor, one wonders, can the Nigerian leadership say the same for the same period of time; Libya certainly can, so can the Saudis and Kuwaitis, well Zimbabwe has no oil, Angola has and has no mouth to say anything. I rest my case).

 

Fit to Measure

Good ideas must be adapted to fit unique social settings to yield optimum value to borrowers of seemingly good ideas.

 

For every rapacious industrialist and manufacturer who would not take into consideration the larger picture of the human factor in any business endeavour, (quaint but often overlooked aspects of human behaviour such as the predictability of human preference often leads to situations where a person having once acquired the taste for a product would continue buying that product ad-infinitum till adequate reason has been justified to change to another product), focusing only on the immediate profit motive, there are ten others who would want to capture a market niche while relatively exploited and cultivate it.

 

Not to mention that most of the accomplished men heading the industries of industrialised nations of developmental relevance to the under-developed are or were once idealistic young men who still believe in God, man and money, not necessarily in that order (should be though), thus are they open to be convinced to invest where there is a real need for their industrial might to make decent profit and to serve the interest of the human specie. Not to mention the likely tendency of such mega egos of bending to the “sweet talk” of carving out virgin economic kingdom in the world’s last unconquered investable territories, where the people are still pliable, not having acquired that sharp edged disdain of un appreciation that defines the sour humour of their specie counterparts in the developed nation system.

 

Flex

Adaptation is a process under review in implementation and a good adaptation inevitable wears out its relevance as a solution format in the dynamism of social reality and must be readjusted or changed to fit the new social emergence. Africa in that sense needs a new crop of idealistic leaders (of the ilk of Houphouet Boigny) who can convince investors to invest in humanity, carving out economic empires established on intelligence where the existing superficiality of poverty can be converted into unimaginable wealth generation potentials.

 

Such leaders need to be pliable in adapting to be reflexively creative and agilely responsive to the defining characteristics of emergent states, while maintaining a stable social medium within which action format take its point of departure.

 

One needs not be excessively harsh with leaders who have failed or seem incapable of anything other than sealing Swiss bank transactions from money that belongs to the nation. The fault, dear reader, is in the cheese and wine and not the rodent. These poachers of the communal fund are hopelessly entangled in a mass mess of large scale human and resource management inadequacy, the complexity of which failure in making its impression, presents such a frightening face that the poor, hapless things are totally thrown off their centres of defining reality; “off their kilter”, a Scot would say. They undergo a severe psychotic withdrawal from the serious business of  nation management and allow themselves to slip into dire moral collapse, a mental phase shift bordering on dementia (since, once the hands are dipped into illegal looting, change is impossible. Come to think of it, who in their right senses is going to confess in public of dispensing through unapproved ways, the communal fund?) presaging grand moral decay leading to “nation-denial” and self centeredness. “L’etat är moi” is quoted out of context often in these contexts and applied grotesquely within a self-fitting definition. Well, don’t blame it on Napoleon, he occupies a place of honour at a major intersection of passage in Paris. The other “fellas” who make this statement, often, sad to say in the African context, are often out of their league, attempting the rather delicate task of nation management through ad hoc procedures of militant proclamation. When the play is over, such “fellas” are often denied a narrow burial plot by an irate nation (To think that someone should suggest that society should scorn failed leaders by making social outcasts of the social misfits!) One can joke about such issues but many lives are wasted due to leadership lapse and incapability to be open to participative government.

 

What Adaptations Need Be Made?

While leaders are chosen (or choose themselves) to assume leadership roles based on some expressed ability to deal with the unique demands of the role for which they are vying, which in being given public expression finds social resonance with elements of the society under consideration. -And in finding resonance with the public become the basis for their being elected to assume honourable office. Under normal circumstances, ability to resolve the problems pertaining to the role position under consideration normally precede the election or is the basis upon which the electorate decide to give a leader the opportunity to be chosen to assume the leadership role. That being the expected, however, in more than a few cases, some leaders put the cart before the horse and attempt to palliate an anxious public by excusing their usurpation of power.

 

Irrespective of the basis upon which preference is engendered within the populace for electing a particular person into leadership role position, be it tribal, religious affiliation, social class or any other consideration. A leader’s social relevance is mediated upon that leader’s ability to employ the society’s resources to meet the developmental needs of the populace. The more the leader is able to engage the social, economic and political resources to approximate the developmental needs of the governed, the more that individual assumes a role-set that leads to the meeting of the common aspirations of the society or nation, the greater the interests of the individual and the society under consideration aggregate agreeably.

 

Of course, one could suggest -in which case one is being careful and easily excusing self, if that argument doesn’t ring true with the reading public- that individuals assume leadership role position and in the course of tenure ship prove or disprove their leadership capacities. Stretching that argument, a person who sits in the rather large chair of leadership, starts out as being self-nominated, nominated by a clique of (dubious?) colleagues, elected by probably intelligent or gullible public, as the case may be; and having assume office as an elected party head, such a person has to prove their leadership merit in the cockpit of the limelight of journalists; writers of the living history of any society.

 

No point differentiating between “the men” and “the boys” in this instance, once there you are running with the big boys, size is a given, taken for granted; one either fails and fades into ignominious disgrace, shrivelled and wrinkled under the load of public disapproval or one becomes a legend, celebrated and toasted by foe, friend and fiend alike. I wouldn’t say luck has anything to with it. Leader’s irrespective of which social grouping over which they have been honoured to administer immediately assume a position above the norm and exercise a determining influence the impact of which they must not underestimate; not in the least. More so, when it is a nation that is under consideration.

 

Thus, one who assumes leadership role with the least desirable social identity determining preference (how such a person wins an election under democratic system of one vote per person, remains hard to say, but stranger things have happened under elections) may in the end be of greater social relevance if their practical achievements push that society developmentally far beyond the level at which he or she assumes positional responsibility.

 

Idea Patterning

A leader is not supposed to, neither is it possible for a leader to be capable of generating all the ideas upon which reality is reconfigured to yield greater values than presently existing in any society. The ability to re-conceive the nation from a new perspective both in terms of available resource employment and extensions of added value to already processed natural resources complemented by the evolving intellectual capacity of the nation’s human resource is the basis of effective idea generation upon which a society’s progress is negotiated. Openness to receive idea input is the basic ingredient of outstanding leadership. This allows the whole society potentially to generate all the ideas as to how to project the society to a desired level. This aside, society requires of those aspiring for leadership roles to detail how they intend to employ the resources of their society for the common (mark my words, not “sectional, idiosyncratic interests) benefit.

 

Ideas harnessed for effective implementation is the driving mechanism of an effective government when those ideas are centred on promoting the progressive development of the nation. Combining as it were all the resources that a society can strategically develop to meet certain end states upon which development and social growth is anchored is about all that a good leader has to be capable of. That fundamental task agenda of leadership requires the ability to create a political milieu that encourages the accessing of the unfathomable idea generation resource cellar available among humans in any society.

 

A capable leader will try any of a variety of means to attract worthy idea sources rather than “closing-in” itself as though it were a bunch of crooks gambling in dark cellars off the beaten track, creating an illicit a domain frequented by a select group of favoured associates. Secretiveness rather than openness creates basis for suspicion, as to what there is to hide. Given that government and its leadership exists to manage the affairs the affairs of the nation to the interest of the people, one would expect that there would be easy access to leaders by concerned citizens and journalists to question leadership action and to be given insight into its actions on a regular basis. Failure to enable ease of access to the leadership machinery is the way to raising society’s eyebrow, given that society, especially societies where the majority are in dire straits are prone to easy suspicion, looking up with avidity at the men and women set to improve their status. (and often failing woefully to do just that). It would be a fatal error for any leader under the circumstances to run government as a secret society where its top leaderships are so far removed from the public that its true actions have to be guessed. The best acts of capable leaders are conducted in open environment for supportive adjudication by an appreciative audience.

 

Open idea resourcing must be cultivated and adequate avenues provided for idea emergence for idea relevance consideration and implementation assessment. While even a gullible public will appreciate the severe limitations of the limited resources with which developing nation governments attempt to improve the general welfare of their populace, such populace will not have any compassion for devious and shadowy moves with little light thrown on the nature of government actions. It is often these lapse in openness rather than overall leadership inadequacy that have spelled political chaos. It is not so much about dictatorship as to it being about what a person occupying responsible position is up to. The people want to know! They want to know what’s up with the occupant of their high office of responsibility.

 

A leader with nothing to hide will have no “aggressive reaction” (not to be read “quote and unquote” with that crooked finger hooked in obvious irritation of overemphasis) when faced with tough grilling on the weekly TV question time with the public. There is nothing wrong with saying “we have no immediate solution to that problem, but we are open to suggestions for effective remedies from the public, after all we are here to promote the interest of the public.” Indeed a discerning public will appreciate such a response from a responsible leadership.

 

However, there is everything wrong treating the office of national leadership as the theatre of display of parochial tyranny. - A phenomenon not altogether uncommon in the tropical heat of barmy politics- A word of advice is not out of place for the leader who is all wrapped in the self importance of being “the president”, “chairman”, “chairwoman” (nobody is to assume that the women leaders will be any different, let the evidence speak for itself, come the time)– Don’t even think of acknowledging that dubious euphuisms “Chief”, which the average “Joe” will with great respect accord a higher official, with just that suggestion of head movement tending towards a respectable bow. More so, must you resolutely refuse to acknowledge such acknowledgements if your leadership accomplishments are leaning towards ignominy. (For all you know they may not actually be mocking you, however given the deep local orientation for proverb and multi-layered speeches, they just might be saying something else altogether. Hope the Brothers in Nigeria have their ears tuned in this direction).

 

Clandestine leadership orientation tends to breed … (its an open field here readers, vent your spleen with glee. Not forgetting, that old adage of authorised source “He who has no sin cast ye the first stone. – Talking about stone casting, has the other “holy book” not gleaned this Abrahamic insight into the moral justification for “self righteous” stoning of women? – Now, let’s keep this one in the family, I am not a journalist and this has nothing to do with parading women in swimsuits, don’t approve of it myself).

 

While we are on religion, the consequences of bad leadership decision as evidenced in the story of Joshua, Caleb and the spies sent to check out the land of Canaan is a profound rendition of how weak and unfaithful representatives sow the seeds of discord and fear and plunge their people into “forty years of wondering in the desert”. By their ineptitude, expressed in their distrust and simple lack of reporting according to the laid down procedure. They became emotionally engaged in their assigned duty performance, reporting their fear and weakness rather than stating the facts by objective rendition. A people ready with expectation of making entry into the Promised Land instead were by the acts of poor leadership responsibility of the representatives sent forth by Moses to scout the land sent back into  years of wandering the desert.

 

This is a great lesson of the weighty responsibility of leadership. A leader’s choice of action has consequences over, above and beyond what any determined individual in any society is capable of self-determining.  An aside, if permitted . . . I don’t think the restless new generation in Africa will stomach any dalliance over affirmative decision making to upgrade the standard of government implementation. I shudder to think what that implies. Images of khaki, safari khaki, favoured by British trained colonels of yesteryear seem to be merging with retro Che Guevara bravado and bushy beard.

 

Can’t help myself, that sermon has to come clean through, with all its symbiotic relevance for the issue at stake. The people regretted and wept bitterly, but their leaders had committed them to a path from which there was no easy backtracking. So, just as the poor choices made by pepper chewing militant revolutionary leaders, with more zest than spice, spouting decrees like a forest fire racing through the under brushes has created long lasting chaos for Africa, albeit nowhere near forty years of wandering in the desert. The consequence of which actions the people are temporarily condemned to pay the price of the leaders who have long become ashes and dust on the heaps of history’s rubbish dump, their bones nary worthy of display in non-existing museums (bad taste for display of inefficiency, if you ask me).

 

The hope here, mark the word hope, (the folks have a wallop of faith down there in Africa) will be that the nations will recover and begin to make desired progress under the right leadership decisions. The catch here is the developing world’s undying reverence for “grey hairs”. The “grey hairs” who sit in leadership positions must begin to disengage their thought patterns from the old ways that never yielded the desired returns on the hope nurtured by the people. These hopes whether expressed within a nation or any other social grouping is the expectations when met by good leadership motives and governing strategies are likely to buoy a nation on sea of achievements that change the course of a people.

 

Neat and Rounded Stitches

“I refuse to accept the idea that the 'is-ness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the 'ought-ness' that forever confronts him." - Martin Luther King Junior (1929-1968). (Taken from Nando Media Website).

 

(Thin’ ‘bout bro. Marteen i that, he ain’t waitin for no man to come right things, nope, ain’t no slavemasta’ gonna lift ‘em hands to lif up no niggah, he jus wen in and did his ting, lo and behol’ he sure gotta lotta a following, e’en fran em Northen whitmen).

 

Poor leadership choices have denied millions upon millions of Africans meaningful life in an era of exploding knowledge waiting to be used to dignify the human state of being. No matter how strong the will of the individual is, for so long as preferred existence is defined within a social construct for realisation, individual actions are determined by the choice that those set in charge of society make. Sad, but true, especially, if a society is burdened with inept leaders. True and appreciated if a nation has great thinkers who glorify God by making use of their intellect to improve on the lot of their people.

 

A nation’s human constituency is it’s most important natural resource base. Being the idea generation component that can devise ingenious ways to add value to existing states through transformation of natural resources to improve the quality of human existence. (At this point there is the need to disabuse the minds of “faulty thinkers” that the concept of developed nation is a badge of superiority; no Sir! It is a systematic social evolution through the application of the collective intellect to improve the quality of human existence. Conceived in this sense; Leaders will have lesser reluctance to improve the quality of education, housing need provisions, creative employment generation as a natural consequence of the progress of social evolution. In which sense, any lack of enthusiasm in projecting the society to a higher level is tantamount to delaying the passage of time. Delaying the passage of time in the sense of refusing to take the steps that provide the appropriate adjustment for the society in question to position itself to cope with the demands of passing time).

 

Since, the developing worlds within a world are wrapped in the filth of poverty, there is the need to emphasise that God despises filthy environments and the Master Architect has enabled a creative intellect so humans can build beautiful societies. Not the beauty contest type of beauty, just pleasant settings that honour the Creator who has given the created, creative intellect.

 

Just as a nation must invest in infrastructure development to complement its development aspirations likewise it must also invest in developing its human resources potential to enhance their capacity for improving through creative effort the society in which they live. This requires initial investment in education and organised training of labour at a level beyond what presently is facilitated in some developing nations and implies the generation of input resources and input cost supportive structures to facilitate these human developmental efforts, which may be beyond the individual capacity to provide.

 

Developing intelligence as a nation’s resource has the obvious capacity to pay-off in the  long run. If a nation creates supportive social medium within which creativity is encouraged and rewarded, it builds as a consequence a wealth and resource generating capacity by turning latent creative intellect into proactive generator of desirable social upgrading products.

 

Since the knowledge content for facilitating human development finds global expression, it should be an intention to expand knowledge cultivation from a distinctly local need perspective and a wider global perspective. The global perspective is not only learning about foreign culture and input but engaging educators from abroad who are interested in promoting the cause of humans in a more involved manner than presently facilitated.

 

(Which is not to say that cassava cultivation should be de-emphasised because one is educated, actually it should be improved to yield higher harvest with lesser input of energy. Well, you say “we know that”, but how come it is not what I see and you see? So you only think you know but in reality you don’t, see? – Of course you can’t see ‘cause you are vision deprived, what with all that cassava flour in sugar solution in secondary school – ).

 

Knowledge itself is a global resource that must be pursued with avidity by the leader on behalf of the people. It is a dynamic resource with almost universal expression that must be sifted for relevant value worthiness, for the people who need to improve their knowledge base. These are the people who seriously need to drink at the fountain of knowledge to slacken their thirst of deprivation which is withi ease of solution if only the mind can be trained to conceive the obvious a little bit different than with the untutored mind.

 

(Well, if you knew Kellogs – it’s not generic, it’s a brand name– was just toasted corn you may have cut back on all that garri and spared yourself those heavy eye glasses). 

 

The point being made here, simply is that, not all nations need a space program, its quite alright to play catch up or borrow from your neighbour with a little payment to compliment their efforts in opening the portals that you as a people dared not to approach or could not find the way to.

 

Leaders on behalf of their nation ought to seek for and encourage the infusion of knowledge from as many diverse sources as possible, and not to be reluctant to seek for external assistance in this regard.

 

Leaders must dare to stretch the barriers of possibilities breaching impossibilities with disdain, since, in the case of the developing nations ample examples exist to learn from and probably, not altogether impossible, progress beyond the existing attained possibilities and be ready to fail rather than succumb to accepting the inadequacies occasioning the accepted way of doing things.

 

The old ways of leading Africa and managing its resources have failed because of their general and particular inadequacies in meeting the present needs of the people. To refuse to cut a wide swath far from the failed ways of doing things is nothing short of myopic conceptualisation of reality. Reality itself as presently perceived is a construct of society.  That construct can be reframed within a different mind set to reflect a more effective approach to nation management.

 

A self-dependent nation system may generate system self-sustenance around a configuration of capability to derive all needs from within, with little or no external dependence. But it is in most instances inadequate in meeting all the needs of the nation. However, if this notion were conceivable or aspired to and the internal working system geared towards excellence of organised existence around highest conceivable and attainable values, then it might be possible that the degree of external dependency is lowered considerably. Lowering external dependency by developing internal self-sufficiency is a means to an end of attaining economic stability protected from the vagaries of foreign exchange contrivances.

 

The Real Revolution

The changes that redirect the path of development of societies are often radical and often those conceived or foisted by circumstances and expressible, beyond the usual way of doings things. These are daring changes meticulously conceived and executed with methodological precision, being focused on well defined expectancies. Expectancies conceived within a realm of practical reality.

 

 

A materialistic orientation tempered by fairness is the hallmark of the true leader of this age. (Not neglecting a well controlled inclination to fit in a few ostentatious projects as goodies for the eye of an admiring public, while lining up the humdrum apartments blocks, an orientation which is not altogether out of place by any consideration – Let’s not start on the Yamoussukro Cathedral because it is a gift to God and not to be copied. -

 

The non-materialistic are a specie set apart from humanity, they make huge dough in Hollywood and practice yoga in their non-materialistic mansions tutored by the great Indian ascetics, garbed only in white linen, undernourished and gaunt from prolonged fasting, leaving in well-heeled pads paid for by the non-materialistic yogic converts.

 

There is no other obvious evidence of leadership failure than when people in a community are denied basic necessities and cannot gain access to those social provisions upon which meaningful existence is defined according to the standards and ethos of the times under consideration.

 

As far as the African scenario is concerned, there are enough resources, all of which have been provided by a graceful, living God, who created these things for humans to use to have meaningful existence at the level of knowledge state attained. What is lacking is the creative adroitness to configure knowledge to turn sand to chips. (Dream on, ol’ buddy).

 

It is not any evidence of development or intellectual growth when greed reigns supreme and a few horde everything and refuse to enable others to have meaningful existence. (You were about to explode “Preach brother, weren’t you? Don’t even think of it!) That is only beastly and vile opportunism. (Let’s not get excited, language, diplomacy is required verbosity of radical wordiness has gotten more than a few well meaning fellas into a rop-a-dub of political survival, more so when such flaming speeches were intoned towards the “Big Boys” of global dominance).

 

The leaders developing Africa needs are those leaders who strip their mentality of any knowledge orientation that attempts to excuse poor collective resource management as inevitable rather they must assume a mental attitude that is problem combative and resolute in its resourcefulness in finding satisfactory solutions to the problems of nation building rather than excusing problems and the lapses in collective social growth untended problems lead to, under the brazen notion that such lack of leadership intellectual agility is inevitable due to under-development. Under-development is the problem and not the end desired. Any leader who attempts to excuse leadership failure on the inevitabilities of being a developing country is more or less admitting a crime against the suffering masses. It is a self-defeatist affirmation of inexcusable refusal to proactively engage latent potentials to change the course of dismal existing states.

 

Under-development is a physical state of social manifestation indicating non-accomplishment  in resource management – whether due to non-availability of knowledge/technology base and when such  intellectual resource base are accessible the unsophisticated deployment of them leads to about the same social manifestation. (Indeed, where raw resources are concerned the natural resource base of many African countries is envy to other societies. Maybe they are just envious, but on the other hand this is where agile diplomacy comes into play; they can be courted to join the party to combine their technological and managerial expertise with the human and material resources of Africa to create new market places and playing grounds).

 

Rich Embroidery

Africa’s under development is a developer’s fantasy dream (bad choice of words ehm? Actually, that’s how attractive it is); a vast landmass where lack of infrastructure (or more appropriately poorly developed infrastructure begging to be rebuilt) makes room for projects to be designed on a scale that the old world cannot accommodate, with the potential for long term earnings stretched over decades if not a century plus.

 

If capitalism continues (and nothing is in site to replace it as yet) to be the preferred form for commercial and industrial investment, then it is only a question of time before astute investors realise that existing Africa’s industrial economic desert affords the opportunity for the emergence of the next generation of Ford, and those other industrial titans who shaped a century appropriately defined as the American century. The advantage of Africa,  that its leaders must exploit is the available consumer base and the natural openness of the culture to absorb significant numbers of immigrants who add to a lively pool of consumers. (Don’t be in a hurry to wish for the next ice age because the African experience abroad may create leaders who may have acquired the art of managing tight borders, hope not. A multi cultural world is a coral sea of intellectual vibrancy).

 

The leaders of any society that has by the dearth of its failure, literally foisted shamefaced envy (glowing a greenish dark, at others hard work, -smugness is out of place, for the developed world cannot altogether claim with a straight face economic unscrupulousness; no double entendres, not any longer) on its wandering people, due to the inadequacies of its leadership strategy, ought not to hang its head in shame, it is shame embodied in failing and failed responsibility and inability to discharge required duty, that must be cast off like dirty clothes. Such a nation and its leaders need to widen the scope of its goals as a nation, set targets within specified time frames taking into consideration its capabilities and  available support and given new awareness of what is possible of being achieved, to systematically accomplish these targets irrespective of the individual in leadership position.

 

Time framed projects must be designed within the feasible capacities of the society for ease of accomplishment. That is to say, it would be better to have ten houses of an estate project completed and occupied rather than to begin a grandiose project of ten thousand houses that is never completed. Successful completion of targets stepwise creates a basis´ for commitment to project realisation and collective enthusiasm than improbabilities that become environmental eye sores.

 

Big dreams of nation building need to be broken down into easily realisable steps accomplished within existing capability of the society while seeking to expand the scope of limited achievements by borrowing copiously from the world. After all reverse engineering may not be morally touted but scientifically it removes the myth of the seemingly complex into a few pieces of metal aligned with creative intuition. (I’m all for respect of laws safeguarding property rights, so don’t begin racking your other brain up. Just citing an example).

 

A leader must not frustrate the public by under-provision of society’s needs by deliberately withholding large scale projects, in the same sense, huge and out of scope projects with no immediate use tend to lock up scarce resources that could very well be employed in the provision of other needs of the society. The leader must seek a balance between forward thinking, idea generation and project implementation to meet both considerations.

 

In the article cited below from a 1900 Atlantic Monthly Journal. The writer depicts in a few brief paragraphs how adventurous, profit driven enthusiasm set industrial America in action:

 

Combination is but one phase of the advance of civilization, and must bring in its train benefits or hardships to some men and jealousy to many men.

 

Following the natural impulse of mankind, there springs up the wish to punish some one, either for losses borne or for riches gained by successful men; and corporations, becoming an entity in the eyes of the world, are attacked; therefore we hear much of past sins and are told that justice must be meted out to these corporations or, preferably, to the wicked corporation managers, for only the managers or officers can be blamed. But corporations are simply bodies of men and women who, busy with their own affairs, combine their capital and intrust to directors or officers the conduct of their business. The shareholders of these corporations have not sinned, yet they must suffer because, as we are told, juries will not punish the officers and, therefore, they punish the corporations. The logic is bad; one cannot punish the son because the father has done wrong.

 

These corporations have wrought great material benefits to every country which has used them, and every country which has not developed the system of corporations has been left far behind in material progress; for as a result of combining capital in corporations there follows work for the willing hungry men and women whose numbers increase fast and who flock to the workshops of these corporations. It would be a problem to feed and clothe this growing multitude of human beings if it were not for the corporations, and the pessimist meets this problem by a prayer for terrible plagues or bloody, useless wars as means for destroying the human race.

 

It is idle to reply that the corporation managers have done their great deeds from selfish motives, for the same is true of every living creature at every hour. We all ask both for enlightened selfishness and for thought and care of others; but, in order to win our bread, we must think and work for ourselves as well as for others. Yet it is true that in no age has organized altruism been so common as to-day, and it is a necessary consequence of good work that it perforce helps others. We are all bound together by the laws of nature, and help each other whether we will or not. The idea that "I can live by myself and need nothing from my fellow-men" is untenable and barbaric.

