Prof. Eddy Maloka.
The Africa Peer Review Mechanism-APRM Chief Executive Professor Eddy Maloka has said that Africa’s problem is not long-serving leaders but the leadership crisis.
Prof Maloka, who was the keynote Speaker as Makerere celebrated the legacy of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere on Thursday said that a leader can serve for longer and still benefit his people and that leaders who serve for too little time can also mess up the country in a short time.
Maloka was underlining what he believes has made Africa lag behind in terms of development and giving solutions to the long-lasting problems the continent is facing.
Many political analysts and leaders in the West and within Africa have frequently claimed that Africa’s problem is the issue of leaders who overstay in power and run out of ideas, but Maloka who is a Professor of History formerly at the University of Cape town disagrees saying that what matters is the ideas of the leader.
“You can have somebody in power for a very long time but if that person does good things for that country you see change but you can have somebody for four years and that person destroys the country”
His argument is that each leader who gets a chance to rule a country must work with his people under their values regardless of the time he spends in power, but many leaders become selfish and only prioritize their interests at the expense of their subjects which he believes is the biggest problem.
He said some leaders tend to want to own resources that are made to benefit the entire country. He was referring to the leader in Dubai Sheikh Zayed who capitalized on oil to transform their city.
The symposium whose theme is “imagining an African future led by Africa’s young population” was organized to share thoughts on how the young generation can be enrolled in leadership positions as well as pioneering Mwalimu’s Julius Nyerere’s Pan-Africanism campaign.
Joseph Butiku, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation in Tanzania urged leaders to engage the young generation because they hold the future of the continent.
Dr. Simba Kayunga from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Makerere University said while African people have their differences, he says that the current leaders should teach togetherness to young people across the continent because Africans have a lot in common and that doing so will carry on Mwalimu Nyerere’s legacy.
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