The danger of relying too heavily on one leader can be exemplified by the leadership of Houphouët-Boigny who was commonly known as the "Sage of Africa" or the "Grand Old Man of Africa".
"Under Houphouët-Boigny's politically moderate leadership, Ivory Coast was the most prosperous nation under African rule. This success, in the midst of corrupt and poverty woed Africa, became known as the "Ivorian miracle".
At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving leader in Africa's history and the third longest-serving leader in the world, after Fidel Castro of Cuba and Kim Il-sung of North Korea. After his death, conditions in Ivory Coast quickly deteriorated. From 1994 until 2002, there were a number of coup d'états, a currency devaluation, an economic recession, and, beginning in 2002, a civil war.
In today's paradigm of knowledge and information based world, its more obvious that no single leader has all the answers at the right time, however, smart they may be.
The irony is that M7 is blatantly aware of this from his own rhetoric when he first came to power:
"The problem with African leaders is that they stay too long in power. No African leader should stay in power more than ten years!" - M7 reiterated!
23 years later M7's own rhetoric has lived up to it's bombast.
Félix Houphouët-Boigny (18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993)
Sphere: Related Content
No comments:
Post a Comment