On 28 June 2020, a man called Lazarus came back from the dead.
Lazarus Chakwera was sworn in as the President of Malawi after he won a re-election (after he had been declared the loser in 2019). that occurred, in amazing fashion, during a Covid19 epidemic with little or no international support.
Five months earlier, in early February 2020, the Malawian judicial system flexed its democratic and constitutional muscles by putting a check on the power of the executive branch when the Constitutional Court judges ruled that the 2019 Presidential elections in Malawi (which had been won by the incumbent President Mutharika) had not been held fairly and ordered that the elections be re-done strictly following provisions of the electoral Laws. It also fixed an anomaly on the definition of majority when determining the winner from First Past the Post to 50+1.
The Supreme Court also validated the ruling of the lower court following an appeal by the Electoral Commission and the incumbent president. Many people in Africa, a continent accustomed to authoritarianism (from colonial “masters” to African military and civilian despotic rulers), were surprised that a country’s judges would have the courage to put a check on executive overreach.
In June 2020, despite the constraints of the global pandemic and little international support for its national elections, the Malawian Electoral Commission conducted the elections and the incumbent was defeated. Malawi created a first in African political history by overturning an election through a legal and democratic process and struck a big blow against authoritarianism and in favor of democracy.
In 2019, thousands of miles away in the United States of America, President Trump violated his country’s constitution by withholding military assistance to Ukraine for the promise of political help to fight his most feared political rival, Joe Biden. When a whistleblower exposed the scheme, the ensuing furor resulted in the impeachment of the President in the House of Representatives but this impeachment was not supported by the Senate and in the resulting trial the Senate voted to acquit the President.
The President was exonerated despite evidence that he had violated the Constitution and in the next few months he proceeded to remove from office the non-loyalists who had testified against him. President Trump’s authoritarianist leanings were openly displayed when, five months later, following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, at the hands of police, he threatened to use military force to quell protests. The USA struck a blow against democracy and in favor of authoritarianism when they exonerated the President’s actions. ******************************************************************************Aburi Botanical Gardens is a lovely tourist attraction in Ghana – a 65-hectare oasis of horticultural heaven, where guests can expand their learning of plants and trees and escape the heat of the Ghana sun. In the midst of the gardens stands a giant tree – an Afzelia Africana tree – planted over 100 years ago. Remarkably despite standing tall and proud and looking good, the tree is dead. It was attacked by a parasitic plant in 1906 and over the course of 30 years the parasitic plant strangled it to death, attacking the tree from within and hollowing it out. Today, the tree still stands, but it is dead and hollow.
The Chinese Bamboo tree has a seed that is so hard that when planted, it will “do nothing” for almost four years. Nothing happens in the first year or the second, not the third or the fourth. Despite receiving water, the tree does not sprout from under the ground until the fifth year. In the fifth year, the seed breaks through the soil and begins to grow into a tree. In the fifth year the tree grows to over 100 feet.
In ancient times, the people of Israel, after rejecting the prophet Samuel as their leader, were given a King named Saul. Saul was a strapping young man when he was made king. However, he fell foul of God because he disobeyed God’s orders to destroy everything after a war because he was afraid of disciplining his own men, and instead he sacrificed to God. God rejected him as king, and told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to anoint David as king. Samuel did as he was told.
From the time that Samuel anointed David as king, a period of approximately fourteen years (according to biblical/history scholars’ estimate) passed before David was anointed as king by the people of Israel. From the time that Saul was rejected as king by God, it took approximately fourteen years for Saul’s fall from grace to be seen or recognized by the people of Israel. David was king in the eyes of God fourteen years before he became king in the eyes of people on earth.
Similarly, Saul had ceased to be king in God’s eyes fourteen years before earthly people recognized he was no longer king. This is demonstrated in Samuel’s fear of Saul when God told him to go and anoint David, which caused him to have to create a ruse to fool Saul into thinking that he was simply going to offer a sacrifice to God.
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What do these three sets of stories have in common? They are a cautionary tale that illustrate the difference between position, velocity, and acceleration. One entity may be ahead of another, and yet be moving slower than another entity that is behind it. Similarly, one entity may be moving faster than another entity, yet the second one may have greater acceleration than the first. In both situations, the current position of the entities is not an accurate predictor of their future positions.