 

Who have built all the mills, the dams, the railroads, the tramways, the gas and electric works, and who have dug the mines? The corporations, made and managed by enterprising, able, thoughtful, patient men. Have they failed or succeeded? They have done both in many, many cases. Would men undertake such tasks if warned at the outstart that they could reap but a portion of their success, and must bear the whole of their loss or their failure? Surely not. The nations which show the greatest energy, invention, resource, and patience, have won the great economic prizes, and we Americans have settled and developed our splendid country by virtue of these qualities. Who then is to judge what portion of gain is to come to the pioneers, and how did these judges learn their chosen high task, namely, to judge rightly?—for judgment is a great gift, which results from much knowledge, reflection, and high conduct.

 

To every man forty years old, remembering accurately his youth, the developments of the nineteenth century seem incredible. A group of men undertook to build a railroad into the wilderness where no house had ever stood, and settlers followed and built houses, barns, and presently towns and cities. These railroad pioneers struggled, failed, tried again, failed again, but in the mean time the homes for thousands were made. Crops, cattle, horses, schoolhouses, churches, and towns followed, and, lo, a new state was born! If, in the struggle for existence, bargains and railroad rates were made which seemed a hardship to the farmers, is it not fair to ask whence came these iron roadways and how the farmers would have marketed their crops without them? And, moreover, is there a railroad in our broad land that has not been forced to wade through dire distress, if not bankruptcy—bankruptcy often repeated several times?– by Henry Lee Higginson

The Atlantic Monthly | January 1908 – Justice to the Corporations -

 

 

A project must be invested with flexibility to make it adaptive as times change and needs and perceptions of desirability change in the society.

 

Ideas imported from other societies must be adapted for local implementation through integration according to the unique demands of the place of implementation.

 

(Looks like we are re-evoking the phonate heft of the Kommunist Manifesto. Change the heavy tones to light. Maybe a rap version might just make the point. Must a leader. . .?).

What Defines a Leader?

Leaders are a breed apart, the burden of responsibility always scars them with prominent grey hair soon after they assume office. They are overwhelmingly reflective characters, with nerves of steel in which cold, icy blood runs, keeping their overworked hearts from bursting from overheating. No preteens is needed to define the uniqueness of the leader, they exude a commanding presence that cannot be taken for granted. They exalt in the aura of strength that they with artistic glee and careful deliberation and atavistic determination cultivate. They glide with a forceful thread amidst Nubian guards. These guards, who protect the leader with their lives are harsh men who have seen the bitter side of life, a select grouping of the most trust worthiest of souls the earth ever threw forth. Men who despise the bitterness of poverty and joblessness with such avidity, they will give their very lives to safeguard their honour; I mean, their positions of honoured responsibility besides the “great man”.

 

(Let’s get one fact straight, a man – in the true characterisation of the definition of the Ashanti’s, who know a thing or two about bravery and building teams– who having seen the bitter side of life, -seeing the bitter side of life, being a required criteria of selecting the President’s security men-, will not be tempted by vague utterances or a failing societies woe to go against their “man”. So it has been the case that a few men have wondered why it is that when a leader has become total social liability and will be better retired to rest on some far off farm, those close to him or her as they case may be, don’t prod him to early retirement.

 

Contrary to popular opinion (most popular opinions have to be “taken in” with a grain of salt anyway) leaders hardly laugh. The responsibility of higher office hardly allows a man enough room to vent off with a good gut laughter. However, to hide the other face of severe leadership, they plaster a rubbery smile as they work the crowd, hoisting up babies, tickling the odd over enthusiastic weaker sex, and pumping the rough palms of equally grinning men. (Don’t fly off the handle yet, before I got to this one about the weaker sex, I have been fair to the specie great divide). Those of you with over enthusiastic imagination, with too much free time on hand to peruse South American history, don’t go calling forth any severe images of some Inca ruler. The modern leader is a showman of sorts, hardly ever nabbed without their rubbery face, streched taut, east to west in public.

 

On to More Serious Issues

What is required to change the course of existing events on the continent?

 

Let’s start by saying that there is no right or wrong approach, just the approach that delivers the goods of social expectations and restores the pride of the people. That excludes of course the assumption of running a nation like a military boot camp. Reminders of the knee-height, long boot men from the South America strutting their tyranny easily come to mind.

 

The individual of this age under normal circumstances cares very little about government so long as they can have a meaningful life. A life of inexhaustible consumption, buying, buying and buying. Never mind the group being addressed has nothing to buy nothing. -Like all infections, the culture of consumption will make the rounds worldwide, blowing across the wide Atlantic-. Government and the person of the leader comes under close and critical scrutiny when the consequences of their inaction make life bitter for the individual. Contended citizens can decide to or not to vote, the dissatisfied citizen wields the vote in sweet form of revenge or that rare instance as an expression of appreciation for a worthy leader. Which is why election fraud is barely a step removed from declaration of civil war.

 

While a leader who manipulates the election box to weigh unfairly in his favour within the framework of the questionable adoption of the five-year democratic elections may cheat his term is often cut-off after the two terms in a row constitutional limit. Worse still is the dictator who not only sees the government as a village advisory quartet and hunting party, but fails consistently to deliver on just everything to the patiently enduring public.

 

Leaders that societies in Africa desire as the first step to desired changes in nation development are those leaders who are looking for a space to execute their master plan in the sense of seeking to deliver the expected actions of the society and in substantial measures.

 

Then comes the obvious but yet for many incomprehensible question of what is modernity about and what is at stake as far as the developing economies are concerned ?

 

Here is the way Microsoft paints a picture of the nature of interdependency in its Encarta World Atlas, a basic conception that comprehended becomes a basis for redefining international co-operation: -

 

The world contains a multitude of resources and commodities. Some, such as water and vegetables, are essential for human life. Others, such as iron and coal, are particularly useful to human beings. A few resources, including gold and uranium, are more valuable because they are scarce. Others, such as sand or air, are widely available and have a correspondingly low exchange value. The relative value of a commodity is dependent on two factors—how much of it there is and how much it is wanted. Economists call this the law of supply and demand. Commodities are often acquired where they are abundant and cheap and transported to regions where they are scarce and expensive, being exchanged there for valuable goods and services.

 

The human world today can be viewed as a vast network in which people produce, transport, exchange, and consume resources, commodities, and even ideas. While one region produces grain, another produces petroleum, and a third manufactures heavy machinery. Each depends on the products of the other two. Residents of each region seek to maximize the value of their own products and to obtain the products and resources they lack for the lowest possible price. Some regions are extremely active within this world system, maintaining vigorous trading relationships with every region willing to participate. Others are almost isolated from it, engaging in limited trade with only one or two neighbouring regions.

  Complexity and Interdependency Biodiversity:  Since its creation, the world has developed into an increasingly complex system. All the world’s life forms are part of that system, consuming and producing resources in various ways. Humanity is also part of this system, and advancing technology has expanded the role of human activity in the world system. Unlike other inhabitants of the planet, however, humanity has become uniquely aware of its surroundings. As human understanding of the world expands, our ability to observe patterns and trends, and to predict future developments, is enhanced. This knowledge gives us the power to make decisions based not only on our immediate needs, but also on the probable future impact of our actions. In order to improve our ability to make good decisions, it is important for each of us to learn as much as we can about the world and the people with whom we share it.

© 1988-2000 Microsoft and/or its suppliers.  All rights reserved.

 

Modernity in the sense applied to nation development is seeking to improve society to attain its highest level of efficiency in an integrated global network of dependency. The modern society has to maximise its resource use efficiency while improving the overall state of life quality for its human constituents.

 

The idea that a society or any group within any society can see itself as a self-contained isolation in a world so interconnected and interdependent is mere inanity. By understanding the fundamental nature of what drives human intelligence and how idea generation centres and decision makers of the society’s that have something to offer the less intellectually matured, prop up the moral integrity of the choices they make to define their exchange relation with other societies, requires a world view that eschews a threat mentality, simply because other systems have evolved comparatively better states of social organisation and seem to be unwilling to lower the entry of participation in that higher social attainment.

 

It requires a cultivation of a sense of sophisticated diplomacy without an attitude of servitude, projecting an image of dignified poverty, with serious intentions, projected on undeniably honest characters, who represent the nation, for the developing nation to integrate at leadership levels to participate in the modern society that is more or less defined around intellectual development and attained knowledge and its socio-technological artefacts. An image of respect that does not evoke suppressed smirks, but that dazzles with its wisdom. Backed by an inspired conviction of a gritty drive to break the yoke of insufficiency that sells co-operative development as a profitable venture of mutual engagement.

 

It goes beyond desperate demarcations of free trade zones that only in due course irritate the non-benefitting who have to pick the trash of “merry traders” who don’t pay for the feast. It breaks through the meaningless jingoistic arrogance of staunch advocates of specie superiority and inferiority based on disproportionate distribution of collective planetary knowledge based resources. It brings to focus the advantages of collective development with all round benefits rather than pockets of censored relief in a fertility of wasted opportunities. It easily calls to mind the short sighted values belying the plundering of cultural wealth, of artefacts of incredible knowledge that supersede the Spanish doubloons, the blunt edge of materialisms short-sightedness.

 

A bluntness of a civilisation that in evolution and limited understanding, driven by un-tempered fervour to break through the desperate impositions of era defined limitations conceived within the scope of the existing attained knowledge wasted much in gaining much, albeit more than a  fair amount of such plundered wealth were wasted on superior knowledge and daring bravado. – The point simply here being what? – The point being that history has great lessons that can guide those whose mind’s are open to understand that every problem has more than one solution and each solution has consequences, the trick it would seem, is in the choices and tactics the skilful leader adopts.

 

 

A Stitch in Time

Whatever those tactics are, the glib talker who conjures a dream out of the desert of deprivation may conjure a mirage of hope that may turn out to be a miracle of the wasteland Greed has to be tempered and viciousness mellowed in the illustrious display of great leadership skills. (More than a few present day leaders would pick a point or two from Abraham and Melchizedek not to talk about Jacob and Esau. – And all the time you thought you were so hip in your modernity and its complex expressions of defined relevance to seek divine inspiration, go to the ancients they conceived knowledge, this age is a pretender to that which has always been-).

 

There is the need to emphasise that the construct of reality within which meaningful existence is defined and realised is simple, unambiguous and straight forward. That is if it is understood clearly and employed justifiably.

 

It requires leaders in the developing world who will set reality and history into a divine framework of applying ancient wisdom in modern frameworks. (It is vague because you are supposed to engage your imagination).

 

 

“What has been widely overlooked in the nanotech debate so far is that with each new leap

forward in technical power there is a corresponding potential for exploitation and control. As C. S.Lewis put it some years ago (and in the gendered language of the time) ‘what we call man’s power over nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument.’ 18 With nanotechnology there is clearly a new dimension of power and hence a whole new range of opportunities for organisations and groups to use and abuse that power. This is not yet something that has been widely aired. For example, one hesitates to imagine what the military are already planning with nanotechnology, let alone criminals, guerilla organisations, aggrieved minorities and so on.

While a wide range of possible benefits could certainly emerge from the successful

implementation of nanotechnology, it is also clear that with present economic structures, political

divisions, the presence of various long-running conflicts in the world and the growing gaps between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ on the one hand, and the very limited effectiveness of, e.g., conflict resolution and applied social ethics on the other, that the advent of nanotechnology may very likely exacerbate existing inequities and create many new dilemmas and problems. The world trade system as it presently functions has led to increasing social and economic

polarisation. Without re-constituting economic frameworks and modifying present-day geo-politics, new forms of technology may not be other than temporary Solutions. Again, while it is true that existing forms of corporations may themselves be under threat, the elites that run them are unlikely to passively allow their power and prestige to decay. They are much more likely to explore and

 implement new forms of power and control. Such issues require urgent collective attention.”

 

         

Desperation begets violence as the fulcrum of leadership is that which should orchestrate the diverse interests of the society to play a smooth harmony of collective participation with public provisions of highest quality minimising the points of competitive conflict for resource acquisition is let under-employed.

 

The more individuals have to engage for foraging for equally desirable resources from a common source without adequate socially manifested control to arbitrate and by elimination of basis for conflict through rule regulated adequate central provision of such desired resources, the higher the tendency of the society devolving to the state of two donkeys between two haystacks. Until they work out mutually satisfying strategy for feeding, they will be straining to death on the rope of poorly conceived “show of strength and dominant inconsideration for the “other party”. (The ancients surely have knowledge pat down to a few phrases).

 

Effective resource management does not by any imply even under the most limited insight and extended definition, mean equality. It means the provision of those social conditions within which each individual’s material aspirations can be met with the least frustration. It is in effect those social-infrastructures that underlie development and individual attainment of growth in the socially defined milieu. Frustration at inadequacy of social provisions required for meaningful existence in the presence of much possibility begets community dissolution as unmediated competition for the society’s resources is resolved through strength of attaining vantage positioning and from a solely self preservation conception becomes dominant. What under the circumstances if well managed through equitable distribution or implementation at a central point for collective usage would have been collective wealth is shredded into bits and pieces, with the parts yielding partial satisfaction and lacking the adequacy of satisfaction that the complete rendition would have yielded to that society.

 

Such a society is gradually breaking into islands of self-preservation, with a frail centre holding the collective in barely tolerable check until opposing points of view amass critical mass, at which point they would have garnered enough strength to yank the remaining threads of weak mediatory control from the centre in a system spinning out of control to make a move on the other side, who is rightly or wrongly seen as the earthly basis for social injustice.

 

It is always the weaker ones in the poorly managed social system who find cause to shatter the false semblance of normalcy given that the social system as it exists does not favour them or support their efforts to meet their aspirations for meaningful existence within its constructs.  They feel a sense of justification in disorganising that which has no use for them as an identifiable grouping nor for the long term sustenance of the society within which they have been marginalised.

 

Those in position of power and responsibility however, who employ the collective resource to satisfy their needs without engaging themselves in creative thinking as to how to extend the benefits the communal wealth affords them to the less favoured on the other hand find convoluted explanations by which to maintain their positions of inefficiency. They are the complacent occupants of the decadent chairs of social responsibility.

 

The argument, clearly, is not that the whole society should be levelled to a state of common non-accomplishment, rather it is the common expectation that those who have ridden on the backs of the free gifts of the earth to positions of responsibility will use their positions of exalted responsibility to shine true knowledge and understanding on those who need their leading to climb out of the ignominy of material and intellectual deprivation through the process of social implementation whereby concrete forms are enabled within the society for the expected change to occur among the less favoured.

 

(Further explanation is required, much as I have promised myself to be brief and to the point. The idea of social equality is a dangerous and mischievous notion promoted by idle hands and social miscreants working mental mischief, an idea that has negative consequences to human progress and undermines social cohesion, creating as it were a false sense among the non-discriminating minds (at last, one can put the “d” word to some positive use; the “r” will take some inspired effort, all the same “keep on trucking”) of the populace, who will begin to make unpleasant noises in dinky bars when those locked away in hermit like isolation racking their brains to generate the creative outputs that propel humanity forward, flash just that little bit of subdued wealth. (I refuse to apply this to shopkeepers and all import-export businessmen; these are a breed apart. . . . Ehm, hm. Don’t put words into my mouth, I only said they were a breed apart).

 

The Leader Is not To Be Taken For Granted …

The leader must not take the people for granted. Any leader who cannot think at the level of the least among the people and see their reality with an intent to improve upon that reality in all its multitudes of need for improvement, is not cut for the job.

 

When Moses was faced with a coup d’état by a men who considered themselves equal to the task and were fed up with his position of trials and tribulations and a people constantly balanced on rebellion, his wisdom shone through with such clarity that, his course of action is undeniably a classical attestation to the triumph of humility in the face of adversity. Many, no doubt ought to go back to “the textbook on leadership” and read for enlightenment.

 

He, Moses, did not put himself above the rebellious, he admonished them to appreciate their call, to which God had given them offices of responsibility and not to step beyond their call. (I refuse to preach! Go read the Good Book yourself).

 

The leader by dint of his role responsibility is in a position of greatest approximation to Moses. His or her work is demanding and mainly taken for granted until something goes awry, then he faces accusations and the wrath of the led, which see him as the worse villain that ever trod these green paths of life (mainly lateritic red in the tropics).

 

An honest leader is not faint of heart; such a leader faces the difficult decisions with good intents for all and has nothing to hide. His actions have always been conducted to give the people he or she is leading a deep understanding of what he is attempting to do for the collective through harnessing the collective energy, mind and resources of the people and their setting to create newer states of being for those who chose him to manage their lives in the physical state of organised societies (that responsibility, fellow man is no easy task).

 

Under those circumstances, the people are fully engaged with their leaders in collective leadership. When problems arise; and they always do, such a leader is not an entity separate from the collective. An appreciative public will reward and pamper their trusted leaders with perks of life that make the weighty task of leadership tolerable. Rewards for wise leadership that can be nourished with a plain, simple and true heart of one dedicated to promoting the well-being. Such simplicity of worthy stewardship, it would seem, is often lacking in those who with their stubborn mind coated in resilience of ignorance (I would have said, coatings as tough as the skin of a Hippopotamus, then on the other hand that noble creature rumbling through the undergrowth, would not want to be dragged into this mud, let the two legged sort out their own debacles, neither will the rhino do, “keep away from my waterhole”).

 

Needlework

Prosperity of the mind comes when

you use the knowledge that has been accumulated—when you

are controlling your mind instead of your mind controlling you. Kenneth Copeland.

 

The intellectual development that comes through education is a means of disciplining the mentality of the leader to curtail social management within a scope of meaningful possibility but it is not intended to be a barrier to far reaching changes in the old ways. If the old ways evolved out of a conceptualisation that does not support a particular society. That society has to evolve new meanings and implementation forms from innovative perspectives.

 

Where external dependencies curtail the drive for innovative socio-economic orientation, since this socio-economic conceptualisation is the basis for inter-nations economic exchange, A society has two options within which to evolve innovatively. Those aspects of its internal resources that can be locally generated must be managed to be distributed equitably and generate value for the society in an even handed manner such that a form of self consistent socio-economic system evolves while the nation system attempts to generate enough resource value to support its external economic exchange dependency.

 

A less dramatic approach without all the fanfare of the impressive regional conferences is to ensure that regional economic associations enable stronger regional or union members socio-economic stability where the level of system sustaining resource base is so well developed that the external pressures that perpetuate debt and recurrent debt are minimised as socio-economic organisation revolve around a well regulated non-internationalised base of regional integration to facilitate unhindered access.  While this is not a particularly novel idea, its implementation has always had obstacles that could be resolved with expediency if there is a leadership to that end and desire.

 

External resource acquisition must be geared towards long term reductions on external resource dependency and national and regional economies must aim to be self sustaining with little reliance on external markets for economic viability. Which means that the collective resource must be invested strategically in manufacturing and productivity generating technological acquisitions rather than the purchasing of short term consumables from international markets.

 

(National investment in industrial development should not be designated a solely private sector endeavour. That’s not to say that the existing effort towards privatisation is wrong, but it certainly implies that governments must increase state investments employing the collective resource in state owned, housing, educational, industrial and manufacturing structures, to mention a few of the areas where the initial required monetary capital investment lies way outside the individuals in the developing world nation system. Governments have to invest in these types of preparatory initiatives to bolster national development either through part ownership or by direct ownership of industrial/manufacturing technology and if necessary through the purchase external management to run them if local manpower lacks the dedication to keep a few machines in peak utility production.)

 

If developing world governments do not engage in massive state owned industrial and social developments as preparatory basis for boosting the development level of their nations, then they might just as well accept the comfort of perfecting the simplicity of organic based agro-economies where life’s important lessons are passed down by pipe smoking elders of the tribe, while the women carry on by the earthen cooking pots on roiling fires, in the cool of the evening.

 

Truth, however, is that, a world is passing away, everyone on the continent feels a need to expand the scope of existing attained industrialisation for a number of reasons. The most obvious reason simply being that the agro-traditional and its defining basis of social construct may still be dominantly expressive but it is no longer sustainable for the people, many of who are forced into meaningless tasks which are no self or social system sustainable. Once they have been expose to and experience the improvement in life quality that mechanisation facilitates it is difficult to not acknowledge the expansion in activity scheme it enables. -Just admit it and find a better way of hooking into the development slip stream-.

 

The less weaker economies depend on stronger economies for national  and regional economic sustenance, the lower the fluctuations intruded on weaker economies by stronger economies mainly through foreign exchange rate fluctuations. Given the less than adequate self sustenance emerging from weak national economies far too high dependence on external economies and their dictates compromise all efforts to improve the developmental issues of nations with poorly evolved economic base.

 

Added to the inequalities in resource exchange rates that undermine the puerile efforts by developing nations to develop economically within the definitive framework of stronger economies, the competitive basis upon which international trade is defined and executed, the stronger nations have no intent on balancing the termsof trade to reflect favourably on the weaker economies, in which sense any assumption of equality, is a risky basis for conjecturing future states of international dependency with no assurance for yielding the desired ends.

 

Rich Tapestry

Now that free speech is a delicacy nourished and nimble in large chomps by the bustling private press in Africa, one has to acknowledge that a leader may have thick skins (figuratively speaking, I’m not taking away from you Mr. Crocodile), but the grey heads of Africa do not take irreverent “dicing” in stride. (Aaah, that streak of severity characteristic of the vindictive village head is not quick to lose its hold on the leadership mentality, more so, in a place where the tendency to be called with great respect (?) “Chief” is strongly rooted in the culture. In Ghana, the form of informal address adopted by the lesser to humour the “big man” used to be “Boss”, then it became “Manager” then the Ashanti’’s decided that “Nana” was equally dignifying, but the Anlos stuck with “Nye Bro” and “Efo”, there were a few unsupported atempts at “President”, “Executive” and “Chairman” the latter losing steam with the fading of the revolutionary fervour and the general lack lustre performance of corporations, all of a sudden there’s been a 360 swing back to some pseudo “back to my roots cultural rebellion”, that’s swung the addressing of person’s in positions of honour back to the honoured “Chief” title; well, humans are just unpredictable. Come to think of it, it is always the men and a few hardy women; the kind who wear knickers all the time, that prefer these form of address and invariably they are all of the lower income group, just wondering why?).

 

Don’t Get Carried Away, Chief, the Honourable

With all the adulations and undeserved veneration accorded to the developing nation leader, which acts arise not from some cultural gambit of the primitive social rites of the Lower Niger, but a need, first and foremost to seek favour from the “supervisor” in charge of managing the distribution of the collective resources, and less importantly the respect and honour that accrues to the office, probably with an unconscious desire that a leader who is accorded popular support may lead in the interest of the popular cause. This is why when it becomes obvious that once a leader has lost that self-redemptive final bit of dignity upon which the expansive hope of society hinges by digging into the collective pot for private purposes, it is often the case that only the paid hangers-on (who for obvious economic reasons are emotionally disengaged from the leader’s ineptitude – now before you begin raising  some awkward issue of where lies the patriotism of these “hanger-ons”, one needs to perceive reality from their point of view, putting oneself  where one has is faced with real and pressing hunger and sweltering poverty. If one cannot put self in that situation then, one needs to hold wagging tongue under control-) who do the swing and “akpese”; that intoxicating body shake of the Togolese paid dancers, who retain a mockery of the respect accorded a leader. The rest of the people just contend with themselves agains the odds – which odds are inevitable once the resources of the society cannot be corrigated to serve the collective interest- and a non-supportive socio-economic system, fighting to make a living in a society fast outpacing normalcy in opposite trajectory to reason and common sense.

 

The aspiration of the society to project existing possibility beyond presently attained level is only realisable within the leadership frame of execution. It requires an ability to be complexly engaged in a variety of open ended possibilities, spear headed and concentrating on a focused and dedicated leadership. Reference frames of descriptions that validate their potential through attained performance and delivery on expectations through effective economic management.

 

There is a need for flexibility in leadership orientation to policy implementation to be quick to easily disengage from a losing cause of action and reconsider execution frameworks on the basis of failure of otherwise positive and plausible constructs of some desired implementation. The need to provide viable, ease to access central institutional set-ups to bolster flagging private sector inspired developmental efforts that may otherwise lead to self-sustaining viability if given short term assistance in a period of crisis need not be underestimated. Flexibility as the emphasis upon which leadership decision is framed and executed is especially relevant when it becomes obvious that a stand down from a losing stance rather than rigid adherence to a policy decision on the grounds of principle could have led to improved states to all concerned.

 

Hard to Weave

What is so difficult about leading a nation in the developing world?

