Planning for next generation critical

Preparing for generational change is an important part of leadership in any nation. Africa’s first half-century of independence has been a tragic example of how the failure to do so can lead to internal strife, stoke ethnic tensions, and frustrate the development of democratic practice.

Despite a wealth of cultural practices that ensured new generations of leaders were taught, tested and trusted with decision-making, when it came to the creation of African-majority governments five decades ago, the grooming of serious replacements for the first batch of leaders was avoided in favour of propping up cronies committed to ensuring ethnic hegemony.

This is true to a degree of nations that earned their freedom early, like Ghana, Uganda and Kenya, of those that fought off the yoke of oppression late, like Zimbabwe and Angola, as well as the few that were never really colonies, like Ethiopia. It is also true of ethnic communities, private and public institutions, religious organisations, and essentially any other grouping requiring leadership.

Consider how Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, one of the most inspiring African leaders of his generation, was seduced by the trappings of power and ended his presidency as an overthrown despot. Or how Mozambican revolutionary Samora Machel went from liberation hero to Marxist despot, propped up by the Soviet Union as his people suffered under his government’s policies. Even the more ordinary Jomo Kenyatta took his eye off the ball long enough to allow a cabal of Mt Kenya insiders such leeway they had the gall to attempt a constitutional putsch in 1976.

The first generation of ‘founding fathers’ were essentially freedom fighters, war veterans, or colonial government players who manouvered their way into power once the ‘wind of change’, began blowing. They came to leadership at a time when the Cold War was heating up and by playing off the adversaries in that contest against one another, found they could rule their little fiefdoms untroubled.

Despots or not, many made some attempt to drag their infant nations into the modern world with the infrastructure and social services needed for development. Where they failed was in creating a generation of strong leaders to follow them and build on their work. Preoccupied with fending off ethnic threats, they surrounded themselves with weaker beings unable to take over the affairs of State. They found themselves slowly turning into indispensable men, presidents for life, supreme ethnic chieftains.

When the Cold War ended and their indiscretions were no longer ignored, they found they had bred the perfect conditions for national instability. They had been in power too long and been too corrupt to remain in office. They had allowed impunity too much rope for a blind eye to be turned by their compatriots.

This pattern of neglect has been seen in many places and even studied by scholars fascinated by why Africa’s first generation of great visionary leaders – Nyerere, Nkrumah, Lumumba – often lost their way before they gave up power.
This is a debate Kenyans need to have as well as they prepare for the big change in governance that is to be ushered in by the first General Election under the new Constitution. It is a debate that should encompass all forms of leadership, not just the political.
As Kenya bids farewell to John Michuki and Njenga Karume, two octogenerian politicians who stayed in the game well past their prime, it may do well to consider the amount of effort going into creating a credible cadre of experienced leaders to take charge of the country.

Whenever the age question comes up, as it did in the run-up to the 2007 election, some people toy with the idea of an upper age limit for people running for the presidency. This is not the sort of thing we have in mind or would even consider worth pursuing. Rather, we need to require of our leaders, whatever their age, to deliberately groom the next generation of leaders and leave them with institutions to lead, rather than ethnic blocks to ‘inherit’. It is this effort to ensure stability rather than to demonstrate indispensability that Kenya needs most.