African Countries

African nations and their leadership

African nations have suffered greatly as a result of weak government, misdeeds, and mischief committed by their governments. Most Africans do not trust their leaders because they end up abusing authority for their own gain; most African leaders prioritize their own interests above all else. Corruption, nepotism, misuse of authority, and egoism are major features of African leadership. African politics is mostly influenced by the poor leaders who are chosen, despite the fact that there are some strong leaders on the same continent who care for their people and lead them well in order to bring about the development of their nations. The other threat to ethical leadership in African is the sense of lack or limited knowledge, lack of ethics which is bound to personal character and selfish principles of most leaders. Lousy leadership in sub-Saharan Africa ends up bringing about the stagnation of the economy, spurring corruption, societal fractures, and high levels of instability in the country. On another note, African leaders can rule for a very long time that is for over ten years, even by using military coups to seize power.

The long rule of African leaders

The author’s main point in this article is that the African leaders rule for decades and decades, and no one has a right to question this. Most leaders in Africa have been in power for more than ten years and are still ruling these countries, to some extent this is a dictatorship. African nations and people are affected by this kind of leadership in several ways; it has a substantial impact on the growth and stability of the states. Some leaders’ likes of Yoweri Museveni, in Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Paul Biya in Cameroon, and Obiang Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea, these leaders have stayed in leadership for over a decade. Recently Robert Mugabe was forced out of the president’s seat following a military-led coup.

The use of coups by African leaders

The leaders back then used military coups and today are using the constitutional coups where the constitutions keep being changed through amendments using the judiciary. Likes of such leaders are the Namibian president Sam Nujoma in 1998, and the president of Togo, in 2002 and also Museveni of Uganda in 2005, just to mention a few. The author also suggests the reactions the African leaders have given to the international actors and regional actors. The leadership organizations in Africa have assisted where they can, like in preventing military coups, for instance, the African Union (AU), ECOWAS has helped African countries have fair elections. The UN United Nations and the EU European Union have also stretched out to help Africa. The United States Policy toward these leaders is that the Former president urged the AU leaders to comply with the term limits strictly.

The impact of poor leadership in Africa

This issue addressed by the author on African leaders not complying with the term limits and ruling for as long as they want is essential. Africans and African countries are suffering; Africa, with no doubt, is a place full of potential, has land, and other better resources. With proper leadership, hardworking leaders with their best interests to their citizens would be a lot of good for the citizens and the African continent at large. The African continent has so much to offer, the unleashed workforce and the untapped natural. Africa needs leaders with visions and great skill. Apparently, what the continent is having is an injustice, food insecurities, lack of proper governance, dictatorial regimes, and maladministration, just due to poor leadership.

Realism in international relations

The author supports realism as an international relations paradigm in this article, in that the way to determine the interest of a political action over a specific time, depending on the political and cultural information of the foreign policy, can run the whole nation and might bring about results. This concept is applied to the idea of power; power obtained can be used to maintain control over people. Power is used depending on the political and cultural environments. From the article, we see that most longest-ruling leaders took power after they got the post-colonial leadership and remained in power for the rest of the years. Military coups used foreign power to come and take power from these leaders where the author gives the instance of Robert Mugabe who has been in leadership for Thirty-seven years had to be taken down using the military coup.

In conclusion

In conclusion, poor leadership in Africa is severe, and there should be ways and means to reduce this kind of bad leadership. This type of leadership will only lead to the deteriorating of the continent, day after day. Leaders should be more knowledgeable and take an interest in developing and growing their countries.

Work Cited

“Africa’s ’Leaders for Life’ Syndrome.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/africas-leaders-life-syndrome. Accessed at 8th December 8, 2017.