 

To be able to answer that question one needs to breakdown the complex issues at stake and reformulate them to make meaning of the intricacies aggregating to make the simple complex.

 

The nation, as it exists presently, is a large piece of land given form and geographical configuration irrespective of the tribal landscapes or kingdoms if you like, of yorn, an invention consequent on the European land grab binge that followed close after slavery. -Suddenly, it was not only fashionable to do dirty business -stealing other folks and dispensing them for gin with the odd Dutch captain– with easily corruptible local strongmen, but it was quite ideal to lower the population pressure in an Europe locked down by centuries of suppression and bursting loose on a wild redemptive journey of exploration that redefined knowledge by sending the boys to subdue the tribesmen of the lower Niger and Basutoland.

 

(Please, let us all be humble here, “the great discoveries of the things that have always been”; is by all standards worthy to be considered extraordinary achievements. Going forth on these journeys of discovery is clearly indicative of the intellect of the Europe that sailed out into the blue. It was and still is by all standards comparatively higher evolved than the attained level of organisation as then and now. That having been said, they did push the collective intellect ahead.)

 

So, that adventurism carved out large portions of land and the occasional German idiosyncratic sliver of land, thinly apportioned with ramifications in the post independence era barely appreciated. The land was mainly agrarian, with agriculture sustaining the family and supporting very crude and basic barter exchange system, the use of cowries was well established among certain trader tribes.

 

The various social systems that constitute the world are busy defying relevance and meaning for their people according to the unique demands and impositions of their particular settings.

 

The effort of creativity is hardly lost on those who have suffered unbearably for lack of simple technological breakthroughs. These sufferings they have carefully recorded and are constantly reminded off in their schools and history lessons. The price of development has been paid for by wide gaps of ignorance during which mankind suffered greatly and fell into all kinds of deceptions and still remain bound to those deceptions, till one gifted person departing from the normal way of doing things suddenly rises from ignobility to become a hero. The discoverer is a national hero because by the stroke of one person’s ingenuity the whole of the society is blessed. Those who are stiff and inflexible cannot be discoverers; the breakthrough comes from those who shun the accepted ways of doing things.

 

Development is a mental state situation physically implemented. It is a nation’s ability to realise physically those things that even though they may have physical existence elsewhere are within the context of the setting under consideration a novelty of the mind being realised. The nature and characteristics of development a nation is able to engage in are determined by the degree of sophistication of social conception of reality a society has attained. Impending circumstances and situational conditions may dictate the level of implemented artefacts of development. 

 

Development and its constructs may be coerced by nonnegotiable impositions of expanding population to diversify through socio-technical improvements for sustainability or it could be a dramatic failure of nature and natural systems that require a change towards more supportive frames within which that society operates. This improvement on existing states if well managed and properly implemented often adds value to prior states.

This is whole scale social evolution leading to upward shifts to enhance effectiveness of the system whole.

Development can enter a nation system through copying technological progress attained elsewhere, importing the technologies to implement elements of desired development or it can simply seep in through individual importation of those technologies, either as employed in an individual’s commercial project or as products purchased for private use. All these approaches have been effectively combined in just about all societies that have access through trade or any other means to other social systems.

 

Just because an external or internal originating knowledge applied to product development is new does not necessarily mean it is useful. Usefulness more than anything is the basis for large scale social adoption of externally originating knowledge, often dearly paid for and if not properly employed an irritating distortion of the prior albeit no longer supportive existing state.

 

Mass produced, generic implementation of development projects must be at the highest possible level of quality of rendition and effectively integrated into existing human and social systems if investments in such developments are not to be considered white elephants.

 

The immediate implication of this awareness being that investments on behalf of the nation cannot be half-way measures of inferior quality implementation just to save money (money and national resources is a poorly understood concept in the developing nations).

 

Under normal circumstances anyone who wants to spend personal resources to acquire a product, given the appropriate circumstances would acquire only the best; likewise, the public, likewise expects that commonly held wealth should be used by the leaders judiciously for highest quality implementation.

 

A leader who does not grasp this simple concept and is caught in the deception of “lack of resources” argument to be misled to waste the collectives resources is heaping shoddy projects on their societies, are without second thoughts, social liabilities and a disgrace to the nation over whom they expend their limited minds. Every societies demands the best, are sensitive to displaying beauty in from and shape (and to think of only birds as vain) and appreciate leaders who share same mindset. Those Africans who attend missionary schools with their well laid out forms and become proponents and exponents of appropriate technology and developing world level housing provision constructs, promoting with unending disgust on the part of a severely offended nation, such useless and resource wasting projects that have shortest of short term viability as the qualifying context of employing limited national resources ought to back-off right back to whatever dim world they emerge from.

 

A nation that has set its priorities right ought to meet its fundamental needs of orderly achievement to establish beautiful communities structured around self-sustaining socio-economic arrangements. A good starting-off point is considering to what extent a nation needs to depend on others (being other societies) to be able to bake bricks and shingles for orderly housing projects. Slums are areas of sore spots whose existence is not under any circumstances justified in any African nation with representative leadership given that all that is required for effecting housing and community development is within easily acquired and what is required of leadership is the organising of labour. How simpler could leading a nation get?

 

Developing nations ought to make housing and community development priority, laying effective waste water/ drainage systems, ensuring good communication paths/ways and a reliable transport system. Once the policies underlying these efforts are formulated at governmental level covering the village, small town, larger settlement and city levels, implementation should follow on a rolling scheme which ensures that all segments of the society are served eventually.

 

Now, if the larger part of these can be achieved without excessive dependence on external resource sources, then, there is hardly any reason why slums actually exist. One could possibly understand orderly housing systems lacking hot water and central air-conditioning systems, but the existence of disorderly housing or lack of adequate housing for that matter just doesn’t make sense. The only plausible explanation is a general, leader permitted, sense of laissez faire that allows uncoordinated ugliness to prevail when the alternative is feasible and preferable. Slums bordering the parts of a large settlement that have been orderly developed destroy the symmetry of ordered communities and that these features of disorganised societies exist is difficult to comprehend, defend and tolerate, totally unacceptable (There goes the Head of State in revolutionary condemnation and self justification; and the attentive audience nod its head in unison and murmur “YES!”).

 

While on the topic, one wonders why this side of idiocy is there overly dependence on cement in housing construction when the land offers almost free “brickable” material? Why? (Why, why? = Why are you asking why?) The rich lateritic soils of the hottest place by landmass on earth offer abundant resources for low heating costs (organised under the appropriate mirrors or reflectors of solar energy conception, virtually free energy is poured down on the collective ignorance to bake themselves out of ugliness) and laying well planned communities is the least of Africa’s problems, yet this simple measure has been allowed to fester into a decadent social problem that assumes central position leaving the more serious issues of how to design and implement sophisticated economic systems. Sophisticated economic systems based on industrial production and expanded supportive service to generate a viable activity scheme within which the populace exercise their minds and keep themselves from excessive idleness (Idleness ís a narrow expression on the collective edge of the society since, poorly developed economies depend on harsh, labour intensive activities to sustain their human components in less than efficient employment in cultivation of the land and its resources. While this might look like the purist organic farmers heaven, for large populations, mechanization and industrial fertilizers are more than an indulgence, it harbours on survival for whole nations).

 

At this point, it is to be made very clear that industrialisation and development more than being social artefacts are reactive engagements to find more effective means that enable large and expanding societies to cope when mainly non-mechanised human and animal energy no longer suffice. Contrary to being a luxury and an artefact it is a necessity of expanding population and a more effective approach to provide meaningful existence on a wider scale than woulb be feasible in an agro-traditional economy with low population density. In other words if the pace of green industrialisation and system adaptive adjustment to produce on mass production basis with an environmental friendly face, the developing nations will be and are headed towards social implosion as frustration boils over within inept social systems.

 

In a place with inadequate space for education and on-campus residences one would think that distant education with affordable computers, networked to provide highest quality educational information, material and advisory from the few central locations would be commonplace. Alas, (one occasionally skips into these colonial verbiages of expressing sorrow over the failures dogging these tribesmen and their take on reality) contrary to the hope that technological advance will open new opportunities for needed education and assisted task execution, like everything else, all of man’s barriers have been raised to make these necessity a luxury. Given that the retro-invention of hand driven radio dynamo was lately seen as a great asset to rural African dwellers, one would under the circumstances be awaiting the day when the eccentricism of some sports “nut”(probably in California; one wonders why these minds never come from problem location?) leads to the bicycle powered PC for its employment as a mass educational tool for the land in the sun takes off.

 

Not only is it the case that the leaders this side of the human equation, catch on rather too late, excusing everything on the lack of resources. (This being as far a creative leadership thinking stretches; the pieces of papers and minted nickels around which humanity has created value now come to determine how humans make meaning out of existence. Leader’s have to think of creating wealth out of the seemingly non-monetary physically common place and not so common creative intellect or generate socio-economic relevance for system self-sustenance from off the normal assumptions. Where leadership extends beyond implementing the same tried and tested approaches is where one can begin separating the boys from the men, in the true sense of the word. Petty stuff like exporting others finished products for trading in the home market should be left to the small scale business sector with limited access to capital. Larger scale nation development projects in manufacturing and industrial development is where the leader’s seating on the bulk of the community’s resource stand to make the only difference that matters, to be creative in resource employment or leave it to waste. Waiting for who to come work it out anyway?).

 

That having been said, it is not the case that these leaders are not making enormous effort, they are. But like everything that falls below expectation, the negative outweighs the positive, so much so that the few blinking of attainments in the light of the great possibilities lost and let waste, loose their appeal.

 

The question that needs to be posed thus is; why is it that the efforts of present day leaders seem to be consistently falling behind the mounting problems?

 

For instance, if someone was born in a part of the city, town or village that has been a slum, with poor educational infrastructure, low quality living standards, lack of drainage, inadequate public transport etc. etc. etc. Now, if after ten or more years, nothing much has changed, while the government has all this complex figures and charts to support their inability to discharge the simple tasks that just about anyone thinks the could manage, such as organising the unemployed energy of youth to sun bake bricks or wood fire them (given that despoliation of nature is taken ever so lightly only to be reconsidered when damage to nature has become excessive) as the  case may be, maintain the regulations under which towns develop and put a few busses on a regular schedule, just to mention those that come to mind, not to delve into how open drainages as preferred drainage type, where available, when underground drainages in a tropical environment with mosquito breeding as an environmental and epidemiological nightmare ought to be the norm, certainly is enough reason to make any naive person unversed to the complexity of nation leadership, to easily conclude that the government is a failure, short and simple.

 

To the average man (one wonders who is above average anyway) the relevance of leadership is creating the leadership milieu where adequate distribution of power and responsibility and resources ensure that uniform progress is achieved in the most widespread manner conceivable. In which sense the good leader is the one who is able to generate that framework of idealism within which the less visionary craft their daily reality in the process of nation building. Where this visionary insight into leadership action does not exist, even the individual potentially realised vision, is lost in the widespread disorganisation and ugliness (Yep, that’s the word, poverty is materially manifested in ugly settings, lacking cohesion and a semblance of normality that is obvious to the objective observer and those who find themselves ensconced in such settings) that prevails when society is not organised along well-ordered lines.

 

What it requires to implement structured social organisation with high predictability without excessive dependence on external sources is not “foreign exchange” “balanced budgets” “political stability” or any other meaningless jargon evoked to excuse idle mindedness. It is the idea generational capacity of determined leadership to use existing resources to yield improved states. If that idea generational capacity is lacking at leadership level, then, even when the (monetary) conditions are ideal, not much of worthiness is likely to be realised.

 

Crowning one-self “emperor” when there are hardly enough paved roads in one’s domain of ruler ship to warrant the achievements of such high self-commendation is nothing short of a quirk of curiosity in the pages of history, inasmuch as such vaunted acts of idiosyncratic leadership by crotchety and twisted men (the women are yet to have their turn) in societies beset with unlimited needs costly in human terms need to be condemned in no uncertain terms. (Yet, sadly they are repeated in one form or another. The leader is in service of sacrifice to the nation and the people, there is never the instance where the leader is above the call of putting the state and its populace above self. The good leader, will readily vacate his seat of leadership to promote the interest of the state, rather than expect the state of accommodate his failure.)

 

As some leader eloquently proclaimed, with great aplomb, “we make the history and you write it”. One only desires that the history the leaders make are worthy of dignifying the human spirit of being imitators in creating beauty that gives credence to their positioning at the top of society. Mentally prepared in capacity to creatively change the earth to improve upon their physical existence.

 

Pride Goeth Before Downfall

As to that little question of how much pride a leader should exhibit? The answer from a less serious point of view is none at all. The title of political leadership in some societies accurately interpreted means “servant of the people”. But to close the argument before extending the topic one only needs to turn to that great book of exquisite knowledge and leadership principles; the Holy Scriptures. There Moses, the greatest leader of all time, is described as “the most humble person on earth”. There is the cue to define the truly great leader, one who is humble, soliciting assitance and ideas to enable the collective evolve in the desired direction. The notion of national pride is wrongly applied in more than a few instances, what ought to gain currency is “human pride”. Everything to give humanity its pride in its collective planetary heritage. Taken that way, pride serves as the basis for collaboration in units of the specie to enhance the collective development.

 

The sight of a conspicuously gold and jewel laden local chief is an exhibition of impressive local might. The chief in heavily embroidered, rich local cloth, borne by strong arms in a palanquin is a festival sight that rouses the community spirit. He is symbolic of the community and its strength and wealth.

 

The issue of a leaders pride is best understood within the simple concept of how much room should individuals in each society be allowed to make their own decisions, whether or not it fits in with some high vaunted idealistic notion of a leader. Truth be told, as much room as individually desired because, strict regimentation kills creativity just as quickly as excessive freewill denudes the drive factor of leadership to inspire the people to push beyond the barriers of  seeming possibility. Getting the balance between leadership expectations and individual drive to diversify is best conducted through the law and social consensus on appropriateness. The leader who by all definitions is in a social role position ought to give expression to the nation’s pride in the achievements made on behalf of the people or nation.

 

While there are many models of accomplished societies where the fundamentals of ordered existence with all its accrued defects exist to copy a thing or two from (being on the conservative side) each society has to nail down the nitty gritty details in terms of local conditions for desired states in actual implementation. Indeed under-development has an appeal for those from other societies with the required knowledge to implement certain projects, in that it offers “playing ground” for idea implementation that cannot be implemented in the idea source home community, but virgin territory provides such an existing opportunity. In which sense, one could conceive that the path blazers may very well become a cellar of inexhaustible creativity for the latecomers, if the approach is made from the appropriate invitational angle.

 

Pride on the part of beggars is detested with such an acrimony that its aftertaste lingers long after it’s occurrence. Those nations who have mastered the act of diplomacy, know how to beg for favour without losing their dignity as they seek to expand the scope of their capabilities (now you nod your head). These nations make their national identity an advantageous stance upon which shared participation is seen by those being cajoled to invest in their development with shared interests, a worthy standpoint for negotiation without making the potential investor in their future threatened.

 

The emphasis on shared commonalities with less emphasis on, factually, insignificant differences create a basis for easier commitment. Given however that, the nation finds expression through its leaders, it only stands to reason that misconceived pride can have undesired consequences if projected as representative of any society. Even self-sustaining societies are better off cultivating an in image of mutual engagement with their less favoured neighbours.

 

One begins to wonder isn’t this type of boot licking what our Chief’s indulged in, while they polished grade A, good Old Dutch Schnapps. Maybe, it is the same in a different guise or it is an acquired diplomacy of non-accomplishment that never delivered the goods, giving reason for questioning the whole exercise.

 

The fault is probably in who the technique of diplomacy is applied to. After all one can only count on cash hand-outs for so long as economic assistance or financial aid to boost development. Often this lure has been a suffocating embrace of debt.

 

There are a plethora of small and upcoming business (especially of relevance to those nations technologically challenged and abysmally disinterested in universal education to postgraduate level adopting through wrongly conceived diplomacy suggestions that minimise entry to higher level education on the irrelevant excuse of lack of resources; “lack of brains ”most likely it would seem, being mitigated by half-baked measures, one could say tongue outside cheek) that astute leaders having the resource base that a nation ought to command, even among the most poorest nations, that can be convinced to come and setup shop for production, (the shop or physical structure financed by the government in question, obviously, given that small companies with potentials are financially weak).

 

On the other hand, outside the grandstand of seeking for development aid, there is a likely future for leadership diplomacy with the owners and managers of well established industrial giants in the West and other parts of the world. What may make this contacts viable is the existence of a large consumer base, and a little emphasis on the morality of the whole act of providing employment for a few needy souls who otherwise will continue as before (meaning they do nothing worthwhile, not many care about this argument anyway) backed by a sturdy economy with a reliable monetary system.

 

Bold and Straight Lines

“A sturdy economic system”: This is where the developing world and Africa in particular has failed miserably. While these leaders contemplate on how to shore their sheds of nation states, broadening at the bottom in an ever expanding increment of the materially poor on the slipping mud streams of economic inadequacies, maybe these nations are better off allowing more stable monetary systems to be employed in their economies removing the issue of unstable currencies and all its associated problems. -Of course this is just one of many ways to resolve the monetary exchange rate instability foisted poverty.– Given the dollar pegged economic un-pegging of Argentina, this will not be much favoured idea now. But there is a little nation out there in South America, using the granddaddy of all stable monetary units, the U.S: Dollar, who is a case study of what it will be like if developing world adaptation of a powerful global currency will help in removing the problems associated with weak currencies in nation development. As to whether the USA will be ready to accept the role of being global paymasters remains to be seen. (The Afghans who work for the Americans post Taliban Afghanistan are being paid in newly minted US Dollars, so don’t be too quick to say “impossible”.)

 

As for things being impossible, well, it is denying the power of that word and believing in it,– which is to say grand and overwhelming social constructs are impossible to attain; nothing is impossible- that has led to the mess Africa finds itself in. Somebody ought to give more insight into the North African enigma Colonel – the colonel of old colonial vintage– Ghadafi/Khadafi of Libya– jury still out on the name of the man-; and a man, he truly is, seeing what disbelieving impossibilities made him achieve. Now there is a true African, of the lighter tone. O, boy, have I started down that low down path again, we all brothers, right? Wonder what happened to the sister bit of that catch phrase….

 

As I was discussing before losing myself between the brackets, a sturdy economy exists as potential to be facilitated in the large population of materially deprived, who are hungering for just about every material object that a chamber and a hall with a balcony slapped at the side can take, it is the other bit of of the equation, which is the leadership facilitated implementation process of that potentially vibrant economy that is lacking. The potential can become reality when leaders and their government machinery find a way to enable the potential consumers’ purchasing power. Now, if you were thinking of saying to yourself, “that is what the world of inequality and the strategic managing of global economy is about” then you don’t get it! You are still wandering in the swamps. Just ask the smart guys in international banking. Money is just pieces of papers (You can disagree but it still is, you lovers of money). The value accrued to money arises from the socio-economic construct within which its value is defined, evolved and maintained. That  being the case and given that the US Dollar because of “leader’s pride” and America’s unwillingness to spoil a good thing will never be a global currency (Although it must be acknowledged that if it did do so and it failed to live up to its reputation of ensuring monetary stability, it would have been discarded without any ceremony or emotional attachment thereof by those who will have joined the “global currency system” with more than great expectations that it will work– it is a pipe dream, nourish the moment and forget it-.

 

What is more probable and has for too long been delayed is a regional monetary system that by default can provide an expanded market base for manufacturers centred in particular economic regions.

 

Certain worthwhile ideals like ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States) and other such similar sub-regional economic zones fail primarily because for reason best known to leaders, they refuse to inform border guards and custom officials to stop putting unnecessary obstacle in the path of traders and travellers crossing borders. These practical exemptions of enforcing implementation at the lower levels of enforcing multi-national policy can undermine the best efforts and make mere waste of time and tax funds when higher level policy is not followed through to implementation.  The vaunted speeches of a new dawn “kiss the dust” at local transit points. Not only does it appear that Africa’s leader do not fully appreciate that they have fallen between the cracks and the internecine battles of tribal and group identity origins only make an already deplorable situation useless.

 

The leader is to employ all the revolutionary fervour or imitations thereof  to unite the diversity of the cultures finding expression in each colonial brokered division of Africa into modern nation states through farsighted inter-nation collaboration and a sense of collectiveness that overrides the superficialities of nationhood. Nations must manage their resources and their human constituents without fostering a sense of identity that in finding expression causes discordance between Africans.

 

 (Now an aside on revolutionary fervour and the art of taming fiery speech speaking. The fiery speech, with all its temperature and emotion hoisting, imagery filled expectorations of blood, sweat and toils has given way lately to a more honourable and civilised approach to public speaking where the leader exudes a calm sense of maturity and deep thinking, reflecting on the words being uttered; just like the traditional Chiefs; where over enthusiastic interjections of “wiao”, “Nana kasaa ooh”, “apreku”, “yeow”, “osei” and such similar forms of exhortation by well meaning “kyeames” can test the patience of the most patient of souls. Luckily, these reversal to traditional grace of imparting meaningful wisdom is devoid of the secondary “kyeame” exhortation. Speech making in making this reversal to graceful forms has provided a means for the public to seek to understand the vision their leaders are projecting into the canvas of the public mind. The image of unhurried deliberation assumed by the honourable may convey dignity, but some will without doubt suggest, just say what you have to impart and leave the deliberation to us. All we want are our places of dwelling, education for our children and the adult illiterates and jobs for the people, so we can splurge in the material mud of acquisition. I shudder to think that some Chief might misconstrue this as an attack on tradition. Far be it from that.)

 

The grey hairs in leadership some may suggest (I am not making that suggestion) employ tradition as the final bulwark to defend their inadequacies and inabilities to deliver on expectations. Shifting to assume officialdom and civil orientation where problems evolving around land and the conflicts arising thereof disturb law and order in the society. As to how far that is true is left to the discerning reader, what is plausible is that the chameleon-like swinging between conducts gives cause for speculation.

 

Innovate

Even if society accepts that it cannot play catch up with the “Big Boys” of development, that does not by any means, bar societies in the developing world system from redefining reality in the light of existing knowledge to take away the filth and contained chaos that is the face of under-development. Mention has been made prior-ily of some attainments that can be locally realised with but little consideration given to external assistance. However, the fact that even these internal marshalling of nation’s resources around which developmental achievement finds expression is mainly achieved far below capacity and expectations leaves many wondering what is afoot with these leaders?

 

As to what is afoot with these leaders – with all due respect to avid bootlickers and praise singers- where condemnation is well deserved, if need be lavishly served in some poorly printed yellow sheet and dished out with a modicum of respect not to anger leaders, who give high credence to titles like “lion”; which is “dzata” in some local lingos, to subdue the critical through conveyed imagery not to irritate. After all life being what it is, the effort to correct ought not to land one in some dingy jail, to make penance.

 

While we are about it, I just might as well dip my toes into the frigid waters of “press freedom”. Given that most “local heroes” who sit in the seat of leadership are hardened souls who have about seen it all and smell a rat a mile away, besides placing high value on “respect for authority” (if you think all those hard nuts in the alleyways demanding “respect” don’t mean it, think again, They inherited the trait from their elders.)  would it not be more advantageous to the private press (the government press serves the interest of the government; read my lips) if in their zest to say as it as it is (Well, African’s have a way with words, one must admit) are a bit considerate of the sensitivity of their leaders and dish out criticism in more subdued manner, addressing the issue without pinging it off the personality of the head honcho (we are now borrowing terms from  Texas, but then, that’s what globalisation is all about)? That way there will be fewer unsung heroes leaving their little ones to fend for themselves because their “pape’s” unrestrained thoughts got the better of them. (Before you jump to any conclusion that I take lightly any attack on the press-who thrive on attacking people’s privacy, think again– . A good criticism or observation is likely to make better impact when well packaged and devoid of harsh, “run-off” writing).

 

Criticising leadership action is more than necessary, it is the objective reflection on the leader’s act but more than a few good advises have been lost in the irrelevancy of being insulting (such words of severe and unrestrained criticism carry the conviction of words thrown as if by women squabbling at the public pipe) to the person to whom advise is directed. As the old adage goes, “a soft word convinces the ruler to give”. (Unfortunately the source of the saying can only be traced to a few old men, philosophising by a pot of palm wine. If the word “lazy” is creeping up on you. I guess you never quite understand how much effort and dedication it takes to harvest a good pot of palm wine. Do you? I didn’t think so).

 

To reconstruct existing society where presently, collective national resources are poorly applied to establish the desired state of preferred existence and social organisation, requires a sort of going back to basics to enquire what went wrong with this collection of humans on this, their allotted portion of the earth, and how can identified problems be rectified with what the society possesses?

