While meditating on many issues concerning Nigeria and the approaching 63rd Independence Day anniversary of October 1, recent political events in the richly blessed African continent with shocking prevalence of poverty continued to weigh on one’s psyche. The heavy, worrisome thoughts eventually led to a decision to do some reading about leadership in Africa. It was while reading up that one found that those enthralling words of the charismatic Thomas Sankara, who was assassinated in cold blood, by a dear comrade he treated as a brother, were found. It crossed one’s mind that the experience of the late Captain Sankara in the hands of the then Captain and later President Campaore is being experienced by the masses in African countries!

The masses trust smooth-talking, almost-swearing politicians with their votes, lives, livelihood, and national wealth but get frequently betrayed and assassinated – literally or policy-wise. Our leaders have almost completely assassinated the future of our respective countries! The more one considers what has been done to our political, economic, and social heritage, country after country, questions, so many of them, want to jump out of one’s head!

Are you wondering what those questions are? Take another look at those meaning-loaded words of Thomas Sankara. Do you agree that IF EVERY administration, across Africa, aligns with and sustains the principles of Sankara’s words, they will, surely, lift African countries to match the much sought-after first-world country status? Do you also agree that it won’t matter if the country is practising the preferred democratic governance or military rule? Indeed, Sankara’s style of leadership, focus on infrastructural development, and transparent self-abnegation, before his gruesome assassination, have led to questions about which is truly better: democratic governance for the sake of it or truly corruption-free, people-connecting, up-to-date infrastructure-advancing administrations that place a premium on equitable, country-wide infrastructural development – democratic or otherwise? While Sankara stands aloft as an exemplary administration in khaki uniform, the likes of Nelson Mandela (South Africa), c, and John Magufuli (both of Zambia) ably represent similar governance dispositions in democratic settings.

The point has to be made here that part of the reasons revolutionary speeches, as seen in those words of Sankara, hardly move Africans today is because, they had on many occasions, trusted persons who dished out revolutionary oratory but went on to stain their records of governance with sickening corruption and/or vindictive, dictatorial practices. It would hurt some readers but one needs to clarify this point with obvious examples. There was the pan-Africanist duo of Francis Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Muammar Gaddafi) of Ghana and Libya respectively. They scored high in rhetoric and sloganeering and inspired so many Africans with hopes of a soon-to-be better Africa!

Gaddafi, for example, is praised for so many developmental projects in Libya and bold, open calls for the United States of Africa. But, should such developmental strides be an excuse for the outright self-aggrandizement, nepotism, and disappearance of his political opponents?
In all truth, European countries have subtly dictated how things go in the African continent through vested imperialist self-interest but would they succeed without equally surreptitious hand-in-glove moves of our compatriots? Unfortunately, the imperialists don’t care about what our brothers in leadership dish us. The imperialists seek to destroy the legacies of African leaders only when their own vested interests in our respective countries seem threatened. So, they go for blood irrespective of whether the leaders are doing well for us or otherwise! In the estimation of the imperialists, an African leader should not live or enjoy a good reputation if he dares to curb their anti-African grip on our economy – irrespective of what he’s doing for his people!

That’s why, today, we remember Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, … Gaddafi, Thomas Sankara and John Magufuli for standing against imperialism and neo-colonialisation. But, when we look deeper, we shake our heads in sadness because some of them mixed selfish interest with public interest; most times, more of the former! Thankfully, Mandela, Sankara and Magufuli showed, in practical terms, that one could lead a country without amassing ill-gotten wealth. Of course, in Nigeria, there have been a few like them. In this wise, today, we celebrate Johnson Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, men who did not use their leadership of the country to rob our commonwealth.

These are the considerations on one’s mind when one looks across the African political sphere these days. Concerns continue to rise in respect of what leadership in Africa will be like in the coming decades. Indeed, these concerns have buzzed across Africa and beyond as military coup followed military coup; country after country occurred – affecting 7 countries between August 2020 and July 2023. Now, while people all over the world are wondering if another coup is in the offing on the continent, many Africans just want to get leaders who shun illicit wealth to focus on extensive enriching of the masses with the natural and other resources of their respective countries.
That’s why our nationals remind each other of the mega-scale, self-aggrandizement of African leaders and their coterie of sycophants and are asking: where are all these military takeovers taking Africa to? Yet, others are asking: Who’s really behind the spate of recent overthrow of “democratically elected” civilian governments in Africa? Again, would the new leaders, whose march through respective presidential palaces, has been massively hailed by compatriots not turn around, as often the case, to turn against those celebrating them now and even knock some of the celebrants cold?

In all, the main issue is whether African countries have awakened to break free from internal exploitation by compatriots and the veiled, external shenanigans of imperialists and neo-colonialists. It seems countries like Niger and Burkina Faso are heading in that direction. But, is it only through military governments that African countries can enjoy such a phenomenon?

This is the reason some people are keeping an eye on the likes of Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO Lumumba), Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quad, and activist Julius Malewa, among others like them. Would the corridors of power cordon off their present puritanical and anti-imperialist rhetoric if they got into political office? By the way, have Africans gotten so tired of the old, sick system of governance on the continent and want to invest their votes in the likes of Lumumba, Chihombori-Quad, and Malewa? Still, wondering – what will Africans do to end the open secret of conspiracies to eliminate any African leader who opposes imperialism? Importantly, would the judiciary in our respective countries and other local interests allow such people to be elected into office? Our recent experience in Nigeria on one’s mind…

Looking at Nigeria, can we have people like John Magufuli as president, governors, local government council chairmen, and legislators? When, again, would our judiciary be filled with such men and women? People who would look away from filthy lucre, apply and support the reduction of the cost of governance across the board. People who would put imperialists in their place by putting Nigeria first – like the Americans and Europeans have been doing?