Like the Afzelia African tree the United States of America is being devoured from the inside by a parasite that is eating it from the inside. The decay has been slow and is taking many years, but it is happening. The Covid crisis and the economic challenges are but symptoms, not causes, of the mess. The strength of the USA has been in its ability to create a melting pot of talent. People came to the USA from all over the world, the best and the brightest, in search of a better life and future. And they found it.
They created new lives for themselves, worked hard, built companies, and educated themselves and their children; these children built companies, worked hard, and created an economy that was the envy of the world that financed a defense force that was unparalleled in history in its agility, power and prowess. But the source of America’s power has always been its people. It is the source of any country’s power, any team’s power.
The best performing teams are the ones that have the best players who are willing to work together and sacrifice for each other. There is a reason why Real Madrid and Barcelona consistently win La Liga (Spanish soccer league)…it is because they have the best players on their team. The same is true for countries and economies…the countries with the best talent usually win. It’s only a matter of time. Over the past two decades, America has been hemorrhaging talent. This net decline in talent has been severely accelerated by the policies and rhetoric of Trump and Co, but it was not started by him.
By contrast, Africa has seen a transformation of its brain drain into brain gain. More talented and world-class educated Africans are now returning to Africa than ever before. The advent of technology is also helping more Africans to bridge the divide between living in America and working for Africa. The past decade has seen a burgeoning of innovative African companies that are growing and promising a new economic dawn for Africa. Many of these companies are started by and/or staffed by Africans who were educated in Europe and America.
From ground-breaking universities like Ashesi University and African Leadership University to pan-African banking icons like Ecobank and ABSA, Africans of world-class talent with the option of working anywhere in the world are choosing to work in and for Africa. Even the American companies have taken notice and are increasingly recruiting Africans to run their Africa branches and investing more of their funds into expanding in Africa. From McKinsey to Coca-Cola to the NBA, American companies are recognizing that the market, the talent, and the money of the future is in Africa.
Leadership matters greatly. When leaders make wise decisions the people prosper. When they do not, the people are destined to go through hard times. This is why I have dedicated myself to helping leaders become better leaders. The fact that a person is installed as a leader does not make that person automatically a good leader for the people. Good leadership comes from following Godly principles of fairness, integrity, courage, vision, selfless sacrifice, humility, and passion. These principles were not invented by humans; they were not invented by the leadership gurus or scholars of the 20th century or the 19th century; they were given to us by God. More leaders in Africa are adopting these principles today, and Africa is rising.
BCA (www.breakfastclubafrica.com) is enabling leaders in Africa to become better leaders. Through BCA, leaders of organizations in Africa are being made aware of and given equitable access to the transformative services of knowledge-sharing and executive coaching. As these leaders regularly access these services, they will be enabled to make optimal decisions; their organizations will be better placed to achieve their goals/visions; their communities will experience improved economic and social development.
Like the Chinese Bamboo tree, Africa is rising. Many may not see it yet, but it is already happening. The roots have been established, the growth is happening, and by the time the rest of the world sees it the growth will be exponential and impossible to ignore. Sadly, at the same time, America is in decline. Talent is fleeing and the parasite is rapidly destroying it from the inside as it hollows out with increasing speed.
- Africa is miles behind America right now in terms of position.
- Africa may be at par with America in terms of velocity.
- Africa is ahead of America in terms of acceleration.
- The future is ours. This is the African Century.
>>>the writer is a scholar and practitioner of organizational development and leadership and a leadership Coach and Facilitator. Over the past three decades, he has successfully coached and trained leaders in Africa, North America, and Europe. His passion for leadership enhancement was born out of his experiences as a cadet in the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and as a military officer serving in combat in the Sierra Leone Civil War where he was shot twice. As the only Sierra Leonean with a Ph.D. in Leadership, Modupe was the founding Dean of the African Leadership University School of Business, an institution providing a Pan-African MBA degree to Africa’s mid-career professionals. He is the Founder and CEO of BCA Leadership (www.bcaleadership.com), an organization that has impacted over 3000 African leaders with coaching and knowledge-sharing services. He leads a team of thirty-two Coaches across Africa and he is the curator of The Made in Africa Leadership Conference. Contact Modupe through email at [email protected]
To register for The Made in Africa Leadership Conference scheduled for 15& 16 June, 2022 in Lusaka – Zambia, visit www.bcaleadership.com