 

In terms of resources the society has in hand (being that part of nature’s endowment that the intellect has decoded for processing to yield hidden values for improving on life quality), what amount of what the society’s need depends on other people’s goodwill and can the nation afford that “goodwill”?

A failing nation must redefine its existing reality within a constantly adjusted framework of how its needs can be configured within the changing value of its existing resource capacities from a novel perspective in terms of what it has and what it can gain access to and what it desires but is severely restrained from ease of access and by reconfiguring attainment through socio-economic equilibrating processes arrive at new state of defined social management. In the absence of this constant adjustment of the broad leadership construct, the propensity of stagnation and accumulated failure can lead to national immobility at levels of non-sustenance, while primary cohesion is maintained in a cycle of repetitive failure as old and no longer tenable but fixated responses are evoked time and again with its inevitable worsening of the state of affairs. The little that is attained is merely the shifting of scarce resource (scarcity itself due to inability to generate surplus from novel perspective) from one area of social need to another, without the added improvements that progressive developments implies.

 

Given that society is complexly defined in reality the clear cut nature of problem defined -problem resolved does not hold (water, if you like; where do people come with this lame figures of speech anyway?) much in terms of resolving actual problems on the ground. However, such simple analysis carried out on a regular basis by high leadership role position occupants would no doubt keep them focused on result analysis that keep them focused on the haunting images of the slums that give character to their nation. Working within that urgency of obvious failure, so boldly imprinted in the reality of poor life quality, less than adequate employment and be pushed to find solutions within easy implementation and with visible results. This indeed is where some leaders really let the pride of the race down by assuming a narrow vision that sidesteps the obvious evidences of failure in terms of the many who have been sidelined.

 

The achievements required to put “hope and joy” back into the hearts of the people, is realisable within the nations. What comes from outside is supplementary -without exception for every nation– given that meaningful existence is leader defined within some expectation framework and external resource sought to supplement what cannot be obtained locally to ensure successful physical realisation of the expectation.

 

Conceived in that sense, development defined around good housing (90% of which is constructed with local materials and one solid one) good quality education -this is more than important being the means through which knowledge finds aggregation and dispersal for further rebirth as extensions on prior-ily attained states– in highest quality structures, where the environment promotes the pursuit of mental development in tranquil settings.

 

(While on this issues as well, let it be pointed out that the material employed and the sturdiness attained in infrastructure in some of the best institutions are as simple as you can find, not to talk about the slave castles that continuously remind the Africans that out of the eater comes something to eat. Find your pride, Black Man, in solid accomplishments that dignify your human spirit as intelligent beings created in the image of an awesome God, who said you were fearfully created. Your mind is meant to conquer impossibilities in any which way conceivable. -Let’s not get too serious here. I will leave speech-fying to the “grey hairs at the helm of affairs”; talk about shorting the oxygen, when some people get hold of a good phrase-).

 

The third of the factors that define meaningful national progress is employment, a form of activity that gives something back to society while enabling the individual to meet life expectancies within the social exchange system regulated by monetary instruments. The people are ready to work, but the leaders are still sleeping finding it difficult to awaken from the creativity slumber to organise willing hands to build appealing socio-economic infrastructure to complement the aspirations of the populace.

 

Your Excellency

“Great Leader”, “Colonel” (quickly gave way to General, with Field Marshal being such a comical oddity of over exuberance for “self-titling” that it sits right up there in the higher levels of foolishness over presumption of empty headedness with “Emperor” that it never got popular), “Captain” (now don’t you go pulling ranks on me; the only Captain worthy of any mention is “Young Sankara” who had his head fixed right, so no joking around this one) “Sir Chairman”, “Mr. President”, dignify yourself in your labour of creativity. When your term is served, let your people shout a shout of joy and say there goes a son of the land to a well earned rest.  How many leaders can say they left office with high public commendation for a job well done? Can any of the present day African leaders answer positively to that question without having to resort to unending defence of their position on this issue and that issue? All which issues are irrelevant if the ordinary man has to go on empty stomach. (Not only an emty stomach of foodm but emptied out hope of aspirations unfulfilled and a vision less desert blustering with a sandstorms of excuses, ripping out whatever little hope that is being nurtured).

 

The people want to see deeds, not hear talk of it, to live the life of great accomplishments in this age. What’s the problem with us? (With you leaders, cause the nation is ready to play its part).

 

In other well developed countries where infrastructure provisions to support large aggregates of people is the criterion for explicating differences in levels of attained development, maintenance and progressive expansion on attained developments provide employment for no less than 60% of the working populace. Interestingly though the figures are not  accessible (hardly anything is  accessible -One wonders when institutions like the Statistical Bureau will turn their jewel of knowledge base into meaningfully appealing information base easily accessible and aspects rendered of commercial value to that body and the public– Fortune’s list of 500 best companies could be inspirational in creating local business lists while being bulked up by a few writers in business and organisational studies to produce readable journals, better make it “a journal”) in developing nations where the need for infrastructure development can hardly be over-emphasised), the area of greatest need with highest potential for generating long term employment, on large scales, is receiving what can only be termed peripatetic consideration.

 

The issue needs to fill the target zone of each and every leader, being executed according to a long term program that operates beyond the individual leader. The development of public housing in the developed countries is still relevant and apart from being a required social commitment fulfilled by governments to the governed, is strategically, a means for government to earn soft income over the long term as it collects rent for public housing. As far as one can ascertain, there are no effective projects that are replacing slums and rebuilding settlements faster than a poor citizenry left with no other choice pile up old zinc and boards in the most terrible environments imaginable, just to survive.

 

Anyone who is probably deluding themselves “slow, slow, we shall get there” is, well just that, delusional. For thousands probably hundreds of thousands of years, unless proactive action was taken, men just lived like beasts of the field, harvesting from nature’s provisos, until they took proactive action to make nature yield to their demands.  Likewise, unless African nations begin to plan towards total reconstruction of non-sustainable infrastructure, especially in community housing on a large, predictable and sustainable level stretched over a decades, these societies will be an eyesore in human land usage. This is an affront to all of humanity, not just “lazy leaders”, whose idea generation capacity are severely challenged, holding on to some meaningless appendages of irrelevant time eroded of relevance defined . . .  Please!

 

Let us give the colonial masters a breathing space, they have given up on the local tribesmen they were attempting to mentor as “basket cases”, for the most part. They have without doubt discerned the African as an imposer who is selfish and excessively materialistic with no community spirit. (Even the African begs to differ, they have been begging for a long, long time, its time to show some results). That is the only way they can make meaning of leader’s who given the chance to use their resources to uplift the state of man, have taken credit in stashing away the resources that is meant for their people in other societies banking systems. Nobody will say that of the Arab nations, no matter how much they put in foreign banks, because they have a sense of identity and community value.

 

The ability to generate and pursue valued ideas is what defines  a leader as capable or incapable. A leader who is caught in the snare of budget deficits, foreign exchange deficits, public sector ineffectiveness, bla, bla, bla. Is a public nuisance. The public sector for the most part is effective in maintaining itself as an institution, what is lacking is someone to prod them to render meaningful service to the public in the way the public expects. Needless to say if they had not maintained effectiveness at a limited state they would have ceased to exist, which implies that there is untapped potential that must be locked into and coerced to expand expansively.

 

A leader who sets a society’s problems and shortcomings within an appreciable framework for easy comprehension of the public, acknowledging that these problems are real and then comes out with implementable and well monitored projects which in effect indicates that, well all these problems may exist but the sand and the clay are nature given, now let’s organise the youthful energy to expend their energy in building the most beautiful schools this side of the earth and let us fill the schools and employ digital technology to ensure that the few good teachers we have are able to reach each and every child irrespective of location, while we work on our problems is likely to yield greater benefit for the society than one who allows the leadership machinery to become a public liability, soaking the limited resources available without giving much in return. The former leadership orientation is the mind cut out to salvage the nation out of its woes. The latter is a dormant parasite that feeds the government machinery by denuding the people who are growing leaner by the hour.

 

If the basic provisionary inputs geared towards the needs of a nation are locally available and they ought to be otherwise that group of people would have ceased to exist long before this era. Then it is meaningful to reason (hedged, of course by wider considerations) that a viable, balanced, national economy revolving on its self-generated “need provisions”, exchange and acquisition socio-economic mechanism can be evolved to lower the risk of economic malaise attributed to excessive external resource dependence. If that is conceivable, what then is the problem underlying under-development?

 

(If you are nodding your head, how about generating some of the simple solutions that leader’s can’t work out. They just don’t get it, do they? Do you?).

 

The trick is to try. (Oow please, away with all these hackneyed, borrowed, overused, altogether bleached aphorisms, we are talking about the intricacies of transferring millions of dollars, into a shadow account in Bahamas and have it, through interbank interchange -here the language gets shady and the thoughts woozy, as the acumen deliberate the intricacies of nation management– recorded for retrieval in a ghost account in Lausanne, ha. What trick? The deficits of last year’s budget, feeding the soldiers and procuring vehicles for the police and fire services not to talk about the overdue interest on World Bank loans makes any vain attempt at simplicity intolerable. Lock him away).

 

Personally I demand to be heard.

 

Let’s Re-make Reality

Reality is an illusion believed for so long it has become accepted as a norm. Some parts worked in society and thus were accepted others were enforced by those in control of some social resource, be it employer, doctor, or the priest, whether good or bad. If you agree with this assumption, then read on.

 

Let’s start by stating a few obvious facts.

1. Every life is as worthy as the next life.

2. No two persons are alike.

3. Everything we have on this earth is free.

4. No one should be denied the things that make life worthwhile in each generation.

5. Poverty is a social artefact and can be managed.

6. What we create is how we appreciate God at societal level.

7. No matter how much you dislike politicians you can’t avoid them. (So engage them).

 

(At this juncture – don’t say “I see no turning points”, not yet anyway–

 

Twist Economics

If a manufacturer lays off personnel because its products are loosing market and those laid off have no money then they can’t purchase anything. While the company’s machinery lie idle. Assuming this company makes a product with universal appeal, would it be sensible for the government to intervene to prop up this otherwise resource wastage of both machinery and humans to be staved-off. If the government could sell those products in some far off nation that purchases in dollar or pounds or some convenient currency, the “Common Continental Monetary Unit” for example, that can easily be reconverted, then the government that saves job by allowing, through using the collective resource to sustain production for sustaining employment has generated value by operating outside the box. (Looks like a global currency management system may yet be a reality).

 

Humans lie at the root of all social organisations mediating the social intercourse. Not pieces of valued papers. Proper organisation at a global scale would ensure that what improper resource use and distribution cause would virtually be eliminated.

 

(Some conspiracy theorists propound with wide-eye certainty that the “Big Boys” have a deliberate agenda to use the developing world as cheap labour source. I beg to differ (Why do  I have to beg to differ, when what I am saying by all considerations is right?), the reality of unemployment, strict border regulations and the big “R”, just punches Smith & Wesson .44 holes in that conspiracy. In reality leaders do not have the intellectual capacity to perfect such a system. Even if these “Big Boys” of nations have the means to coordinate such mean activity of enforced under-development they need not to.  The situation being what it is, self-inspired progress has proven to be a much slower happenstance than was believed for some of the developing nations, at the same time effective leadership has enabled others to carve out progressive social organisations of progressive nations).

 

Every society wants to employ its creative intellect to derive values from nature’s free provision and as secondary considerations to be accorded respect among the community of nations. That means that each human society is fiercely battling the limitations of the human intellect and nature’s provision to expand existing attained states. Unless sustained, concerted effort is made to break through the poverty clasp, the developing nations would be on the periphery all the time and no one would bother to assist them in carrying their collective guilt of unfulfilled potentials. In less than a century of record creativity and wealth expansion, the achievers are complaining of donor fatigue. Wake up! Thou sleeping nations.

 

The world wants to be challenged to find people who redefine reality. Turn economics on its head, shake it and make something new. Because it’s principles lack scientific precision, it is a social science that builds its credibility adaptively. That being the case, the fault is not in the economic theory but how it is made relevant to any social grouping. It is a palm reader’s science and as presently conceived, is suffocating Africa in its existing state. Something radical needs to be done with great deliberation that brings meaning to the people in terms of the collective resource being meaningfully employed beyond excuses of budget deficits.

 

The catch-22 is how does one take the motivational speaker’s antics, backed by colourful graphics, and slide shows, not to talk about presentation diagrams, choreographed against some fancy hand wielding and jumps of controlled excitement (doesn’t pay to get carried away) and turn all that rich talk into something useful?

 

How? Simple, be very quiet and enter the workshop of creative intelligence to make something that is so obvious to everyone as making a practical, physical and pragmatic difference. The leader must encourage the emergence of new concepts that function in the interest of the collective. Letting loose the chains of failure wrought in the well known accepted knowledge that is never adequate in meeting practical ends. Following a losing course of over-repeated actions with nothing to show for it and forcing a collective breakout into some very fresh grounds of conceptualising the way things ought to be done and then giving such concepts a try, is the way forward.

 

Those sitting in the seat of leadership  who opine that others should continue trying to make their lives work, one way or another, while they mismanage the best way they can, which means  the worst way a good leader should lead, may have a point. However the point of the opposing side is simply stated. We refuse to allow you to do that, because our lives are lived in the shadow of your failures.

 

Being generic and unspecified has its advantages. That advantage being that, generic espousals, may be prayers of faith or they push the intellect to reframe its operational mood. For some people, socialism, communism or capitalism is inconsequential to the fundamental question of whether, man has a meaningful existence. However, the generic espousals governing these social precepts underlying socio-economic organisation has had profound impacts or how nations have evolved. It is because the larger picture does not exist that is why it is impossible to paint the colours into the non-existing outlines. So the outline has to be scrawled out and the details filled in and not the other way round. The latter in essence is what African nations living on borrowed ideologies are doing and failing at “big time”.  (Couldn’t help myself on that one.)

 

What most people fail to comprehend  is that all of the gold under Ashanti would not, did not and cannot be the basis of the economic strength of the British Pound Sterling until they intelligently (Not intelligence of the kind that is hoody, howdy, hounding and pounding so called anti-regime opposition members and subversives -what are they subverting? One is either a criminal or not; and if you are you face the law-) created an economic system that gave value to that natural deposit or resource. Now, instead of being good copy cats, and picking some valued lessons from those who have travelled the path before them, the incipient despise of the “poor Africans” for one another makes them treasure trading on  the London Bourse, rather than imitating one. -When are they ever gonna learn?-

 

One may conjecture that the situation and the needs define the use to which resources are put; that may very well be true. However, aggressive effort to push the barriers of possibilities is what forces the situation to provide improved frameworks for sustaining human existence. Nation’s that become comfortable with themselves while their people live in filth and  not fighting with aggression on an hourly basis to break through their collective failure are likely to remain in that state for longer than necessary. Far too long if you ask me.

 

There is a contaminating factor that implies that if defects are not quickly detected and eliminated by replacement with more aesthetically pleasing constructs, they will spread their effect on the limited achievements by a part of the society under consideration. A leader who lives in the decent part of the city and forgets that the success or failure of his administration is objectively displayed in its poor and their quarters is not fully awake to the responsibilities of the call to which he or she has assumed command.

 

Some people conjecture that enabling everyone purchasing ability whether from a central fund or from next to perfect employment will lead to inflation. However, reconsidered it becomes obvious that if every earner is limited to a limited sum, then each cannot pay for products priced beyond a certain reasonable level. On the other hand in an unregulated system, the few with abnormal income can purchase at any price and sellers will fix their prices at such high levels even for just a few sales. The latter is the norm that is accepted as market economics and touted as the best approach to development. Obviously some balancing is called for. The larger number of consumer purchasing at reasonable prices is more sustainable than the few distorting the actual average market price. The government that creates pro-social development as the foundation for free market economics may under the circumstances create a more stable society; on the offset will be an economy satisfying the needs of the rich, with  many “beggars” waiting for the leftovers from their table of abundance. This is the nature of the global economics and it is not a model to be replicated in Africa.

 

Don’t Rest on Your Oars

There is no doubt that much has been accomplished. After all, these nations are not altogether basket cases. They have functional educational systems that are just inadequate for the whole population. They have good hospitals that many cannot afford. They have some good roads and many bad ones. They have functional government machinery that needs to keep improving on its effectiveness to be given the popular applause. Everyone knows the quality and capabilities inherent in these institutions. The leaders must rouse all that latent energy and activate it for the progress of the nation in a more aggressive, goal oriented approach. Openness and willingness to consider all aspects of emergent ideas rather than adhering to a stolid operational format passed down is the way a society flourishes. The system must enable a way for those operating outside the box of “accepted” and “normal”, who think and consider reality from odd and unusual perspectives to have a platform for expressing those ideas for consideration. Everything that can be used, ought to be used to add value to the existing attainments for so long as these non-institutional idea elements are not harmful to the society.

 

Attempting to adhere to strict procedures, when the procedures accrue to task execution formats that operate below capacity has limited value to social systems in need of breaking through the walls of imminent failure. The motivation must come from within aspired from without if need be. For the majority of the populace, the nation that fails its people through consistent under-performance may as well be non-existent, were it not for the fact that nothing on a grand scale can be done outside the government, since the leaders are controllers of the collective resource. The people in such systems may strive to attempt to accomplish for themselves what their leader’s who cannot employ the collective resources to achieve on a more economical basis, pushing the society ever further into latent disorganisation. However, sooner or later, the tolerance of the society gives way to dissent and anarchy as the sources of authority by default of focusing on the wrong objectives, pursuing goals that have limited relevance to the collective, by living in the fast fading light of past glory (if those half cooked achievements could be taken to be akin to some grand achievement) neglect to redefine the future in the present.

 

When nations fail to create meaningful existence for the masses, there is a sad twisted justice when desperate men denied the means of employing their strength to add value to society resort as a last resort to plunder without mercy and afterthought, both the innocent and guilty who contribute to the demise of society in the age when all is seemingly possible. (The evidence is obvious enough).

 

The logic of morality suggests that every person ought to live in abodes worthy of humans because the means to attain such measures are within the grasp of all nations. The same logic dictates that every person from an early age should have access to good education irrespective of location or condition. ´Pursuing the same line of argument every person either has the right to be paid from the nation’s coffer to be able to leave a worthy life if the nation refuses to configure every healthy life into productive activity. Then logic breaks down, the nation that cannot create productive forms of engaging its populace it not likely to manage a sustainable closed economy either. For that is what it calls for, a closed economy that is able to create an economic cycle of self sustainability while generating resources from its productive end to acquire those  material needs that the society needs but cannot produce on its own. (It may require leaders of the calibre of Mao tse Tung, to break through the barrier of material poverty with a will of steel irresolute in the face of daunting odds, though developmental drive ought not be so drastic in its manifestation; costing such loss of life for ends that a few years down the road of time will be freely available to be adopted for nation development.) Clearly, it is the existence of a well formulated development plan with emphasis shifting as the situation determines but one that is constantly being implemented.

 

It need be emphasised that conceived within a broader social formulation, basic human needs defined in material provisions ought to have balanced each other in policy formulation to ensure that developments in one factor meant to supplement the other do not become inextricably locked in contra-positions mediated by the sort of leadership mindedness that superficially advocates limited growth and toutes it as a form of development.

 

The irritating progress in nation management approaches which consequently reverses the desired aspiration of nation’s human constituents, leading to failures in enabling effective combination of human energy and  resources available within a demarcated territory to enable all the constituents of that society to access those resources in the most convenient way, having  been replaced by a materialistic construct of partial benefit and all-encompassing  burdensomeness is a mass management concept of the nation that must be eschewed and not given excessive commendation to gain root in the new nations under developmental construction.

 

The nation’s resources exist to yield support for enabling meaningful existence to its populace, the less capable an individual is, the more national resources needed to prop that individual to attain the level of appropriate enablement to have a meaningful existence or contribute in support the society. (Now in the existing system, those who ought to contribute to decision making to enable those in need are yet to have their fill in this orgy of greed. Yet everyone thinks it’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Failing nations are consequent on the management tactics adopted by the leaders and their administrative machinery. A failing system cannot be contained, accepted, tolerated or expected to change without aggressive remediation action. A slum is a slum unless a central body authorises its reconstruction to reflect the dignity of the nation and its perceived value of life. No, it is not the way it is supposed to be. The way it is supposed to be, will be such that the most valuable and fundamental needs are available without hindrance across the board and an effective system of resource management employing everyone without exception sustaining the cycle thus evolved. It is not an impossibility to re-orient existing deplorable states in many parts of the developing nations to be more amiable with the attained collective knowledge. That knowledge represents advances in thought and implementation that imply vast improvements to secure the specie at an altogether higher level of material and physical existence. It’s limited implementation undermines knowledge as an activity form that in understanding the existing defines the existing state and at some levels of human activity presages the future.

 

In any state of human socio-politico-economic arrangement where individual material constructs take precedence over the collective human spirit, these constructs are intended to serve individual needs with little consideration for the collective and by so doing become ends that define a questionable social system, it can be assured that there would not be any meaningful progress, even if it thus seem so, since the larger part of the human intellect is spent competing over trivialities that barely outlast a life time and in the passage of time, when reviewed were not worth the loss and suffering such short sighted thinking engendered within the social whole, since their contribution to the collective has been marginal and inadequately impacting to define a future for the nation.

 

No matter how advanced the knowledge accumulated by a society, a social organisational process that cheats itself from realising its full potentials because halfway through its development those in position to broaden its scope find  themselves enticed to curtailing its full spread effect because it gives some a position of advantage from which to ascertain their failure and in-capabilities  as leaders, is a failure of effective social arrangement that administers in the interest of the collective. These are the leaders exulting in the partiality of full community fulfilment, who in their own eyes, are set far above the middling, muddy, mess of the masses, waiting for the leadership to raise them from their mud baths of lack and want. It goes  without much deliberation that such an approach is an exercise of unfulfilled ends, since it leaves in its stead of high development an excess of misery that is self condemnatory and inexcusable. In other  words, it is knowledge wasted in pursuit of partial ends with  high instability, with an inherent tendency to spark off anarchic social dissolution as  social systems evolve  to marginalise and curtail individual talents denied the appropriate social setting to be disciplined to yield individual satisfaction and value for the society.

 

When people in any society over time come to the realisation that the leaders of a society have no intentions of balancing the social equilibrium and continues to selectively manipulate leadership role occupants to perpetuate partial development, as is the case in Africa, there certainly will come a time when those in the suppressed grouping, to whom their collective inheritance does not yield the required benefits for, will react against the injustice that has taken root with a finality that wipes out the achievements and evidence of all that reminds them of the injustice of poor leadership.

 

This is not necessarily an urging to anarchy but it is a fact of human nature; which basically is to say that all humans will do anything to ensure fair play in their social milieu and will burn with a slow fury, exercising a patience that will be the envy of a tortoise and in one cataclysmic “overture of ode to failure” bring the  house down, with little regard for the consequences of their act. Simply, because desperation begets desperate acts and people who have decided that they have nothing to lose really spit on the objects of their torment not seeking to inherit them but to eradicate them from the surface of the earth. On the other hand the achievements in  one segment of the social collective under the appropriate leadership will spread to everyone else, thus is social stability enabled and the nation comes into its own as its achievements become the collective’s pride.

 

Under normal circumstances one would say that finding existence on a piece of the earth provides enough even ground for each individual to compete to define life quality in the limited resource pool available. To a limited extent that does make sense, however not all the way through the reasoning process. The unrestrained and unmediated competition to ensure survival led to tribes, chiefdoms and kingdoms, with the strong leader organising powerful and strong armies as the case may be to protect their interest and take forcibly from others. The nation creates expectations, noble, human expectations that improperly understood may lead to long years of despair as the centre collapses and lacking a source of direction pockets of vicious anger reigns spreading the very opposite of what half-baked, poorly conceived truisms of organised settings had created the conditions for manifesting. These observations are still relevant given that nations are orienting towards a class system arising from preference for capitalist principles of social organisation without the adequate basis of a well grounded foundation of state provision to bulwark the capitalist enthusiasm. The idea (capitalism and open market policies) has been caught in its middle stages of evolvement in Africa, whereas at its source of emergence, it was preceded and continues to be balanced by high central investment (central investment refers to a public projects with intent to serve the public) in those sectors of the economic that do not yield immediate profit, these social investments are the basis upon which solely commercial endeavour finds stability of sustenance.

