Lessons from Britain

The most interesting part of the British elections and the change of guard is the fact that ostensibly, the voters have their way. Gordon Brown, a good leader who guarded his country against the vagaries of the recession, kept unemployment at a manageable level and his party in government was a casualty of other people’s […]

The most interesting part of the British elections and the change of guard is the fact that ostensibly, the voters have their way. Gordon Brown, a good leader who guarded his country against the vagaries of the recession, kept unemployment at a manageable level and his party in government was a casualty of other people’s sins. The coup he suffered was as a result of the recent scam over MP’s allowances than for anything else he was guilty of. Tried as he did, he could not wriggle out of the ripple effect. Labour’s failure is not a personal indictment of Brown as a political leader, but the result of a system that fails to seize the opportunity to reform.

Voters’ expressed disgust but also chose their revenge at the polls, rather than sit it out in the hot sun like the Thai’s or braze cocked guns and bayonets as they once did in the Philippines. Thanks to a fairly credible electoral system, their verdict has forced brown into the labour market. Thanks also to a politically suave leadership that is able to read the temperature of the people. For in Africa, Labour, with more votes, would have stuck through rather than give up power. In Britain, it didn’t, or couldn’t. Brown gave his valedictory from a prepared text but the new order David Cameron encapsulated the challenge before him ex-tempore after the order of the likes of Barack Obama, yet capturing the mood of the moment and galvanizing the British people to raise their heads in hope. Succinctly, thirteen years of Labour domination was rewritten in hours, paving way for the most indubitable coalition since the end of the Second World War.

What more, both Cameron and Clegg are in their forties, which means that they can meet Obama blood for blood, share their dreams with Sarkozy and their vision with Angela Merkel. Indeed, across the global political spectrum, the message is clear – youth is in. If the future belonged to the youths, then the future is here. Its early morning yet, to say what this difficult coalition would bring, but the British people are sure happy to see the back of the old order. With their votes, they have invested in the diet of hope. Nigerians would have wished that drama was playing out in their own political field. Our is flawed and kept so because it benefits the old order which cares nothing about the expressed or inherent feelings of the people.

African people are dying for change, but instead, the old order buries us with themselves in a political quicksand. Across the continent, dreams are dying as soon as they are born. Fifty odd years after the walls of colonialism began to cave in; benefactors of the old order still blame a faulty foundation. They have had fifty odd years to pull down the structure and rebuild, but nay, they benefit from patching and fixing – the more it changes, the worse it becomes. The three Nigerians who won elections in Britain could not have done it anywhere else outside their state of origin, except perhaps in Lagos.

The new British leadership faces a huge challenge. The coalition members are diametrically opposed in views – Europhiles versus Eurosceptics – but the challenge ahead of these two, especially with the economic volcanic ash spewing from Greece through Spain to other parts of the continent and beyond. The hope is that small matters would give way to bigger challenges. One is encouraged by the sheer level of political maturity that threw up this coalition the can-do spirit of the political players, including and especially Gordon Brown’s maturity in reading the handwriting on the wall and acting in accordance with the dictates of the times and his conscience. But most of all, I am strongly impressed with the challenge thrust before the two political rookies now heading government.

I am disturbed by the widening gulf between political players in the first world and the dry bones running the African continent. I am ashamed that at the continental level, there are no players who could talk on the same wavelength with the emerging leaders of the first world. In the entire continent, only in two-not-to-be cited examples are youths in. They are the anathema in the DRC and Togo. In Nigeria, where a splash of youth have appeared, their performances generally has left much to be desired; they have stolen more than their forebears and are negotiating generous pay-offs in addition to the loot.

It is painfully true today that while Europe may have underdeveloped Africa, its indigenous bad leaders have upped the ante to a level that in retrospect, Europe’s contributions are seen as benevolent. Yet, in the arena of the new world order, only players of the same political weight and world view can compete to advantage.