Does anyone still remember The Mo Ibrahim Award? Touted as the biggest cash prize on Earth, it was staked for former African leaders who scored highly on the good governance index during their tenure of office. Some cynics said that the prize was like bribing leaders to do what they were supposed to do while others said the money would have been better spent on whistleblowers reporting ill-gotten wealth of (political) leaders. With the international media coverage it attracted, the Mo Ibrahim Prize offered us a rare opportunity to reassess the challenge of African leadership and nation-building. Enter Dr William Samoei Ruto of Kenya. A friend from the US called and asked what I made of the protests in Kenya. My answer: leadership failure. Ruto has failed to appreciate the expectations of Kenyans. He just wanted to be a president in the traditional African sense of strong men. Unfortunately for Ruto, he is presiding over a country that has acquired a cumulative conscientious civic consciousness. In a way, he must be envying other regional leaders like Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Mr Museveni of Uganda. He must be asking himself: bakikola batya (Luganda for: how do they do it)? And of course, the leaders in Kampala and Kigali must have been disturbed to hear that the Supreme Court determined that the national army could not deploy on the streets to handle the protests. Kagame and Museveni must have wondered: hii ni nini hii? (Swahili: What is this?). African political leadership has passed through three major phases. There was independence leadership, military rule and the current phase of presidential monarchs. The fight against colonialism brought us afro-consciousness in global affairs; the vortex of which was the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (later African Union).
Military rule brought us the Nigerian military oligarchy, Jean Bedel Bokassa of Central Africa Republic, Mobutu Sesse Seko of the Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Idi Amin of Uganda. However, this phase made Africa a playground for bi-polar Cold War politics. We are in the presidential monarch phase; the characterisation of which is having relatives of the president in high decision-making positions with a crown prince waiting to inherit the presidency from dear dad. Ruto (PhD) of Kenya is none of the above: he and his presidency is the result of a concerted nation civic consciousness and struggle. He really can’t be a president in the mould of Mr Museveni or Kagame. But being, he lacks the grace expected of a winner. He failed to manage Uhuru Kenyatta. And he now has issues with his Deputy President (the dramatic Riggy G). With two Gikuyu leaders off the wall, our fear is that Ruto may be tempted to seek refuge in ethnic security. Ruto should have known that there is such a thing as the establishment. And he was only co-opted into it; he was never and will never be a member. Where Kenya has reached, a president is just expected (and supposed) to come in, do his stuff and leave. He or she cannot change much. The only thing Dr Ruto can do in Kenya is to run a clean leadership and fight corruption (in his administration; not the past one). He should be and be seen to be modest and keep the bills low. That is good leadership feeding into nation-building. Otherwise, by thinking that he can be a president like Museveni of Uganda or Kagame of Rwanda, he is destroying his chances for a second term in office.
Mr Asuman Bisiika is the executive editor of the East African Flagpost. [email protected]