 

Misconceived in the African context, all the sectors where the nation’s needs have not been fulfilled are being cast into the arms of some non-existent private sector investor group to resolve. Who in their right minds will invest in slum community? However, if the slum community is eradicated and replaced by a monetised and consumer ready populace, then, the profit makers will happily come to set up shop to harvest. (The nation needless to say makes a tidy return in taxes). These are primary awarenesses that ought to permeate the body politic. The torturing question thus is, what is preventing the leaders from exercising the leadership role in the desired direction? (Lest you’ve not caught on this is the refrain question. You sing it every time some ugly aspect of the African setting jolts your consciousness and makes you bow your head in shame; murmuring “such a divine land, such disappointing leaders!” -The actions that accrue on leadership actions will change the refrain-. The Libyans will certainly not sing that refrain because their leader leads the country not wasting time padding his pension fund while his people swelter in poverty, now that is a good leader.)

 

Pattern Matching

The developing world is ensnared in a deception of misunderstood underpinnings of Western civilisation, which is to say that Governments must put the social artefacts of monetary instrument above the people. The social artefacts are meant to support the social system, what is balanced or unbalanced is not some bank deposit or monetary reserve but the debt owed to the society in terms of projects in-conceived and where conceived delayed in being implemented. If the collective of intellectually gifted but implementation-challenged African leadership do not rally round to put their collective resources to forcefully implement a collaborative  continental economic system, then their days in dust are far from over. Whoever that leads this decadence with pride must reconsider their self-perception.

 

These are not meant to be harsh criticisms, which comes cheap anyway (more so if one has reason to believe that all the world’s hardships takes its source from some overworked bureaucrat trying his best to make a nation’s dream come true without much success) but an emphasis of a need to reconsider the basis upon which these nations are building their future. Are these nations building firm foundations upon the firm grounds of investing in people as the future of the nation or building sand castles in shallow beach waters of imitating systems they have only perceived from a distant and learnt a few lessons from without taking into consideration all the defects in such systems? In this question lies the basis for a request for reconsideration of the norm of leadership. More than a  few persons would question the viability of existing approaches to leading African nations as a way out for those locked in states of total deprivation and want.

 

When one imputes that Africa’s leader’s are not “cutting  it”, at the level required, it  is not meant as a personal criticism on any individual per  se, it is a reflection on the outcome  of  the whole nation governing process that with passing years seem to be living far too many behind in the development upgrading process. That is where the problem lies, not the individual leader per se. If some island nations like Cuba, abandoned by the economic, intellectual and prime global military power house, the USA, could still manage to achieve literacy  levels of 97% plus, then what is the problem with  Africa, where for lack of anything to do the least the governments could do will be to school the nation? At least educated labour could fetch higher prices on the global labour market, if it comes to that. As to why it should come to that and it has come to that is another indictment of ineffectiveness of leaders who have failed totally. In a place where so much has to be done, it is a sad reflection of the times that many Africans have to depart to live under odious circumstances in other places, wasting all that they could contribute to their societies in places where least appreciated, because Africa’s leaders cannot orient resource management to plan decent communities with self sustaining economic cycles of expanding adequacy. What a shame!

 

A nation, whose leaders are not sensitised to the importance of its human resources and their intellectual resource that needs to be cultivated, nurtured and pampered to yield results for its future sustainability has not yet gotten off the starting blocks of nation building. The strength of the nation is in its subjects, a nation with high numbers of poorly educated people is not going to get far. A large number is an asset but only a potential asset. The people are the essence around which all forms of commercialism evolve, which commercialism is the fuel driving significant aspects of the growth of development in material defined states of human existence. However, improvements in the quality of existence of the people under a nation’s geographical demarcation can and does occur outside purely commercial reasons.

 

That preparatory non-commercial oriented development serves as a foundation upon which purely commercial oriented development occurs and is sustained. (For shouting out aloud!)The assumption that development must occur at some slow pace is nonsensical for the simple reason that, development is a phase phenomena. The circumstances and artefacts defining life quality and activities in any generation may become totally outmoded and inapplicable in another generation if new forms have gained currency and are considered more effective employment to ensure desired life quality by the masses. In which sense where will the assumption of gradualism lead, to a non-existent higher stage of an outmoded and inapplicable technological based social organisation or what? Nations would have to make social jumps and manage to integrate at a more effective level of social organisation based on the attained knowledge base and strive and progress from those new levels or remain in a “mish-mash” of individual driven adoption of self–supportive technology based development aids that lack wider system integration and thus yield only partial and limited benefit to the systemic whole. Imagine that only five out of a student population of 800 have daily access to computers that could improve ease of knowledge development -maybe not a very good example, but it will do– but are unable to share files with the rest. Even the degree to which that developmental tool would have been of use to that student body is severely curtailed for lack of effective integration at wide social system level; The list continues. The solution in our little example is not by providing every one with a computer (though that is the ideal), it is a social management issue of how to ensure ease of access to all. How that is physically manifested as an implementation is the task of leadership.

 

With time, certainly there is a tendency for the systemic whole to move upwards, in terms of quality of life as compared to an earlier level of existence. However, certain essential indicators are lacking that the societies have formulated the key developmental frameworks that ensures that in the present adequate provisions have been made to be facilitated with time to encompass those who presently are living at the extremities of society as social detritus -there is no other meaningful comparison, for those who have no access to standard education, live in shacks close in the worst environments conceivable in the sprawling slums-. Presently, there are no widely expressed solutions projected as the goal of nation eradication of poverty and material denial. What is gaining currency is “empty capitalism”. There is nothing wrong with facilitating the ease of economic and commercial interaction across any social format, however, that is a partial solution to a greater problem yet unresolved´.

 

What’s to be done ?

What Africa needs are visionary leader’s with “gigantic egos” in the likeness of Kwame Nkrumah, Houphoet Boigny, Khadafi and Haile Selasie, without the negative traits. Leaders who can dream and act on their dreams of making the best that the times can enable with their unique heritage and its populace. Integrating into the global society, such leaders must seek to expand the scope of possibilities not necessarily to prove anything but to make the best use of the resources of the continent. If the people are not pushed as a whole to the ege of knowledge, the potential for making optimum use of the collective resources at any point in time will be below capacity.

 

The rest of humanity is ever eager to see the “sleeping giant” wake up and  offer another place for the species to play or just roll over and die and when their bones are bleached, to come over and see what can be redeemed. Any fear that there is a conspiracy to under-develop Africa is built on vague idiocy. The world is ever ready to employ its collective resources to assist those who want to be assisted. A part of that assistance implies the bringing of pressure to eject complacency of non-supportive aspects of geo-politics as exercised by the developed nations. The driving force of the world is creativity and progress. Those who fall behind have nothing of interest to offer. Those who present themselves as grounds for expanding the existing levels of attained growth, even if they have nothing to contribute immediately enable the attained knowledge of others to find grounds for implementation. Thus, policies that hinder easy access to the means of global progress ought to be eschewed and cause and reason given for those who have the means to engage in assisted development with those in need of development assistance be made ever stronger with all the enticements of unexpected returns such mutual engagement could yield. (while somnolent leader’s continue just where they have always been; on eroding grounds).

 

The present breeds of leaders are not forward thinking for the most part. They are caught up in petty border disputes and fanning conflicts of poverty, adulating in such distasteful accolades as fighting Africa’s first world war, engaging in ethnic discrimination that fan internal strife. There is no conflict that could not have been defused by capable leaders, with the exception of external aggression, to date these have been the least and most easily resolved of Africa’s primitive wars. Instead of building dual language French-English schools, managed by the missionaries or any group worthy of offering serious education, questionable leaderships are wasting scarce resources putting up, razor wires to separate the nations. (Is it some kind of retro Wild West or what?). Instead of developing towns like Cape Coast (pick your example) to be the West African centre of secondary and tertiary education, they are busy admiring the slave castles, while missing the lessons indicated: “the bold and the fearless carry the day”. Who is going to implement these ideas if the leader’s do not put their shoulders to the task and think of ingenious ways of expanding the scope of activity schemes within which value is derived in their societies?

 

The whole business of depending on the West for advise is meaningless if that advise thus not fit into an existing framework of conceived development but rather sets the pattern worsening the disjoint in social conceptualisation of nation building and management. If the nations still feel incapable of steering their affairs then they should just appoint Post-colonial governors and make a short shrift of a long story. Admitting that they are incapable of managing or mismanaging their affairs as the case may be. This is a continent that is far too fond of uncompleted projects for comfort. Everything has to be done half way. Housing projects without pavements; pavements in decaying parts of the city that need to be rebuilt from ground-up. Feeder roads in the bushes that are eroded before they are completed and one keeps wondering why not make that added effort to have a well done job.

 

It seems, at times as though a vice has been clasped upon the minds of the educated men and women of Africa, a forcible crunch that causes leaders to loose their senses of appropriateness with regards to their earthly responsibilities to their heritage as path definers for a people as soon as they are placed in positions of national responsibility. (Some people tend to explain this disregard for the common cause as the awareness that one has, to secure one’s personal interest, first and foremost, before focusing on building a nation. But that assumption is nothing short of incompetence in devotion to leadership role responsibility. The desired mental framework would rather be that the leader or one who is occupying the position of leadership would work to establish a social framework where the possibility of the people lacking their basic need fulfilments are eradicated. It is those who have that collective inclusion that have been able to dedicate themselves to building great nation systems. However, one wonders, how come that, that “clamping vice” does not prevent them from individual pursuit of the things that are pleasing to the heart. As they with deliberate thoroughness nourish their greed at the expense of the people over whom they are supposed to exercise visionary leadership.

 

The society demands that beauty be executed in the public medium and public projects reflect the best in aesthetic attainment of the taste of the nation. From the least to the greatest, only then will Africans begin to enter the community of civilised humans, sharing, as it were, that sense of accomplishment. Nothing short of highest attainments on the continent is required to lift the image of the people. This is the birthplace of humanity, the centre of the world, the origin of things wonderful, the most diverse collection of people, cultures and languages that the Creator ever assembled, which in our days has been for far too long an eyesore that is a constant irritation of wasted wealth on a non-discerning people. 

 

This place needs great leaders attuned to their essence of who they are, to the need to redeem themselves from their own failures. Re-building nations of glorious acclamation that dignify the human spirit.  Not because others have done it but because it is possible to do it and for the sake of the people who desire it. Let new thoughts blaze the path to the new era; thoughts that are all inclusive that does not leave a few in despair but by including all, expand the boundaries of possibilities. These are the mental frameworks within which great nations arise as bold men embark on the seemingly impossible task of redefining meaning from the ashes of the existing meaningful.

 

Under crisis, determination and a refusal to accept the status quo has a propensity to shift the dimensional expression of reality projecting men unto higher planes of achievement and enduring conquest. Despair has a positive side of forcing men to cast aside the burden with a firmness that leads to innovative reinventions of reality, yet it requires a formidable leadership capacity to steer this individual aggregation of collective desire to become potent energy to be employed for the collective growth. The despair of Africans is amassing to that point, if delay in changing the existing state is sustained the inevitable outburst will be unimaginable, on the other hand if change occurs in the wake of the awareness of the inadequacies inherent in existing states, it just might be possible to salvage the nations as they re-position their leadership mentalities to take advantage of the little beginnings made so far as the basis for continuation.

 

The various divisions in any society are not obstacles to development effort if managed properly. There is no crisis that cannot be resolved with the interest of the nation and people put first that would not hold the peace over long periods. People irrespective of their locations in the social segmentation would give a little for the collective if the nation is seen as being led by visionaries’ intent on achieving for the people.

 

In answering the question, what needs to be done then, there is the need to think outside the box of accepted norms and diverge creatively in nation management expanding the viability of government projects to encompass a wider number of the social whole. In some instances, these actions will be nothing more than a reinvention of the past and outright patterning of what exists elsewhere. In other instances, it will require a departure from what has been successful elsewhere but cannot be implemented in the location under consideration.

 

Every community in the nation deserves to be well planned, well constructed and self-supportive as employed and active constituents in meaningful productive engagement. The communities must have good quality schools and educational institutions, the appropriate social services, workplaces configured to sustain  the  community, from processing, manufacturing through to supportive service activities. Elimination of redundant waste of human labour in non-viable and limited beneficial forms of human employment must be strictly enforced. This means that not only must humans be fitted into employment as a social provision but self-motivated activities that have limited benefit to the individual and society ought to be curtailed (of course private time is exempt from this consideration). This is simply because human intellect, energy and input in running a well-balanced community is far too scarce to waste. The concept of balance must be emphasised, good work output can only come from a well rested labour force. Better limited hours of quality work than many hours of waste doddering over allotted tasks just to meet some poorly configured time imposition. The merit of a task is in its goal defined approximation in regulated instalments.

 

These are ideas that seem to controlling in one sense or to perfect, but it is the basis upon which partial use is made of human resources in limited activities in most nation systems. Extending it to cover the collective is not only an overall upgrade in the social consciousness of the value opf its collective human resource, but it is also the overall expansion of the social capability of the society under consideration to make maximum use of its social resource at a high end of productivity.

 

A bad system can be sustained over long periods of time but inevitably the changes that were postponed at earlier times before the damage had exacted more than necessary high cost would have to be implemented if accumulated defects are not to sink the system. One way or another, the nation would have to plan and construct all its communities, provide employment as a social provision to make life meaningful (irrespective of some “international market dictates”. Which dictates are secondary considerations in a self-sustaining economy), build schools that uplift the human spirit and implement whatever the society decides must be available to all without constraints to make life worth living.

 

The more these are attained in all communities,  irrespective of location, the less the pressure to move en-mass to one ideal location thus is balance engendered and resources not overburdened in those ideal locations. These actions no matter how long postponed would have to be perfectly rendered, if any society is to have long term viability. In the absence of that, any society may attain high standards in one segment and be subjected to constant reminders of its overall inadequacies by those left outside the loop  until the day it all comes crashing down.

 

The type of nation development that thrives on a part of the comfortable rich, unfairly employing the collective resource to establish and nurture a class system where the rich don’t care for the welfare of the poor is a decadent moral injustice that spites the dignity of human nature and by its very nature encourages a latent, muted, fight of greed where those positioned to manage the resources of the collective, use their positions to shore their individual interests -stand points- with but scant regard for the deprived while pandering to the never satiated taste of the favours of the well to do to retain their social positioning.

 

Meanwhile one would assume that those who have been favoured by the resources of the collective would use their position to change the state of life quality of the marginal in society. This is a path to damnation. Africa has always been a community-based agro-traditional society until the apple of material greed turned the spirit of communalism into a rat fight for material accumulation. (I may be wrong on this score, but the supportive agro-based traditional society finds no reflection at the higher echelons of leadership, where selfishness and unimaginable lack of focus on the poor and deprived at the extremities of societies is the modus operandi of leadership;  terrible, just terrible).

 

It is a sad reflection of what is touted as civility that just because one person has been favoured by circumstances to manage the collective resources and by dint of that duty, (mostly performing below expectation, with more than fair self-allocation of rewards), suddenly society would find its human elements, split between those who have and those who don’t have, with these separations set against each other as classes; Classes of what? Variations between individual in any society is not per se an issue, indeed, society desires such variations and creates heroes to assuage this social inclination. However, it often the case that the lesser favoured often have been put into the position of questioning the moral justice of such disparities with no improvement in sight.

 

The nation is like a boat on the sea of time, in the end, either everyone behaves properly and the boat takes the collective somewhere, or some selfish oaf (pardon the stress on those who don’t get it) sets fire on the wooden bottoms to warm himself rather than share the heat of all huddling together (because such persons have been gifted with this sense of assuming that their needs supersede those of the others) and in burning the bottom, sink the ‘ol bucket. (Why does  the philosophy of that famous Jamaican troubadour come to mind?).

 

Common folks singing the pains of the suffering masses while the leaders continue  along the known paths leading nowhere. While, all the time power belongs to the masses and one day they will call “arrogance” to account for its misjudgements and inadequacies.

 

For the majority there is nothing particularly wrong for leaders being well rewarded for a job well done. However, it is worrisome when leaders who are by all accounts well remunerated fail in discharging to the satisfaction of the public, who bears the burden of their upkeep, their expected duties and worse still not finding anything wrong in maintaining a failing course. (Some would have preferred to be writing a script along the lines of the “Africa: Star of the New Millennium”, rather than having to deplore unceasing failure, no matter how conceived. As it were the black star could not get any blacker -pun intended-).

 

(We rave not and critique ourselves with intensity, so that our failures become a bold print on the collective conscience that forces a course of change).

 

Social oriented development demands extensive resources to build such a system. In some sense this seems daunting, but on the offset is the simple question, if your nation or continent were to be the only habited ones or the most advanced who would you be waiting for to improve life quality for the people once the means of facilitating those improvements exist? No one, one may likely answer. In that sense, there is no point waiting for anyone in this setting and this situation either.

 

On the other hand, unlike the situation of being the “lone ranger” building a township, there are many willing hands ready to assist in this simple but wrongly perceived as impossible task. If a government cannot conceive through mass participation in organising the human resources available to it to establish a self contained economy then there is something seriously at fault with the government machinery.

 

A self contained economy is one organised to generate employment and provide the basic needs of the society within the constructs of existing resources. In a tropical setting where agricultural production is more an issue of land management than impossible due to geographical imposition of location and season mediated limitations, this alone about takes care of the most important product element of the contained economy. Brushing-up the crude practices to improve the quality of the task by secondary and tertiary processing and in the process generating the manufacturing organisations that add quality to what is essentially an ancient practice does not require any specially creative intelligence. It is in these sectors that governments can create work and make “profit” as they open up the continent for private sector investment while building the societies capable of supporting the commercialism of private sector investment.

 

Still the question of how to finance such a project on local monetary resources without sending the economy into a tail spin remains unresolved. Well, for the most part the economy is already in a tail spin where the over-exaggerated imbalance of the foreign exchange value rate against local currencies have caused lopsidedness in the economy. The extent of dependency on exports to satisfy basic needs consumption in a nation will determine the extent of ease of managing a contained economy to facilitate development. One can take a simple analytic view of what constitutes the breakdown multiplied by the millions to constitute complexity, at least an important example is a typical house in Africa, about 90% of the materials used in housing construction are locally derived, the furniture and the materials involved in its manufacture can easily be 100% local resource based. 100% of the food consumed can be from local resources, soap, toiletries, clothing, utensils and other bric-a-bracs can all be 100% locally resourced, the TV, radio and computers can, if locally manufactured have 45% of local content. In effect the degree to which the daily needs of the average human, living  a normal, healthy life is  dependent on external resourced inputs is at a level low enough to be contained without much difficulty under local resource management approaches. - Where resources refers to human and material alike-

 

Without overstating the obvious, the task of leaders is how to organise, to employ for desired ends through compatible combination, the natural material resources, the energy and minds of a nation supported by machinery to rebuild the physical environment within which growth can progress along the desired and expected lines. By having a strong self-contained internal economy, a nation is best poised to generate resources sufficing for its internal needs and manufacture high quality products for external markets. While excessively focusing on external trading without deliberate efforts made at internally self-contained economies will most likely cause a diversion of resources in one direction without adequate attention being given to that which has no immediate profit implied but cannot under any circumstances be postponed. The government is a manager of the collective resource for the improvement of life quality of the nation and not an exporter of raw materials first and foremost. This reversal of priorities has only led to increasing frustration, given that  the return improvements in life quality is never happening and is not likely to happen. All the nations who have well developed socio-economic infrastructure attempted to and successfully developed those infrastructures by focusing on easily available resources while pushing the barriers of the presciently attained.

 

Where then is the obligation to the welfare of the nations’ poor when export of the collective resource serves only to run the government machinery leaving millions who are equally justified to enjoy the largesse of state to fare without any form of support to assist them to help themselves to find sustenance? What options are open to these desperate humans who have been neglected by poor leadership actions? To know what to do to address the failures of  developing nations, leaders must ask themselves questions of these kinds on a daily basis, lest they lose direction of purpose in meaningless talk -meaningless to the suffering masses who find it impossible to configure how the organising of labour requires foreign exchange to create well planned communities, to process local biscuits in large employment generation factories with little environmental damaging potentials etc, etc, etc– of budget deficits. The only budget that is unbalanced and has remained unbalanced for far too long is the human budget that has not been properly accounted for by the leaders to their anticipating public. Leader’s whose lack of consideration for the suffering masses, the unemployed youths, the poorly and often uneducated minds, the adults engaged in menial tasks of little import to their mental growth, national productivity have become in consequence a total waste of valuable resources.

 

The attained knowledge requires a new framework for evaluating and developing human worthiness, failure to acknowledge the need for effective engagement of this new framework for human evaluation and perception will only permit the continuing waste of viable resources that lack a foundation from which to project their incipient talents as viable national asset.

 

Education

(If, for example, 500 adults are employed to sweep the city streets; a job that would have been accomplished in no time by a street sweeper, under what circumstances can an administrative body justify such waste of labour? They can, by giving the reason of social employment that creates low level tasks that would otherwise be taken over by machinery; they could explain away their inadequacy of labour use by positing that mechanical streets weepers cannot sweep these streets; they can actually have no reasonable explanation. Of the myriad of action choices any nation can make, the reason underlying those actions is the vision that directs choice of action. Without putting highest value on the value of each and every life, a nation would prefer to have uneducated street sweeping adults rather than a nation of 99% college educated adults who can be exported as human resources to teach their less favoured kin elsewhere or better still design better streets weepers. Such a nation will configure universal, high level education as impossible because by narrowing access to the higher levels of education, the few who gain entrance gain social status. Such poorly conceived misconceptions of social stratification undermine any effort to seek for and identify the latent intellectual and creative talents hiding in obscure corners of the society. - Talents that take a long period of time to ripen and bud in a flowery outpouring of creative output-

 

The development exponential growth in system resource use optimisation naturally follows increments in the increments in educated persons a nation has developed. Education itself, being nothing more than a formally conceived approach to carry forward the decipher-ations of nature and society that a people have accumulated through time. The more educated persons a nation has , the less the simpler factors that undermine national stability becoming more dominant; given that simple action choices that would otherwise have  been obscure become easily evident to the opened minds of the collective or masses who through education have gained easy comprehension.

 

Put into the proper perspective, life is a simple process that ought not be set above what it actually is. The over focusing on materially defined social organisation often seen in its competitive drive to acquire the “tree twigs” to make the “breeding nest” comfortable, underplays the actual value of life in its awesome complexity in each and every form. A grand act of perfect composition resonating in perfect rhythm with the unique physical setting in which it has been set.

 

By overlooking this aspect of  life and making trivial of the complexity of creation achieved in each individual life as complexly perfected bio-chemical mechanism of wondrous proportions, the wonder of which increases, the wider the scope of knowledge expands, by not giving each individual life the value it deserves, by giving over cognisance to the petty material artefacts, where poor resource distribution creates artificial lacks, by compromising human dignity through contrivances of imperfection perfected through years of tolerated less than visionary thinking socially dependent means for humans to have meaningful existence and then creating the circumstances that deny many access to those social contrivances, humanity, irrespective of where it finds physical expression, has been incapable of appreciating the value of human life. If life were seen for what it is worth, not even a single life will be allowed to go to waste, to perish for that which is easily made available. Thus, by all considerations, humans as a specie are far from attaining the heights of their intellectual engagement that indicate intelligence. Despite what they have been able to attain so far, much remains to be developed in terms of developing the moral intellect of the human being as specie. A significant streak of untamed savagery clouds the collective mind of the specie.

 

By developing complexity at a lower level of intellectual capacity, the human collective improves on states of inefficiency. Developing complexity at lower levels of attainment, where horizontal expansion at the same level is misconceived as vertical growth simple means improving on lower levels of attainment where higher levels leading to more desirable circumstances are approximated under the facilitation of the appropriate circumstances. This is mainly the reason why just about everyone accepts that the monetary economy is a necessary means to an end but it is not sufficient for resolving the human dilemma. Man as it were has become enamoured with the exclusivity of materialism, excluding many from its progress and excluding itself from vertical intellectual development at the social organisational dimension. 

 

The level of conceptualisation of social organisation that is all inclusive may usher the specie collective a “step up” the ladder of development. Even then many more steps remain to be clambered before the perfection of attainment where “everyone loves the other as self and in loving God above all things” give cognisance of the worthiness of  his handiworks. (Religion and society are intertwined; anyone who makes the sad mistake of thinking that the underlying structure of moral justification is removed from the society it defines has an understanding far removed from reality).

 

African leaders have logged onto the “development train” at a level where it is far from perfect and instead of picking its core points and applying it adaptively, with an insight to improve upon it radically, find themselves intricately caught in its failings and have failed even, pathetically, one may say, at implementing at lower levels of conceptualisation, a concept that has adequate practical manifestation, being a gradualism of improvements through time rather than a sudden mythical happenstance.

 

Defragment

The problem it need be reiterated is not “money”, but how to put the resources available to developmental use, while designing a stable means of facilitating the exchange relationship underlying human interaction within a designated community. Thus, while effort needs to be focused on building the structures upon which future progress can be facilitated, existing nation systems are, for simple but equally complex reasons cornered into positions of defending eroding positional stance with every effort being put into defending “a fast eroding coastal land strip while the mainland’s remain unconsidered for developmental exploitation”.

 

Better to let go where fighting to evolve growth is further waste of resources and begin to configure how to use the lessons learnt therein to make better use of the vast unexplored potentials, untouched and running to waste on the basis of failing configurations of social construction of reality. Reality is varying depending on the perspective from which perceived. There is the need to assume another stance to review former states and redefine meaning in new perspectives in similar settings. By simple posing the question “Could this be done another way?” And coming with all the possible ways that it could be done with much better results, complexity of low achievement would be deconstructed to a series of simple acts systematically pursued with the end attainments visible to judge its outcome.

 

Many governments seem averse to the notion of creating employment for employment sake but if the governments do not make this social investments who will be able to afford the products at enough aggregate mass to justify investment in a developing nation? The economic empowerment of a nation’s populace will inevitably be incidental on some service rendered to the society. Given that primary employment activities have about reached saturation point and cannot absorb any more labour and increasing mechanisation keeps lowering the number of people who can seek employment in these agro-traditional employment sectors. Government has no choice but to expand the scope of viable social engagement for the individual and provide them with the pecuniary reward for them to have meaningful existence. Rather than over-emphasising welfare and other forms of allowance, each mind should be targeted for employment in some form of productivity with immediate or latent benefit to the society. A nation that cannot configure effective and optimum utilisation of its human resources, acquiescing to admit as unemployable a significant portion of its human constituent when there is so much to do in terms of developing the nation, has eschewed local wisdom to pursue meaningless education.

 

To make the obvious ever so simple, the Army is a typical example of how a well organised community can be contrived for social ends. An efficient army outside its imported weapons or in the case of China, the USA and the former Soviet Union, totally homemade, is a self-sufficiency, independent of outside dependence at the best of circumstances and in its perfect organisation is able to produce its own victuals. That is the model that should be an example but not a basis for reorganising self-contained, ordered existence around self modulated resources, while generating excess resources for export to other societies. There are segments of society that are operating at required and desired levels of adequacy, at the same time many segments of the nation are desperately in need of effective integration into some well orchestrated and predictable socio-economic milieu where they can sustainably be productive elements of society, living worthy and dignified life’s commensurate with the dictates of the times.

 

In terms of job creation, it is easy to see that the failure of the leaders has merely been due to complacency rather than imposed system limitations of areas to exploit and explore to expand the existing field of employment avenues and job creation possibilities.

 

For instance, large tracts of ocean bordering nations have extensive dried lagoon basins that could be sea water fed and turned into natural fish breeding and growing grounds to create extensive secondary and tertiary processing industries around the raw material of fish and for direct national and export consumption. Though fish farming had gained extensive currency all over the world, a simple process of taking advantage of nature’s provisions by complementing it with a little engineering would have created a fairly sizeable productive venture. A venture that has been left while the seas yield ever lower fish harvest. That these easy to convert resources have lain fallow due to lack of idea activation to encapsulate wider horizons of feasible implementation in nation development these many years, is the lack of desire to aggressively change the obvious patterns of operation for innovative idea generation. A lack that takes its source from government’s unwillingness to invest the collective resources of the nation in the people. Failures in prior government projects and industrial efforts were mainly due to mismanagement and improper responsibility structures that if they were existent ought to have been rigidly enforced, such that a project pays for its investment and become a self-sustainable industrial entity. The middle part was left poorly resolved and unimplemented. Privatisation of state industries is the later part, which is not a substitution for the basis for the engagement of government in industrialisation and business development in the interest of the populace.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg of unexplored means of generating employment not seriously tackled for proper and systematic organisation for effective operational realisation by the leaders while governments keep waiting for “employment manna” to fall from -well not Heaven, since Heaven has provided its share on this particular score– who knows where.

 

The leader’s have to convert their command positions into effective organising stands to mobilise labour and finance the initial investment that lies beyond the individual and create value, which is all evident, covered by a thin veneer of dust and lack of activation beyond the box of normal and known ways of doing things. There are no known ways of doing things other than what gains currency over time with its effective implementation, from a beginning of non-existence become the mode for engagement and activity fulfilment.

 

Many of what will pass as “new industries” may very well be seen as improvements through mechanisation and more ordered task allocation under changed circumstances that add a little sophistication to make prior-ily existing activity schemes more appealing. In other words polishing traditional activities to absorb increased personnel while at the same improving productivity efficiency through adoption of less labour intensive technology, some of which may very well be simple and easy to produce locally is the mystery of industrialisation. The aim of industrialisation should be to increase self-dependency at levels of system need productivity to sustain contained economy that by its encompassing extent of self-dependency assumes a robusity capable of increasing internal overall value for each individual life without tilting the system towards imbalance.

 

The most sustainable industries are those that relate closely to the survival of the community under consideration. These are the areas where improvements are likely to extend the range of possibilities and even where product expansion constrained will be supported over the long term. As the range of human technology mediated needs expand to include ever wider range of electronic boxes in one form or another, these become closely linked to the maintenance of meaningful daily existence, thus these are areas where every community ought to invest its resources to have production units and attempt to innovate from an assumed point of technology attained at acquisition. What these means of course to the discerning reader, is obviously that governments would have to be active participants in making direct investments in the industrialisation process irrespective of how government participation in business is conceived and interpreted in the light of the times.

 

The efficient organisation of any society anchors its degree of effectiveness in how well integrated its leadership action fuses the individual pursuing self interests into a supportive framework of interlaced dependency of all beneficial central administrative leadership action framework, that enables the individual to reap the benefits of the collective effort by a contributory factor in eliciting the fulfilment of that action.

 

A nation, under good leadership management engenders a sense of belonging to a special grouping of humans, who optimise their capabilities to extend the human essence (nothing complex here; they maximise their consumption capacities and justify it by saying, “they work hard, they play hard” and who can deny them the enjoyment of the fruits of their effort). However where the leaders do not expand their visionary capacities and confine themselves to polishing up the same old hackneyed and overdone procedures of conduct and performance, decadence sets in and robs the populace of any sense of worthiness of belonging. This is not because the people are  not desirous of putting in hard effort to yield desired end states, but the “pointer individual” or leader has lost the trail with the end result of a long wandering in the nether regions of inconsequence and shoe string budget imbalances. Which is where the poor of Africa find themselves presently. Large seas of raging poverty dotted by pittances of wealth and the seas are rising and would soon swarm the islands.

 

The assumption that some part of the collective has to be without while some have overabundance may have support in some segments of society but the leader should seek to provide the supportive basis upon which the elimination of unnecessary suffering and deprivation can be eliminated through effective collective resource management, creating in the consequence of that achievement a balance zone that evens the wide disparity in social polarities without friction generation. The only way the leader can do this is to expand the scope of public services that offer common resource usage covering the basic necessities of daily existence and meaningful life quality. (This goes contrary to the present trend to dispose of everything that is communal owned to the private sector. Maybe a more appropriate response would have been to dispose of those industries owned on behalf of the nation by government that the government can transfer to the private sector ownership without bringing to a halt government’s participation as initial investor in strategic industrialisation drive).

 

Weaving the Thread of Unity through Accomplishment

(Grandma’s multicolour, multi fabric quilt)

 

For a multi-culture, multi-religion, multi-tribal, multi-language society, all of whom are struggling to find meaningful existence by similar medium from similar resource base, with unimaginable individual drive in restricted circumstances, the aggregation of interests at known interfaces to further one’s interest in a poorly managed setting is inevitable and can have positive and negative effects on the systemic whole. However the aggregation at a commonly defined interest for improving one’s stance is a fundamental nature of the unavoidable social imposition of just about any large scale human effort.

 

The diversity of expressions characteristic of humans that define multiplicity has inherent advantages that could be harnessed to promote national interest. In most instances the awareness permeates the general public that everyone is  in the same boat, sinking that boat sinks all. Thus efforts at creating the basis for reducing assumed differences have not been difficult to be successfully negotiated. That effort of creating common grounds for mutual participation in all-benefiting effort at the individual level underlies the approach whereby by reducing the areas where competitive pressures in pursuit of common resources is minimised, the collective is led to a level of social organisation occasioned by less disparate desperate scattering of energy in pursuit of trivialities.

 

Given that one way or the other humans must have a place to live, by extensive provision of high quality housing through the common resource base, the leader eliminates a basis for widening the struggle for meaningful existence by eliminating such core and basic nees through provision from a centrally designated source. If a means exist for orderly acquisition of the basic human needs for meaningful existence mediated by the national government, then the provision of those needs free energy to be employed in higher intellectual competitive efforts. Thus, the visionary leader by creative investment provides a means for meeting the basic desires of the people while providing a platform for long term, regular earnings and replenishment of the state’s coffers. It is a seemingly huge imposition that requires agile implementation strategy but in the absence of which society overall, remains a raggedly dispersion of unfulfilled aspirations, scattered in a disorderly, non-supportive setting, where groupings carve out obvious but invisible territories to protect their interest.

 

To eliminate this overemphasis on small groupings of self-protecting interest, that in their stead breed latent conflicts as such barriers create overall frustration on what is rightly conceived as common property. Leaders, have to facilitate action formats that render such orientations non-viable by situational emergences.

 

When the nations’ leaders organise the collective to focus on meaningful and desired nation building activities the mentality of suspicion would have been replaced by the obvious evidence of meaningful engagement, dissuading the focus on non-beneficial antagonistic stance, as the collective wealth yields similarly valuable ends uniformly among the various divisions that occasion any nation.

 

Every nation begins with basically about the same level of nature’s primary gifts in one form or another. The factor that makes all the difference is the leadership’s take on reality. Within which reality scope the leadership conceives a plan that puts everyone in that society at a productive level of activity that is altogether a push upwards from an earlier state of nation establishment. All the mistakes and tyranny of the poor leaders cannot take away from the simple fact that it is only when a nation is seriously committed to putting all its human constituents without exception into some form of well planned and meticulously executed program for total intellectual development while productively sustaining the nation by integrating the knowledge emerging from the intellectual development that is the driving force of development.

 

Thus, one needs to ask is the excessive drive to privatise the development and productivity sphere of African nations inimical to developing the nations? The answer obviously, is no, private investments are just what they are, an effort to produce along commercial interests for self interest. It can only sustain itself on the profits it generates. The long and the short of it is that these private investments may take some slack of the governments employment generating responsibility but they will not by any means be the basis for the thorough nation developmental implementation that will put the nation at par with the attained knowledge base of humanity as a  collective.

 

In a bid to build a well organised state with reliably programmed implementation delivery,  there should be no attempt to curtail the freewill of the individual under some poorly mislabelled tool of tyranny termed as a  “disciplined society”. The laws of the land exist to specify what is permissible and what is not. For the most part, these laws are inclined to be natural laws that agree with most people’s conception of what is right and wrong and is under the appropriate circumstances non-discriminatory, irrespective of the chosen identity label. Deliberate efforts to strangulate the individual freedom and independence of choice of action into some puppetry like form of control will surely take away every single benefit of any development as people sit on cushions of pin and enter the state of quite despair, that drains the very  last bit of a nation’s soul, turning the joy of life and its exuberance into a monotonous maintenance of robotic existence with a few fiendish rule enforcers hopping all over and making life miserable for all.

 

There must not be any attempt  to confuse dedicated effort to make existence for the national community a  worthwhile experience from a meaningless misconception of hard work that equates dedicated and well deliberated and timely executed action with preferred ends, to a prison like misery where ordered existence assumes maniacal, un-tempered imposition that is emotionally denuding albeit morally justifiable. It is a thin line that must be traversed with care. Its timing is more determined by the hunger and drive in the midst of the nation for task execution than an imposition from a higher authority. Getting the drive of the led and the leaders to synchronise to perform a harmonic dance of attainment is what it is all about. Once a nation decides firmly to reorient to develop as a totality committed to its mutual development rather than as failing effort at sectional growth excused on the easiest identifiable cause for failure, the leaders and the led must resonate along common operational fronts of mutual interest. Obstacles are meant to be cleverly negotiated and this is a necessary awareness of thought conceptualisation at both nation and individual level.

 

Beyond the actual form of practical implementation is the oddity of labelling any effort with ideological stamp that becomes the philosophical and situation defining centre of concern while the simplicity of employing the nation’s resources to improve the life quality of its inhabitants, without hindering the initiative of individual effort, assume a background consideration.

 

All forms of ideological stamping of life quality improvement by blending the simple national development effort of providing houses, educational facilities, employment and the other diverse social provisions and activities that gives a nation a representable image among the nations, should be firmly expressed as such and devoid of “stupid ideological” labelling that detracts from practical effort of making life better because the means exists and the leadership will is up to the task.

 

The public are energised by a genuine, untainted effort from a bright and visionary mind without the added burden of defining some irrelevant ideologies of what makes a human better or a society different. For eons, men have always done the best to make life meaningful and sustainable, within the limitations of circumstantial imposition, it is not the sudden budding of overzealous scripting that will spur the nation to work; it is simply good leadership, with simple, clear-cut goals and a well defined approach to task execution within existing attained capabilities. How those capabilities will be stretched to encompass an expanded action framework expedited with dedication and with verifiable end goals, will be evident to all.

 

(This admonishment is necessary. Lest the repetitive cycle of history never being a good teacher, proceeds from “Africa’s first world war” to regurgitated communism or anything of the ilk. It is enough to just enable the people have what is by right theirs).

 

Straight Lines in Neat Patterns

The more the public demands the exposition of simple, straightforward ideas by their leaders, the less disappointed they will be when simple goals are not attained. It is only inconsistent characters who cannot paint simple straight forward pictures of what concretely can be attained within a specified time framework and when not attained can explain the lapse in task fulfilment who are fit to be elected to any leadership position. At the same time is the need for flexibility for making gain on the move. Identifying unexpected openings to broaden the scope of activity framework for collective benefit.

 

In the long run, no matter how fiercely one’s ethnic identity, religious affiliation, the devotion to a particular political ideology, hatred for this or that, what matters is how a leader’s action directly affects one daily existence. For those who live in slums, a rebuilt community with integrated employment, no matter who is the leader, is what is desired. For the sickly, those prone to work place injury and the elderly a form of national health insurance deducted from the nation’s tax is the desired action required of the leader, and on it goes.

 

The diversified platform that democracy offers ought not to be stretched beyond its common-sensical relevance of offering a competitive platform for differing outlooks on common problems with commonly desired end solutions. The different interests represented should be assessed on their prior performance and plans, which ought to have been detailed for the nation. If a party’s plan does not directly touch a community’s interests, then it ought to consider carefully its commitment to vote by affiliation instead of by reason.

 

Since democracy builds on continuation, a good administration creates evidence of capability that its leader’s can point to as a basis for asking for the public to permit them to improve on the state of the nation for another term. It is in this sense of elections being a means of assessment by the people to allow for continuation or denial to further misbehaviour by a leader wasting the collective resources, that puts this form of government beyond the idea of the benevolent dictator, being a preferred form for guaranteeing leadership stability

 

Great leadership

A leader who refuses to account for his actions to those whose interest it is assumed to serve is not worthy of maintenance by the sweat of the nation. A good leader can always return to appeal to the people he or she is serving for additional years to continue a good effort. (It is not the individual per se, but the team of advisors that will in the end determine the quality of leadership. However certain individuals inspire the collective with their brilliance of social conceptualisation of reality and ability to evoke the new and unexpected from the obvious and perennially existent. Such persons are few and far between, in the interim the nation may have to satisfy itself with just the hardworking person with a simple and normal goal. They are by all means fit for the occasion just as the unique visionary is cut out to be a mythical figure lifting the collective one level up).

 

Great leadership is an accolade that circumstances and a critical public accord an era of leadership, where the actions are clearly etched in the sands of time and conclusively unarguable – action will speak louder than words- (The beauty about clichés is that the affirm inarguable truths, so they fit right where they belong).

 

The public in a democracy exercises a power of determination that controls the ambitious souls who vie for leadership roles at the national and segmentations thereof levels. That power resides with the majority of the millions of “average Joes” just cutting a meaningful life defined within the leadership agenda. It will under the circumstances be a strange act of blind dedication if a particular administration does not improve life for a particular voter in the expected and desired direction and gets the vote again from that individual. Let the action of performance not the silkiness of speech determine the vote. If a leader or a party cannot make itself understood to the least of all in the nation, such a leader has nothing to offer, since he or she does not speak their language of deprivation and would not learn it in office. (I may be wrong on this one but prove me wrong).

 

Some people advocate gradualism as the path forward to total national development, for others if the means exist, there is no need cutting corners to deliberate on the inevitable, “social jump” to the new era and consider reality from the higher stand point of fulfilment.

 

As to which stance is the best or most appropriate, the determining consideration is the fact that human life is transient and hardly extends beyond a century with the years beyond seventy lived in senility or a close approximation of that state of  slow succumbing to death. That being the case those who want to see the changes in the life time would definitely opt for the “social jump theory” camp of thinking.

 

As one famous leader in a time not so different to what faces the developing  nations of Africa is  quoted as saying:

Abraham Lincoln, in his second State of the Union address, in 1862, uttered the memorable quip . "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present," he said. "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." -

The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2003-.

 

Without exception, the admiration the world has for the USA was and in many regards still is their leadership role ability to conceive reality from grandiose proportions. To project from galactic proportions rather than squabbling over pot holes and pint sizes, they are a “go for it” nation. That is where examples of greatness ought to be sought for inspiration. It is in the light of that line of thought that Ted Halstead (the New America Foundation's CEO) exhorts that great nation in an Atlantic Monthly article:

it is an openness to this kind of large-scale creative thinking that the nation now sorely needs. Rather than merely "tinkering at the margins of existing institutions," he writes, we should be envisioning "bold new programs.... Our elected officials must dare to think big once more."

 

After all, he argues, we have entered a new era. In a post-industrial world, Americans' lives are structured differently from the way they were in the past, and it is only fitting that a new government framework should evolve to accomodate those new realities. During previous times of major change, he points out (both after the Civil War and during the Depression), new social contracts were worked out to reflect new situations. Given not only the significant transformations brought about by the information age but also the fact that despite its economic and military strength, America is currently faltering with respect to many social measures, the time has come, Halstead argues, for our next social contract. Taking an honest look at the true state of our union, he believes, may be the best place to start. -Ted Halstead is the author of a 1999 Atlantic cover story, "A Politics for Generation X," and the co-author of a 1995 cover story, "If the GDP Is Up, Why Is America Down?" He is also the co-author, with Michael Lind, of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (2001). He founded the New America Foundation in 1999 as a platform for "promising new voices and new ideas."-

 

While for the developing world leaders this exhortations may be election dictum for the achieving nation these are the bold proclamations that push the boundaries of reality. There is a need for the developing nation’s leadership to be visionary performers.

 

A visionary performer lays out the vision and details how it should be realised and then sets the performance mechanism machinery in motion.

 

Gresham's Law holds that bad ideas drive out the good. Sometimes a bad idea points the way to a good one.

"My experience of the world is that things left to themselves don't get right." - T.H. Huxley, English biologist and author (1825-1895).

 

It is precisely to prevent social feeding frenzy that turns cannibalistic where un-tempered, unbalanced access to the collective resource leads to a plunder by a part of the collective with no long term effects of growth effect spreading over, that is why the leadership machinery has to readjust to changing circumstances to evolve a socially supportive government implementation that lowers by provision of constituent needs, the level of stress that frustration and barriers to self attainment in meeting the individual’s life time aspiration engender.

 

The future is made in many ways in the present and as far anyone can conclude there is not much by way of radical change to be manifested in the future that can be discerned in the present day and its leaderships decisions and actions beyond aggressive orientation towards the faltering hopes that commercialisation that has scant regard for the socially marginalised, will shape the developing world societies to approximate the standards expected of the age’s humanity. Odd play of words, indicating nothing, short of failing systems building to total system collapse.

 

A leader in a national headship is but one of an unending series of role position occupants who cannot under the short term accomplish all of a society’s aspirations. The dynamic and developmentally dependent nature of social evolution implies that any one leader is accomplishing or managing the accomplishment of a part of all that  needs to be done. Upon assuming the position of directing the affairs of a nation it will not be meaningful for each leader to formulate a new development plan that will be employed under that leader. There is the need to reemphasise that the broad plan that leaders come in their stead to implement and make adjustments to, that carry forward to be continued by those following in their stead need be well-defined and implemented systematically to the letter. In which sense the future exists as a public document for all to see and can be followed to know when certain facilities will be implemented in specified locations, within specified time.

 

The existences of these developments plans enable the future to gradually take form in the present. The great nations of the day also had their fair share of disembodied existence, where early appearances of success vaporized and men fled in abject material lack in wild goose chases and migrations to seek meaningful existence elsewhere. The important thing to note in relation to the topic under development is that the leaders had a plan and followed the plan, grand scale social projects, such as community developments on a grand scale, huge dams to provide power, educational institutions’ to meet pressing needs of keeping young minds occupied while developing the plans all ensured that the brighter future evolved in the midst of the adversities. Not all these efforts were successful, but attempts were made anyhow. The crux of the matter is, something was done and it was done with long term commitment and brought to a successful end irrespective of who sat in the chair of leading that nation.

 

The nation defines what is meaningful in terms of worthy engagement, the nation that would reap the highest benefit from its collective resource must aggregate its resources into a predictable format for implementation within which flexibility is enabled for individual creative effort to support what the nation facilitates. What this implies, simply put, is that the best of the individual effort must find a medium for expression and that medium is best created by the source with the resource base to sustain such facilitated mediums. The nation by dint of its conceptualisation is the richest entity that in being properly managed enables individual effort to yield wealth. It has in its capacity the ability to create the conditional provisional facilities that by improving the life quality of the people keep the social system in balance.

 

Breaking down the obvious to become implementable actions is where the line of capability is drawn and many leaders are incapable of  turning potential resource into active wealth creation mechanisms socially realised. Wealth per se is a means by which the expanded activity enabled by the creative government machinery diversifies and expands the scope of socio-economic interaction nodes and often closely related to technological backed mechanical support to complement basic human energy. Meaning often develops gradually as simple implementation mixes with the dynamic intelligence of active minds and redefines emerging reality in unexpected directions and outcome states. However, the simple formulations must exist and be implemented systematically with expected end results.

 

In the evolving situation one can easily conceive of a world where the private commercialism and industrial drive, based solely on profit generation exists side by side with a parallel social system of state sponsored initiatives which creates stable communities, high quality educational systems, employment avenues and a self-dependent consumer economic system where the needs of the people are met within the limits defined by the remuneration determined as appropriate for this segment of the nation. These two major groupings already find subtle existence in the  government employees and the private sector employees who  earn just about the same level of remunerations, these  are the emergences of the early stages of a  wider pattern that will encapsulate a wider activity frame, with hitherto inconceived activities emerging as they gain currency and situational relevance.

 

Parallels

These parallel worlds must per necessity find common grounds of interaction to exist in a common setting. In the developed world setting, there are private sector industries producing high prized items to feed a community of well to do and employing personnel who under normal circumstances will not waste their remunerations on the items they produce for the parallel society of high earners or simply put the rich. Deliberately encouraging such inequality is not called for neither is it desirable to stunt the individual drive for creative effort by imposing rules that attempt to create a society of equals. Society by its very nature desires the unusual so long as the average or common humans are also able to have a meaningful existence through equitable distribution of the collective resource. It is in the equitability of the resource distribution where equality is sought in terms of justified allocation to nourish each life from the common pot of nation’s resources where equality is sort.

 

Even if global economy is a power play of maintaining dominance by one group over another, there are obvious lessons that cannot be prevented from permeating the universal economic system. Additionally, as the fears that support the establishment of barriers are rendered inconsequential as humans in all societies become intellectually more sophisticated and more discerning, co-operation is bound to increase as the fear of formal periods set in the light of changing times becomes less justifiable. These progresses that are inevitable through time can be an advantage employed to support the evolvement of a plainly formulated social construct for development that is all encompassing or a poorly configured intrusion that is inadequately fitted into poorly prepared foundations for nation building. Nation building is related to the integration of the collective into a developmental framework with great emphasis on intellectual development paired with technological, infrastructure, as well as developments in social, literary and art forms, all of which reflect that fundamental push forward.

 

There is no comparison or similar situation of a continental mass trailing the rest of humanity and seeking to build nations from untried perspectives even as the specie collective is in a mass technological shift driven by knowledge for the past century, with the pace gathering  momentum over the past fifty years upon which to project a comparative state as to predict how the African nation building endeavour ought to be done and how it is likely to appear at a certain point given certain conditions. None of the critical defining conditions can fit any former state of humanity as a whole.

 

For the most part society is generally slow acting, tending to build from a prior state, progressing from that state. That being the case not only has every action a consequence but every inaction in the appropriate direction has a cost that increases with failure to implement the required action. The inability of the human element of the social system to postponed behavioural response to await the appropriate circumstances, means that delays result in substitute actions delivered from a less than effective stance of individuals and small groupings, when a more effective response generated from centre would have yielded the most appropriate result.

 

Those who from a standpoint of comfortability advocate un-tempered capitalism without adequate social development padding its aggressive profit oriented drive may be sobered by this sobering observations on the state of the parallel social groupings of the wealthy and poor :

 

By the close of the 1990s the United States had become more unequal than at any other time since the dawn of the New Deal—indeed, it was the most unequal society in the advanced democratic world. The top 20 percent of households earned 56 percent of the nation's income and commanded an astonishing 83 percent of the nation's wealth. Even more striking, the top one percent earned about 17 percent of national income and owned 38 percent of national wealth. In nearly two decades the number of millionaires had doubled, to 4.8 million, and the number of "deca-millionaires"—those worth at least $10 million—had more than tripled, from 66,500 to 239,400.

 

In contrast, the bottom 40 percent of Americans earned just 10 percent of the nation's income and owned less than one percent of the nation's wealth. The bottom 60 percent did only marginally better, accounting for about 23 percent of income and less than five percent of wealth. The racial gaps are even more disheartening. The typical African-American household had fifty-four cents of income and twelve cents of wealth for every corresponding dollar in the typical white American household. Hispanics had sixty-two cents of income and four cents of wealth. -The $6,000 Solution - The United States is more unequal than at any other time since the dawn of the New Deal—indeed, it's the most unequal society in the advanced democratic world. Here's how to fix that. by Ray Boshara – In the Atlantic Monthly online, February, 2003.

 

What is of interest here is more in terms of points emphasised above which suggests that disengagement of government from positioning those in positions of material deprivation and social marginalisation would not necessarily resolve itself by some natural process of self-balancing. The instability that non-interference causes is to emphasise a benign awareness  that one gets what one makes on oneself and to insure oneself against the future, one must grasp as much as possible all the time. Such thinking would not lead to stability or define the nation from the standpoint of the leadership. The leadership itself being used as a means to buffer the individual survival of the those in that position rather than developing the nation and its resources as a commonly held trust. As if to buttress the point, Boshara’s article intuits that:

 

The wealth gap dwarfs the more oft noted income gap not only in size but also in significance, for several reasons. First, ownership of assets—a home, land, a business, savings and investments—provides the kind of security that permits planning for the future and the future of one's children. Second, although a job and an income are obviously important, they cannot be bequeathed to future generations, whereas wealth—and the status and opportunities it confers—can be. Finally, with wealth comes political influence. Many politicians spend more time raising money from the wealthy than they do speaking with their own constituents. As Kevin Phillips, the author of Wealth and Democracy (2002), recently observed, the intense concentration of the nation's wealth in a small sliver of society has raised the spectre of plutocracy.

 

One way the rich use their influence, of course, is to protect and increase their wealth. But the political privileges enjoyed by the rich over the past decade cannot alone explain the size of the wealth gap. Clean up all the corruption on Wall Street and K Street, and we would still have huge inequalities of wealth. Deeper forces are at work, among them the introduction of labour-saving technologies that have benefited the owners of capital at the expense of workers; the downward pressure that globalization has exerted on wages; and changes that have made the tax code less progressive and more friendly to the better-off.

 

There is also the fact that wealth, like debt, is self-replicating. Compound interest turns wealth into more wealth and debt into more debt. Other things being equal, those with interest-bearing savings accounts will end up richer after a year, and those who must pay interest on credit-card or consumer household debt will end up poorer. Thus even a neutral government policy toward wealth and asset building will end up exacerbating the wealth gap. But over the past several decades policy has hardly been neutral. The federal government currently has two distinct policies: asset-building incentives for better-off Americans (in the form of more than $300 billion in tax benefits each year for such things as home ownership, business development, college education, and retirement saving)—and income support for the rest.

What is becoming clearer here is that without the intervention to provide for community development and growth, the emerging dual society will inevitable gain currency and undermine the relevance of national identity and make leadership a lame institution, regulating taxes and feeding on what it manages to squeeze out of the mismanaged nation. This indeed is a worrying insight for the developing nations of Africa, constituted by clear tribal and ethnic groupings.

 

The worst scenario imaginable is a government policy that favours welfare payments over employment creation as a social and moral responsibility of the government for the people. Employment plays a psychic role of deeper import than just an income earner. The nation that does not comprehends this fact and acknowledges that the traditional forms of employment will not hold appeal for the emerging generation would see employment from  a strictly profit making perspective. Leading to a gap of intellect between vast swathes of wasted intellect engaged in meaningless activities for a purely economic survival ends than for any other reason (The youths who are peddling all kinds of low return on investment trinkets by traffic lights are indications of leaders that have not yet been grasped the value of the intellectual asset being wasted as these minds engage in marginal activities with no long term sustenance capability).

 

Social and moral responsibility is the cornerstone of nation leadership. The models of capitalism that Africa is emulating with gross error and leading have within recent history engaged in such social policies that attempt to create a platform for abridging the gap between individual aspirations and economic shortcomings that can only be facilitated by national leadership initiatives. The last part of Boshara’s article makes the same point:

 

If asset-building policies are good for better-off Americans, shouldn't such policies be good for all Americans? Actually, broad-based asset-building programs have a long and successful history in America. The Homestead Act of 1862, for example, offered 160 acres of land to every American—rich or poor—who was willing to occupy and cultivate it for five years. And the GI Bill of 1944 helped millions of Americans get a college education or buy a first home. These programs greatly equalized the distribution of wealth in America—not by punishing the rich but by expanding opportunities and the ownership of assets.

 

In the effort to shrink the huge wealth gap that has developed over the past decade or two, the first step is straightforward: we should extend the same opportunities that better-off Americans now have to everyone else, through refundable tax credits and matching deposits to encourage college education, home ownership, business ownership, and retirement saving.

 

"Against Inequality" (April 1999)

A valiant proposal to give every American twenty-one-year-old the same chance to prosper (or fail). By Jack Beatty But the next step has to be bolder: a Homestead Act for the twenty-first century. Here's how it might work. Every one of the four million babies born in America each year would receive an endowment of $6,000 in an American Stakeholder Account. If invested in a relatively safe portfolio that yielded a seven percent annual return, this sum would grow to more than $20,000 by the time the child graduated from high school, and to $45,000 by the time he or she reached thirty (assuming that the account had not yet been used). Funds in the American Stakeholder Account would be restricted to such asset-building uses as paying for the cost of higher education or vocational training, buying a first home, starting a small business, making investments, and, eventually, creating a nest egg for retirement. Withdrawals would of course decrease the account; work and saving would build it back up. Family members and others could also add money to the account.

 

Although the program would be universal, giving every American child a tool to help meet his or her lifelong asset needs, it would especially benefit the 26 percent of white children, the 52 percent of black children, and the 54 percent of Hispanic children who start life in households without any resources whatsoever for investment. For these children and others, an asset stake would provide choice, a ticket to the middle class, and, most important, hope.

 

Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed a variation on this idea in England, and it could be done in the United States for only about $24 billion a year—a very small amount by the standards of federal programs, and only about a sixth of what the government gives in tax breaks to corporations every year. The American Stakeholder Act, like the Homestead Act and the GI Bill before it, would be a smart investment in our nation's future. Nearly a quarter of all American adults today have a legacy of asset ownership that can be directly linked to the Homestead Act. The GI Bill has generated returns to our country of up to $12.50 for every dollar invested. If asset-building were started at birth, even greater returns could be expected from the American Stakeholder Act. Moreover, research indicates that asset ownership increases educational attainment, civic involvement, health quality, and life satisfaction, while decreasing marital breakup. And assets, unlike public assistance, can be passed from one generation to the next.

 

Americans readily tolerate inequality of outcomes, accepting that it's a necessary by-product of how we reward the hard work, initiative, and creativity that underpin our much envied economy. But we should not accept inequality of opportunity. Expanding the ownership of assets through a program of American Stakeholder Accounts would help to ensure that wealth inequality in one generation does not become magnified into gross inequality of opportunity in the next.

 

From the point of view of this article, the actions cited above as being considered or worthy of consideration is one example of diverse approaches to handle the simple problem of how to align the nation’s resources to its human constituents equitably without dampening individual initiative in the process.

 

For the developing nations of Africa, emphasise needs to be placed on aligning formal knowledge to as many areas of employable avenues as possible, gradually shifting knowledge development to match interests of the nation system under consideration without limiting the input emerging from external social systems.

 

It calls for a need for a paternalistic influence of the nation to regulate in the midst of those who depend on it utterly, to stabilise their existence around the primary needs of meaningful existence, without putting them into the pathway of the unregulated free hand of private sector commercialism and it’s profit-by-any-means-possible.

 

The need for employment creation around meaningful activity sets with the profit motive as a secondary consideration will go a long way to ensure that one-off payments do not result in “propertied poors”. The focus must be on long term stability around meaningful and rewarding ends, facilitated as a provision of the nation for its human constituents provisions that once enabled generate their own creative impetus and consequently assume a dynamic expanding nature to yield ever expanded value.

 

One wonders why earlier efforts at state housing for workers and low income earners, development of public schools, community libraries, all of which were undertaken as state projects failed miserably while similar activities by Missionaries and other bodies flourished? The answer is obvious, the Missionaries had commitment that hardly departed from its initial vision; to educate under the best conditions possible for articulating and developing knowledge. On the other hand, the nation was represented by varying viewpoints with poorly articulated visions that never had continuity built into their implementation nor planning (though they would suggest otherwise). By answering these questions, government would understand itself better and from its mistakes rectify its implementation foibles. Since the projects implemented are the lifeblood of a vibrant nation and hardly any other body exists with the resource and influence capacity to implement such projects with the target consumer group not defined by purchasing capability.

 

That great leaders have been at the ideational source of great social progress can hardly be understated. Michael Lind in an article on the changing dynamics of population in the USA notes with admiration that

 

By means of rural electrification, interstate-highway construction, tax benefits for homeowners, and the nationwide distribution of military plants and government contracts, FDR and his successors made it possible for immigrant slum dwellers and poor tenant farmers to become today's home-owning suburban majority. -The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2003 [National Unity] The New Continental Divide Overcrowded cities on the coasts. Dying rural communities in the interior. The way to save both may be to create a post-agrarian heartland

 by Michael Lind-

 

The emphasis on the leader’s choice of action cannot be under-emphasised in the way a nation turns out a few decades down the line of time. The admiration with which the USA is seen by many poor countries has mostly been defined in bold leadership actions, many of which actions have been discontinued or pursued without any consistency or determination by mediocre leaders in the developing nations of Africa. The notion of developing implies that there must be a form of directional influence as progression occurs through changing times. The nature of that directional influence cannot emanate from free market economic politicisation without deliberate attempt to provide socially instigated developments. (On the offset, it is to be noted that it is the lack of consistency in applying national resources in a generally even coverage that has worsened the state of the marginalised lower class in the USA).

 

The action consequence of leadership decision with regards to redefining how the nations in self-definition are constructing themselves are best set in perspective by these observations from a foremost American Social Scientist, James Fallow:

 

Americans have traditionally been vain about their pragmatism. Let the French have their philosophies, the British and the Germans their aristocrats who stand on ceremony. Ours would be the culture of the doer, the tinkerer, the keen observer who noticed what actually worked. In ideal form the American leader would be a Benjamin Franklin, with lofty interests but an unshakably realistic bent. Better, he would be a Lincoln: a true visionary who also recognized that the drunken General Grant was the best man for the job.

 

Lincoln, too, issued State of the Union messages, at a time when the existence of the union itself was in question. His second, in 1862, is the most memorable. "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present," he said. "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." -The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2003 [Introduction] The Forgotten Home Front What are the main elements of national well-being? It is startling how out-of-date and out-of-touch our official politics has become by James Fallows

 

Follow the Plan

Many Africans are prepared to put their shoulders to the task and heave, “hee-ho”. The question is, are the leaders prepared to define the task to be performed or are they waiting for the USA to define that task for them? While the adage “It is not so much what your nation does for you but what you can do for your nation” has a popular appeal, the people can only make meaningful contribution for the nation if the leaders provide an organised platform for effective task execution. In many instances, that is all people ask for; “give us something to do and we will do it”. This demand often goes unaswered as educated minds waste away and the minds waiting to be educated waste away while the leaders pontificate on mouldy platforms that deserve to be rebuilt.

 

A new platform for preaching the new message of “doing things our way and doing it right!” Is due in place. Delayed action in building the supportive social framework for meaningful life style for the ever expanding numbers on the margin of society is akin to deliberately ignoring a ticking time bomb. The “successful” in any developing nation may have worked hard and with great determination accumulated their appreciable stance in society, but a poor leadership framework may assume a blind-eye attitude to the languishing of the poor whose needs are left unconsidered till their collective rage surges over and takes away the gains of both honest and dishonest gain. Not because their problems could not be easily resolved but because leadership had minimised its effectiveness to what is within its visibility while allowing an angry mess of denied masses to reach boiling point in their pent up frustration over delayed actions.

 

Hardly any form of service work or manufacturing production or construction activity has any value unless it serves a purpose. That purpose is more often than not in terms of meeting some human need. Thus, once the leader’s have overcome the reservation of employing their natural and human resources to diversify the existing base of activities as a means of being nationally self-supportive, expanded activity schemes, building on the simple goal of making plans and implementing those plans systematically for the sustenance of the nation will without doubt serve as the basis for widely diversifying the existing employment basis and expanding the enabled employment forms through these expanded activities.

 

Activity schemes which in their sophistication by being selective and particular at each stage of expansion creates more opportunities to engage the people in employment. For, so long as there is adequate potential consumer base for any productive form, that product form has evident sustainability and is supported within the conception of national self-sustainability. The implications are thus, the more a nation can meet its needs within its resource base the less the perturbations of international exchange are likely to cause the system evolved to swing out of balance. If core and essential needs are met within the provisions of the nation, then the extraneous needs can be acquired in under a less-system-destabilising condition.

 

Efforts to improve community development and drainage system may lower cost involved in acquiring medicines to treat sicknesses arising from dirty environments. In the long run the former cost may be far less than if in its neglect, a nation keeps importing medicines to treat the sick.

 

The concept of generating economic and industrial sustainability among other things takes its departure point from the obvious fact that every nation must find means of occupying its citizenry in some form of employment to enable social stability. That being  the case under perfect conditions every nation would have to engage its collective in a system of activity breakdown where each person is engaged in one way or another in some form of organised activity to support all the others in some partial breakdown; and the reverse holds true for the collective. Given this condition,  it is only inevitable that the employment avenue can only be sustainable if it has some relevance to an aspect of the collective. Defining that relevance is an essential part of the employment diversification engagement that should preoccupy the leading brains of a nation.

 

While international trade has its merits and free market economies with little by way of hindrance of protective tariffs for local industries are commendable in offering a diversified range of markets for efficient producers irrespective of their geographical location. It hardly makes sense for a nation to refuse to improve on its production base and declare massive unemployment just to satisfy free trade agreements. There is a conflict of interests that can only be resolved by ensuring that the self sustainability of a national system is inviolable; however that nation’s market remains open for the exporter or importer who can manage to make profit without creating excessive social stress in the market destination of foreign originating products.

 

On the other hand is the fact that when efficient productivity elsewhere leads  to the introduction of lower priced products that compete with the already favourable priced products emanating from the production machinery of the nation under consideration, then redress must be made to face-off the competition where feasible, through fair trade practices. (These empty sounding ideas must be beefed up through implementation strategy measuring to the needs of the situation).

 

The critical point of departure is that the national self-sustaining economic arrangement serves a purpose over and above mere profitability and may lead to a dedicated consumer base that may not easily be enticed by cheaper foreign products (that argument is offered tongue in cheek because attempts to encourage consumption for patriotism’s sake have not saved the local manufacturing sector in some African countries crumbling under crippling competitive pressure due to the influx of  cheaper imported similarities; however, that is a battle just began. Additionally, the social investments that whip up patriotism have not been attained by the governments anyway. – “You want a favour do something worthy of receiving a favour for” is about the catch phrase of determining when patriotism works as a tool for political ends-).

 

There is little doubt that every government exists to serve the interests of its people, and all constitutions emphasise the need of the state to take care of the general welfare. These assumptions aside the person of the leader is a palpable determinant whose choice of action and the vision or lack of vision thereof behind those actions will to a large extent determine how the government employs the nation’s resource to spur growth and development.

 

Ted Halstead laments the lack of that leadership initiative in recent times as society’s problem amass and the usual does not seem to be sufficient to take up the slack generated as existing American society’s social demands outstrips its social responsibility:

 

 

To improve the nation's social health and economic vitality at one and the same time will require a new social contract for America. Our current social contract is now as antiquated as it was once innovative. Its primary author, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would be the first to tell us so. "New conditions impose new requirements upon government and those who conduct government," Roosevelt said in 1932. "Faith in America, faith in our tradition of personal responsibility, faith in our institutions, faith in ourselves, demands that we recognize the new terms of the old social contract."

 

America has so far experimented with three social contracts, each of which reflected the political forces of its time. The purpose of the first, in the eighteenth century, was to found a nation. The goal of the second was to put it back together after the Civil War. The third—first articulated in FDR's New Deal and later expanded in Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society—sought to build a mass middle-class society by relying on ambitious government programs and new economic regulation.

 

It is now time for a fourth American social contract. To fit the post-industrial age it must be able to reconcile the competing demands of flexibility and fairness. In a time characterized by constant job mobility, a proliferation of consumer choices, just-in-time production, and—perhaps most of all—increased uncertainty, individuals, firms, and governments all need unprecedented flexibility. Fairness, meanwhile, springs from the commitments to meritocracy and shared prosperity that have inspired our nation since its inception. A social contract that simultaneously enhances both flexibility and fairness will require new roles and responsibilities for all three parties to the contract: government, business, and the citizenry.

 

In the public sector our political leaders must stop imposing false choices on the American people. All too often our twoparty system frames issues as if flexibility and fairness were mutually exclusive. Republicans are fond of advocating for school choice and Social Security privatization, on the grounds that these would confer more choices and flexibility on all citizens. Democrats, meanwhile, typically oppose such proposals, on the grounds that they would undermine fairness and the economic security of ordinary citizens. As these pages suggest, however, there are elegant ways to square these circles: for instance, by pairing school choice with a national equalization of school funding. -The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2003  Bests & Worsts]  The American Paradox The country with the most patents, Nobel laureates, and millionaires is also the country with the highest levels of poverty, homicide, and infant mortality among modern democracies. A case for revising our social contract by Ted Halstead-

 

 

Our Social Contract

In the midst of all these accusations of leadership failure, loss of direction, lack of concern, lack of fellow human feeling, excessive greed, over concern for capitalist models without appropriate balancing with a social bias, what exactly are leaders supposed to do? Are they to exercise  some stupendous willpower to command out of thin air solutions that if they had been that easy would have been implemented long ago?

 

Well, not exactly.

 

(Well……? What then?)

 

What needs to be done is to reframe what has been overlooked in the over zealousness of playing to the international crowd. Granted that there is a need to purchase some export items to complement local resources, there is still a lot of local resources that have simply been under-employed though their potentials had been identified and emphasised ad nauseum. What does it take to make good laws? What law says that the nation with fewer resources should waste those resources implementing half measure infrastructure in the name of under-development? Why has the use of bricks that would have been totally locally resourced not been favoured instead of cement? What explains governments inability to provide for the housing needs, the construction of shools etc when all these are within easy manageability? What evolving effort is there afoot, in implementation stages to actively fit the unemployed into employment? Why is there so much emphasis on the private sector when the public sector has not engage its public capital to build the social infrastructure upon which the private sector can optimise its investments? Why are universities not expanding to accommodate more students as the population expands? Why is the national service still poorly managed? Why is broadband development and a computer for each student not being pursued; indeed where are the assembly plants to put together such “boxes” locally? The questions that can be posed that do not require any significant export component and thus cannot be excused on foreign exchange restraints are numerous. By answering these questions and a thousand similar ones, the answers to which provide direction as to what leaders ought to do that they have not been doing will slowly begin to emerge.

 

In many instances activities  that under central command would have been more effectively and systematically implemented and managed have passed on to interest groups and body associations, for lack of leadership initiative to create perfect states of rendition, preferring to proffer to old excuse of a lack of resources, (truth is there will never a stage when there will ever be enough of monetary resources, so what’s got to be done, must be done one way or another) where conflicting voices and low resource capacities have led to less than satisfactory implementations. These are mainly crude attempts to provide stop gap measures, while the nation’s wait and hope for the true leaders. Government cannot keep passing the buck, when the situation is at a too immature stage to permit a less than central authority to infuse ordered implementation in certain fundamental social provisions.

 

The oft touted notion that water will find its own level is meaningless when applied to an under-developed nation. Such nations are like a child being nursed by their mother and to be raised to grow up in a certain way. Get the act wrong and you raise a maladjusted entity. In any case the water has to be contained to find its level. That containment is what good governance enables. Creating an effective policy framework for articulating viewpoints within a discernible process of implementation and realisation.

 

Where there is the need for co-joint implementation with the private sector, then it is expected that the benefits to the public at a reasonable level of affordability be an important consideration.

 

Just as blood is the fluid of life that no brain can stand in arrogance of and make its plans without that essential life fluid. Petroleum is a factor that reality turns on in developing economies as in the developed ones. The balance of creation however has enabled adequate regional distribution of that driver of material development of this age. The boost that a regional currency would enable weak economies that have to trade in a third international denomination cannot be over-emphasised. If only the leaders would awaken to the responsibility of the task and eschew local idiosyncrasies (of petty nationalistic identity, when co-operation would enable greater value to that presently empty phrase, phrase devoid of meaning in a time when many are forced to live meaningless existence) which have little relevance given that the continent as it exists is a laconic artefact of colonialism.

 

By focusing on regional co-operation as core economic integration for mutual benefit, much of the wasteful dispensation of their fuel consumption costs, throughout balance foreign exchange rates and raw material prices far below expectation. Would be tamed to be employed in more relevant sectors of the economy. Whatever efforts have been made in these terms need to be expedited to yield their full benefits.

 

In an aside that cements the leadership factor, it is interesting to note in passing that oil is a resource that has global utility value and in those nations where this resource abounds the wealth that flows into the economy is inevitably of Midas proportions. For some of these nations this oil wealth has actually become “a curse” that is so poorly managed that it leads to social turmoil. (Prominently one can easily point accusing finger -guess that is easy to do– at Nigeria, Venezuela, Angola).

 

In other nations these oil wealth is well managed and becomes the basis for great national advancement and development (Coming easily to mind is Norway, Mauritius and Malaysia). Jerry Useem, writing for the Fortune magazine of February 3, 2003, notes that the difference lies in what can be termed the “Spanish wealth factor”. Like Spain in the age of the conquistadors, sudden abundant wealth under poor management is lavishly spent and leads to lose nation management with the simple actions of effective taxation and tight self-sustaining economies upon which national stability is grounded discarded for gargantuan consumerism, leading to quick depletion of wealth, with the wealth narrowed down to a small segment of the lucky few (who by all considerations are nothing short of  “…….” Your choice here, I am not casting no first stone) while the masses starve in hopes unfulfilled.

 

In those nations where the wealth was slowly absorbed following tight regulatory control and mass spreading of the wealth through all covering social projects that oil wealth has been a great blessing. The determinant factor as to action course has always been the leadership and the policies they choose to implement (the Nigerians will nod at that one). The following report filled by the BBC offers an interesting depiction of how poor leadership actions can wear down a nation and pour icy waters on their enthusiasm and hope:

 

Nigeria's oil wealth shuns the needy

 

 

Oil rich Delta has some of the poorest people in Nigeria

 

By the BBC's James Whittington in Nigeria

The way oil wealth is managed in Nigeria is one of the key issues facing those living there.

 

The government and oil companies have profited by hundreds of billions of dollars since oil was first discovered.

 

Yet most Nigerians living in the oil producing regions are living in dire poverty.

 

The oil region in Nigeria seems to be stuck in a time warp, with little real change since oil was discovered 45 years ago.

 

Away from the main towns there is no real development, no roads, no electricity, no running water and no telephones.

 

 

 

 

Most people are struggling to survive on less than $1 a day.

 

People who live in the Niger Delta blame the oil companies for this shocking state of neglect, particularly Shell Petroleum Development Company, which produces most of the country's oil.

 

The heart of Shell's operations is Port Harcourt, a small coastal town which actually smells of oil.

 

Donald Bowen, Shell's external relations manager, explained why the delta region has been ignored for so long;

 

"We've had a good number of years of military rule in this country, where the government - for one reason or another - failed to address the need for development in the Niger Delta and that has put a lot of pressure on the oil companies to try and fill the gap that the government has created.

 

"Last year for example, we spent $60m on community development intervention activities, which represented about 3% of the entire joint venture budget."

 

Helping themselves

 

But how is this money being spent?

 

On a small farm in the Niger Delta, a local farmer chose to participate in one of Shell's community projects.

 

"I decided to join this because first of all I am a farmer and thought that by joining this farm I may be able to help my people come here, learn, then go home to establish on their own," he said.

 

"There will be improvement for sure, if knowing fully well that they are tenants doing what the landlord asks them to do so creating a very good relationship."

 

Unlike the rest of Nigeria, Abuja - the federal capital - looks like a modern African city.

 

Because money has been spent on infrastructure most facilities, from phones to electricity, seem to work.

 

Change of policy

 

Mark Tomlinson, the World Bank's director for Nigeria, believes the government must share some of the blame for ignoring the oil producing regions.

 

"I don't think the oil companies by themselves should be saddled with the development of the delta," Mr Tomlinson said.

 

 

 

Delta residents want more infrastructures

 

 

"It is an absolutely huge undertaking and much of the tension we can trace back to the state government's not assisting at all with the provision of basic infrastructure services that these villages require to grow.

 

"I've travelled in the delta a number of times recently and each community we visited we asked the question, 'what has the state government done for your village in terms of providing basic services?'.

 

"In half the cases they just laughed, and the other half said nothing had been done at all."

 

All the country's oil revenues are collected by the federal government.

 

In the past much of it was stolen by corrupt officials and military leaders but the method of distributing oil revenues has recently changed and state governments have greater say in how the money is spent.

 

Vote of confidence

 

David Edverby is the commissioner of finance for Delta State.

 

"We have only recently received the largest amount of revenue from the federation account," he said.

 

"We cannot forget that approximately 40% of the revenue that comes in goes into payment of salaries and overheads.

 

"The remaining 60% we spend on capital projects and a huge amount of capital expenditure has happened over the last 18 months.

 

"We have to go back to the electorate every four years. Clearly if they are not happy with the way their money has been spent they will just not re-elect you."

 

"We really have no choice but to ensure that money gets spent on the people."

 

For the people living at the birth site of Nigeria's oil industry all the talk about the change in approach to economic developments is simply academic.

 

For them, like most Nigerians, oil is seen as a curse rather than as a blessing.

 

The notion of a nation in self-sustainment is what is loosely conceived as a purely domestic economy with little external imput, unvarnished and undeveloped; it is the nation system evolved economic interaction that can survive and maintain that nation system without any external support or dependency (however, one needs not stretch that argument more than necessary). Given further attention and expanded to become an interdependency of chain activity sets where locally resourced primary products go through a series of refinements and added value amplifications, thus extending the stages through which processing becomes a means of employment creation and quality inducements as well as enhancement.

 

In other words, to take a simple example, though local industries have been able to derive secondary use for most domestic consumables, the large scale process expansion that would make this domestic activities formalised industrial activity that takes any simple item such as harvested fish and extracts medicine, bone meal, canned fish, bait, and animal feed supplementary can only be achieved under formal industrial organisation and the instalment of the appropriate machinery, albeit some of these machinery need not be complex.

 

If process expansion is to be possible then it requires an investment source and an effective implementation strategy sponsored by government. (Of course any private sector investor could also identify and develop any such endeavour though the commitment to a cause other than profit making. Needless to say, such idealisms does not come easily to the private investor; an investor of course is different from charitable organisation or a Non-governmental organisation).

 

Self-sustainment may not be an end in an world where integration at common interfaces of trade and technology increases with astounding pace. However, in the poverty ridden developing world, the employment of this global integration as a machinery to spur development is not being employed at the scales required to redefine the systemic whole. A failure induced, some may argue very strongly, through leadership inaction. The rate of dependency remains too high in most developing nations, who have still not evolved a self-dependent industrial economy that may still function without external assistance or dependency, even if at a low level of effectiveness.

 

The leadership action propensity of most of these nations is inaction that is leading some of these nations to plead for economic re-colonisation. After all a nation that is incapable of  working on its own to improve the status of its own people, waiting for external initiative on such simple issues as providing standardised housing and educational infrastructure may very well concede that its decision making capacity has been severely compromised. Not that there is any shame in that, since by all considerations Africa may very well have benefited by a few more decades of colonial influence, by which time ordered social organisation would have seeped through the culture. As it were the imitation of the colonialist is crude and ineffective, with little effort being made to take a clear path to social development that uplifts the marginalised in society.

 

Sadly, inadequacy in existing system and the individual aspiration of the masses is forcing the dream of individual success to be conceived in terms of not to work to build a great nation but to find economic solace with the former colonial masters. If the pattern does not change, the leaders would have successfully accomplished by lower level intellectual engagement in leadership, what their counterparts the former tribal Chiefs of the slavery era did: To turn Africa into a source of cheap and easily acquired labour. (Though these may raise hackles and cause irritation. How many European countries with Africa’s resource and potential would have allowed their citizens to end up being the cleaners of the world? If you want to get angry first face reality and then exercise a form of “justified anger”. As it were you ought to be getting “really angry” at the collective failure and who can blame you, “poor African”. Your poverty is an artefact of leadership failure). If in doubt as to whether it is poor leadership and low quality decisions that delay the expected take-off of an African continental development, here is an update on the textbook of potentials left unused. Nigeria offers a textbook example for many reasons, the saddest of all is that it is a gigantic economy on whose success the stability of the West African sub-region rest:

 

Wednesday, 16 January, 2002, 13:25 GMT

Nigeria's economy dominated by oil

 

 

Some of Nigeria's poorest people live in the delta area

 

By BBC New Online's Briony Hale

It is ironic - and yet typical - that it is fuel prices that have caused a general strike in the Western African state of Nigeria.

 

Nigeria's economy - 2001

Economic growth 3%

Inflation 15%

External debt $27bn

66% of population below poverty line

45% of GDP is oil exports

 

Nigeria's entire economy revolves around oil - with large reserves meaning the country has, in theory, the potential to build a very prosperous economy.

 

But despite Nigeria's rich natural resources, poverty is widespread and Nigeria's basic social indicators place it among the 20 poorest countries in the world.

 

The wealth from oil has not fed through to the wider population, but has often been squandered or lost through corruption.

 

That is why rises in fuel prices cause such outrage amongst Nigerians.

 

Rising poverty

 

Poverty is still a growing problem in Nigeria - a country which is estimated to have earned about $280bn from oil during the past 30 years.

 

According to the World Bank, about 66% of the population now falls below the poverty line of about a dollar a day, compared to 43% in 1985.

 

Nigeria's economy is forecast to grow by 3.5% in 2002 according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) - a rate of growth that would be the envy of many western nations.

 

But the growth is primarily driven by the energy sectors, and is unlikely to feed through to the wider population.

 

Squandered

 

The state of the oil industry is a prototype of how industry has been mismanaged - and of the difficulty of reform.

 

While Nigeria has been pumping two million barrels of crude oil a day into the international oil markets, its own refineries are in a state of neglect and disrepair and the country has suffered a series of fuel shortages.

 

 

 

President Obasanjo has pledged to eliminate corruption

 

Nigeria is forced to import about 70% of its own fuel requirements, which have then been heavily subsidised by the government.

 

This year's fuel hikes are a move towards the liberalisation of its tightly controlled domestic markets - a move which would win it the favour of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

 

But any price rises - on top of rampant inflation of about 15% last year - is an affront for many Nigerians already on the brink of poverty, resulting in the protests.

 

Similar protests in June 2000 - also over fuel prices - led the government to backtrack in order to keep the peace.

 

And with elections coming up in early 2003, the government will be under a great deal of pressure to do likewise this time.

 

Missed goals

 

Nigeria failed to meet most of its targeted reforms on spending, inflation and privatisation during the last 12 months.

 

As a result, a stand-by credit agreement with the IMF lapsed at the end of October, although discussions for a new programme are now under way.

 

The EIU expects President Olusegun Obasanjo to continue with his attempts towards economic liberalisation, but it also expects the pace of reform to be slow.

 

The lack of political consensus on the need for reform, together with the upcoming elections, has made attempts to privatise other key industries - including the national airline and the leading telecoms operator - a long and painful process.

 

Broadening out

 

In the longer term, Nigeria must reduce its dependence on oil.

 

Oil accounts for almost half of Nigeria's gross domestic product (GDP) and about 85% of all foreign exchange earnings.

 

But the outlook for the international crude oil price over the next ten years is growing increasingly gloomy.

 

 

 

Nigeria needs to reduce its dependence on oil

 

Nigeria also has reserves of bitumen, tin, bauxite, iron ore and gold, as well as the potential to develop a vibrant tourism business.

 

But it needs a substantial inflow of foreign investment in order to develop these industries.

 

The country's record of corruption - and widespread unrest that has seen more than 10,000 people killed since 1999 - has seen foreign investment outside of the energy sector all but dry up.

 

"Improving energy, transport and communications infrastructure and increasing private investment in the non-oil sector will remain the government's main economic challenges," says EIU in its assessment of Nigeria.

 

After 15 years of military rule, President Obasanjo, elected in May 1999, has repeatedly expressed his determination to stamp out corruption and build a platform for sustained economic growth.

 

But the wider world still needs some convincing.

 

One of the expectations of this article is that by the time it hits the press, the economic and resource employment strategies would have changed to the point where the economic indications of the case cited above would have change radically enough to prove beyond doubt that leadership orientation in Africa has changed to face the task of building self-sufficiency at regional and national levels.

 

While we are about it, it is not altogether out of order to question the kind of idiocy and lack of maturity that creates rogue nations like Somalia and Sudan where simple compromise cannot be obtained to lower the margin of intolerability among the various ethnic groups? How can a people with such issues as importing the questionable religious abomination of stoning women in a modern era be deserving of any respect, what kind of a leader would compromise to tolerate such savagery? (Ask and you shall know… and the truth shall set you free).

 

Of course, one must admit that development is a slow process and that high expectations take time to manifest and require the appropriate preparatory circumstances to establish themselves. However (the “big but”), those circumstances have had ample situational and obvious basis for finding expression and that being the case unless a radical change is enforced from the point of view of citizens demanding high leadership accountability it doesn’t look like much will change.

 

Decades down the line, vain leaders would still be seeing the nation as private property to be misused and accountability to the people a bad joke. Leadership is a responsibility to the nation and not a position for exercising tyrannical power with little respect or regard for the people who enable leadership the authourity it exercises. (Village philosophising it must be admitted has a way of conceptualising reality from the reality of the village since town philosophers have no interest in villages and their “dirty and primitive” settings. Not to talk about all the animals roaming without any restraint. Euuuch!).

 

Humans are creatures of habit and once critical mass is attained in practitioners of bad behaviour, and a fairly large number of citizenry are settled in this emergent odious situation of a few advantaged and many disadvantaged, which grouping of disadvantaged will continue to abnegate their dignity and sense of self-esteem as capable, creative and worthy handiworks of an Awesome Creator. Denied and denying themselves they will “Chief” just about anyone to make their daily meal, having taken the art of beggarly respect a notch beyond sarcasm to institute self abnegation as an accepted form of human self denigration on the altars of leadership failure, it might be a “wee bit” difficult to pretend that a class system is gradually not finding root in the developing nations of Africa.

 

It is to be noted that while the old World built its class through farming, breeding and clever labour management– and far too many senseless wars-. The emerging World are harvesting their nations uncultivated resources without managing its human resources, I guess that passes for progress of some sort.- One thing is for certain, such a system will lead to poor resource utilisation and a gradual build-up of frustration as greed (which is often misplaced for ambition and hard labour at honest task; of course the technicalities and trickery involved in looting national coffers require expending some brain cells as well; admittedly) becomes the operational jargon of the leadership and anger the subdued mood of the frustrated masses. -What a brew for a disastrous firework, down the line of time.-

 

Take this example from a 1994 (Even today these issue may still be relevant and persisting) article by Elijah Andersson about the call for “respect”  from America’s marginalised black poor, who have been left uncared for by their governments and have evolved a culture of poverty. There is a lesson here for the discerning; poverty only breeds anger and will not disappear unless the appropriate measures are facilitated by the government machinery to eradicate it:

 

In fact the overwhelming majority of families in the inner-city community try to approximate the decent-family model, but there are many others who clearly represent the worst fears of the decent family. Not only are their financial resources extremely limited, but what little they have may easily be misused. The lives of the street-oriented are often marked by disorganization. In the most desperate circumstances people frequently have a limited understanding of priorities and consequences, and so frustrations mount over bills, food, and, at times, drink, cigarettes, and drugs. Some tend toward self-destructive behavior; many street-oriented women are crack-addicted ("on the pipe"), alcoholic, or involved in complicated relationships with men who abuse them. In addition, the seeming intractability of their situation, caused in large part by the lack of well-paying jobs and the persistence of racial discrimination, has engendered deep-seated bitterness and anger in many of the most desperate and poorest blacks, especially young people. The need both to exercise a measure of control and to lash out at somebody is often reflected in the adults' relations with their children. At the least, the frustrations of persistent poverty shorten the fuse in such people-- contributing to a lack of patience with anyone, child or adult, who irritates them. -by Elijah Anderson May 1994 The Code of the Streets -In this essay in urban anthropology a social scientist takes us inside a world most of us only glimpse in grisly headlines--"Teen Killed in Drive By Shooting"--to show us how a desperate search for respect governs social relations among many African-American young men-

 

The solution for the poor is to refuse to be satisfied with the bad deal they are being offered by their leaders and make it plain by any means possible that unless a leader is responsible to the call of serving the interest of the people, the seat of government and communal responsibility will be a pretty uncomfortable one. On the other hand when a developmental agenda is presented, its time schedules for implementation should be the rule of measure. Bad leadership is equally as undesirable as anarchy and chaos on a regular basis by the rabble.

 

Myth of the Great Leader

The interesting offset to all these leadership failure is a thing that surely will come to pass, which is that in the midst of so much leadership incompetency even a mediocre leader emerging on the scene with a distinctively “people orientation” will become a mythical hero. One wonders whether the lack of a sense of history goes hand-in-hand with gross incompetency? (Of course, aside from the few odd balls who get into the act of erecting statues of their misconceived “greatness”). I may very well be proved wrong by time, but if history has anything to do with it. These reflections by Carl Van Doren on the myth weaved around that gigantic figure of an American, George Washington carry some import. Here goes:

 

1 The Revolutionary generation had been an age of mythmaking. Washington, for instance, to his very face was apotheosized by his followers with a passion of language which notoriously embarrassed him. Almost before his bones were cold appeared Parson Weems’s astounding tract, miscalled a biography, to catch the popular fancy at once and to establish the absurd legend of Washington’s superhuman virtues. “Private life,” Weems avowed, “is real life”; and though, lacking first-hand knowledge, he was obliged to invent, he seemed intimate and credible to an audience somewhat overwhelmed by the heavy splendour of the more official orations and odes and sermons called forth by Washington’s death. Thereafter the legend grew unchecked, until the pious Catherine Maria Sedgwick, in 1835, apologizing for the introduction of the hero in her novel The Linwoods, could write “in extenuation of what may seem presumption, that whenever the writer has mentioned Washington, she has felt a sentiment resembling the awe of the pious Israelite when he approached the ark of the Lord.” The legends of Arthur and Charlemagne grew no more rapidly in the most legend-breeding age—indeed, did not grow so rapidly as this. And around Washington, as around Arthur his knights and around Charlemagne his peers, were speedily grouped such minor heroes as Francis Marion, whose life was also written by Weems, Israel Putnam, whom David Humphreys celebrated, Patrick Henry, whose biographer was no less a person than William Wirt, Attorney-General of the United States, Ethan Allen, who wrote his own record, and others whose fame or infamy (as in the case of Benedict Arnold) depended less specifically upon books. As all these heroes were consistently whitened by their biographers, so was the cause for which they fought; until the second generation after the Revolution had hardly a chance to suspect—at least so far as popular literature was concerned—that the Revolution had been anything but a melodrama victoriously waged by stainless Continental heroes against atrocious villains in British scarlet, followed by a victory without ugly revenges and crowned by a reconstruction culminating in the divinely-inspired Constitution. George Bancroft himself, a scholar of large attainments, could write as late as 1860 such words as these concerning the Declaration of Independence: “This immortal state paper, which for its composer was the aurora of enduring fame, was ‘the genuine effusion of the soul of the country at that time,’ the revelation of its mind, when in its youth, its enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest creative powers of which man is capable. The bill of rights which it promulgates, is of rights that are older than human institutions, and spring from the eternal justice that is anterior to the state. Two political theories divided the world; one founded the commonwealth on the reason of state, the policy of expediency; the other on the immutable principles of morals: the new republic, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and unchanging nature of of freedom, virtue, and right. The heart of Jefferson in writing the declaration, and of congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind and all coming generations, without any exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. As it was put forth in the name of the ascendant people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world, passing everywhere through the despotic countries of Europe; and the astonished nations as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue.” This, the most patriotic American must now admit, is the language of romance. -Carl Van Doren (1885–1950).  The American Novel.  1921. 2. The Three Matters of American Romance.-

 

 

The time is at hand when budding knowledge and the search for meaningful, sustainable national character will make the good leader responding to the unique call of the times, will through humble execution of just office assume in the sight of a public awed by honesty and equitable discharge of duty, raise an almost a superman or superwoman of the era (I don’t see the later happening anytime soon in Nigeria, don’t ask me why, ask the “fringe lunatics” who having assumed centre stage are not willing to change primitive outlook on life and instead are taking the life of the weak in their hands and making a fool of the respect of motherhood that is inseparable from the tradition of just about any agrarian culture. I guess from the perspective of the superficial reader that makes me a “persona non grata” in “Anagoland”. Aaah, the joy of tossing a few ancient phrases around.).

 

There was a spirit of hope that buoyed motivation to achieve for the then newly independent Africa, but thanks to the ineptitude and tyranny of the leaders, the spirit has been extinguished and in its place bitterness and hopelessness dog the steps of these proud and hardworking people, who have borne the burdens of the nations and must now bear the shame of their leaders.

 

Barely a quarter of a century after independence, young vibrant men trek the deserts of the vast Sahara to drown in the cold waters of the Mediterranean just to go and sweep the streets of the “slave masters” and “colonial overlords”, who have now turned “economic saviours”. (One wonders what did Negroid Africa gain independence from, for and how independent is it?)  Are we are a sorry lot or what?

 

There is succour for the African anywhere but on the mother continent. Martin Luther King reflects in a not so distant past on the struggle of the African-American. His words must act as an admonishment to present day African leaders, that there is no cutting corners in taking a hands-on-approach to provide a supportive modern society for all.:

 

"Black history is nothing if not a history of struggle against what Dr. King called the three evils: racism, poverty, and militarism," (The Black Commentator, February, 2003).

 

Take out “racism”, replace it with “Ethnic intolerance” and there is your perfect image of any African tottering on the edge of despair.

 

Whether sorry lot or not, that is as how far self pity will carry the nations. The reality is that employment creation at the existing levels is woefully inadequate and traditional forms are least likely to grow beyond their presently attained levels of efficiency – Indeed it is their approximation of optimum efficiency that more than anything makes modernity such a strong attraction to many who otherwise see little of great attraction in smoke belching factories and dead rivers and lakes, but the choices are severely restricted-.

 

Employment creation avenues more than anything will be among some of the greatest challenges that any African leader will have to contend with given that the gruesome plague of HIV/AIDS is somehow contained. How the problem of employement creation will be resolved will test the creative intellect of the rare genius of a good leader, but solved its got to be. Even the most optimistic advocate of free enterprise admits that government job creation beyond civil service would have to be boosted, if the civil service can continue to be sustained by economies that have never been able to mature beyond “baby-steps.” Some independence!

 

Once the exasperation is expiated, the nation must roll its sleeve up and labour to make sure that their leaders do what their duty demands of them: To improve the state of the poor and advance the state of the nation. (Everyone agrees that Africa is going through some pretty tough times, and they all without exception expect Africa to work harder, more creatively to pull through. Or is there another opinion out there?) As American president George W. Bush exhorted his nation in the State of Union address of 2003:

 

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

 

The prosperity of the nation without any doubt lies on the back of a working population. What is being done to expand the available employment avenues in developing Africa other than advocating for private sector investment? Is another question that leadership must consider with sombre consideration.

 

The import of that question is evident in the hard work of youthful energy on unprepared grounds, which is depicted in the image of the traditional, lowly educated striving of peddlers and young men hanging precariously on the back of worn and beaten lorries as driver’s mate. These are the intellectual resources of the developing base being wasted on ineffective engagement due to poor leadership actions and lack of action enforcement. If there is a person in any position of responsibility whose heart does not feel sorely grieved to see the waste of youthful energy in meaningless tasks of little reward both to individual and nation, that person is really not leadership material. The leader carries the pains of society and finds no rest till the sufferings of the people are being attended to. (Big deal! It is what nurses do for poor pay).

 

The great African-American W.E.B. Du Bois, a man of great intellectual capacity so tormented by the despair of the Black Soul, eventually spending his last days in Accra, Ghana. Noted in his epochal essay, The Souls of Black Folks:

 

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,— 3

 

. . . In vain do we cry to this our vastest social problem:—

        “Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves

        Shall never tremble!”    7

  The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.

 

. . . As the time flew, however, he began to grasp a new idea. The ideal of liberty demanded for its attainment powerful means, and these the Fifteenth Amendment gave him. The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him. And why not? Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this? A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom. So the decade flew away, the revolution of 1876 came, and left the half-free serf weary, wondering, but still inspired. Slowly but steadily, in the following years, a new vision began gradually to replace the dream of political power,—a powerful movement, the rise of another ideal to guide the unguided, another pillar of fire by night after a clouded day. It was the ideal of “book-learning”; the curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and test the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man, the longing to know. Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life.    9

  Up the new path the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily, doggedly; only those who have watched and guided the faltering feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings, of the dark pupils of these schools know how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot had slipped or someone had fallen. To the tired climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold, and the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself,—darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. For the first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back, that dead-weight of social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem. He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbours. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his burden all poverty and ignorance.

 

. . . A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems. But alas! while sociologists gleefully count his bastards and his prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling, sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair. Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the natural defence of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the “higher” against the “lower” races. To which the Negro cries Amen! and swears that to so much of this strange prejudice as is founded on just homage to civilization, culture, righteousness, and progress, he humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom “discouragement” is an unwritten word.

 

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate. Whisperings and portents came borne upon the four winds: Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men? Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race! Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good,—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes’ social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of the meaning of progress.

 

. . . The training of the schools we need to-day more than ever,—the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts. The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defence,—else what shall save us from a second slavery? Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek,—the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire. Work, culture, liberty,—all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack. We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness. Will America be poorer if she replace her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility? or her coarse and cruel wit with loving jovial good-humour? or her vulgar music with the soul of the Sorrow Songs?   13

  Merely a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen’s sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

 

  -W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963).  The Souls of Black Folk.  1903.-1963.

 

 

These insights are great lessons that every African leader should bear on their consciousness. (Every one who sits in the chair of leading a nation ought to read Du Bois for an appreciation of impossibilities made possible and dreams nurtured and sustained in a greater awareness that the African stands in a place, set apart with God and man).

 

Despair, self-denial and failing leaders who set their own kind against each other for lack of temperance and understanding that this is a common boat, in which “we float or sink together”, is not the honour, the spirit of independence and self determination the African calls for.  That honour, that spirit, that call of the past to the present is to ensure that in the only place where the African is at home, no one, not a single African, child, woman or man should be denied the leadership inspired provisions of good governance to live in dignity.

 

Kwame Nkrumah had such an insight and desired to invest the monetary credits of British Colonial administrative rule in the Gold Coast to develop self-sustainable industries and expand the scope of possibilities of the African; not only for the Ghanaian, but for the African. He was a Son of the land who for a short time lifted high the colours and lit the Black Star. Sending it like a spiralling meteor on a course through the universe, maybe it just might pass this side of the universe again. If not in our lifetime, hopefully, the ideal will find expression in another great son or daughter of the land who by taking care of the flock, leaving the 99 safe sheep to search and rescue the one lost sheep will be the beginning of the “black genesis.”

A Parting Shot

Are there any good leaders out there? Well let’s see you in action then.