Mugabe, Museveni, Kagame and al-Bashir

Both crafted political theories; wrote literary works to guide their governing. Oliver Tambo ruled as exile head of a liberation struggle by the African National Congress; Amilcar Cabral in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde killed the lie of Portugal owning patches of Africa; sharing with Oliver Tambo death before reaching state power. John Garang in […]

Both crafted political theories; wrote literary works to guide their governing. Oliver Tambo ruled as exile head of a liberation struggle by the African National Congress; Amilcar Cabral in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde killed the lie of Portugal owning patches of Africa; sharing with Oliver Tambo death before reaching state power. John Garang in South Sudan and Samora Machel in Mozambique were assassinated with air crashes by Sudanese and South African leaders who feared their visions.
 Africa’s media has ignored promises of a rich exploration of a fascinating terrain of leaders in Africa; to tease out tools for training leaders after brutal European colonialism. The school of intense and rigorous bestialities of racist dictatorship in South Africa had yielded rare stubborn bravery in its leading opponents epitomised by Nelson Mandela. How schools of self-rule should train youths for leadership – and not bureaucratic serfdom – remains unchartered territory.  
We could get some guidance from reflecting on records of Presidents Robert Mugabe (in Zimbabwe); Yoweri Museveni (in Uganda); Paul Kagame (in Rwanda), and Omar al-Bashir (in Sudan).  Three of them started as intelligence officers. Museveni was an intelligence officer attached to President Milton Obote’s office; Kagame was Museveni’s chief of military intelligence before grabbing power in Rwanda. Al-Bashir was a military intelligence officer; the only career officer. Museveni and Kagame hugged military life in fighting to overthrow Idi Amin in alliance with Tanzania’s invading army. Mugabe, Museveni and Kagame waged war against local ruling classes, while al-Bashir detected, and survived several purges by, military coups.
Mugabe, Museveni and Kagame fought guerrilla wars. Amilcar Cabral warned its leaders to guard against various deadly viruses, including: urges to rape women fighters; using older age to silence the brilliance of younger fighters; ambition for top posts leading to plots and telling lies to bring others down, and being a spy for foreign enemy powers. Failure to combat these viruses would lead to fatal dangers, including: slaughters of thousands of fighters.
The leader’s vigilance is guided by a commitment to a greater vision of a free, humane and prosperous people; a vision clearly and openly explained to the people asked to fight and die for its realisation.  ‘’Tell no lie; claim no easy victories’’, Cabral urged; insisting that leaders must have detailed knowledge of their people to avoid mistakes of assuming support where there is enmity.
The principle of vigilance may account for repeated changes in lieutenants of Mugabe, Museveni, Kagame and al-Bashir. In recent months Museveni tossed out former Prime Minister, Amana Mbabazi, who showed signs of preparing himself as a successor to his boss. Kagame tossed out the head of the Senate, while Mugabe dropped his female Vice-President, Joyce Majuru for plotting to seize power. Critics claim that the leaders have dynastic ambitions; ignore pulls of larger visions that animate them.
 Mugabe must help the Shona majority ethnic group recover from decades of European brutalities; loss of land; exclusion from business activities and inferiority complexes to European skins. Kagame must reverse Belgian invention of hate-filled ethnic tags of Hutu and Tutsi and create love-based ‘’Rwandan’’ identities. Museveni has used Fanonian violence to combat ancient ethnic arrogance where it occurs while integrating women into political power into local and national legislatures and executive levels. For a small country trapped between vast Congo; Sudan, Kenya and Tanzanian neighbours, he has sent armies into Congo, Sudan and Somalia in a familiar flexing of borrowed muscles by a Lilliputian. Al-Bashir ends Sadiq al-Mahdi and Mirghani family dynasties.
Democratic politics must train its leaders. Tanzania’s experiment with ‘’TANU/CCM Youth League’’ deserves scrutiny. Americans have a rich record of getting youths engaged in volunteer door-to-door distribution of campaign pamphlets; making phone-calls and sending e-mails to voters for local, state and federal elections. Bill Clinton recalls that all 200 of them travelling by ship for post-graduate studies at Oxford University in Britain, were veterans of these election campaigns.
 Before Idi Amin struck, Uganda’s Secondary Schools conducted school political party elections; formed cabinets whose finance ministers handled daily expenditures, and were answerable to their parliaments.  Business leaders could establish ‘Intelligence Bureaus’ to monitor performances of such school governments; rewarding transparency and integrity.
Clinton recalls participating in a secondary school leadership training project similar to simulations of AFRICAN UNION summits by ‘’PAN-AFRICA CLUB’’ teams at Anglican Girls Grammar School in Apo, Abuja. The African Union Commission and the Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation jointly hosted an African Youth Summit on January 29th and 30th January, 2014 to discuss food security in Africa.  The most talented students should be research staff to legislatures at local, state national levels; attending democracy schools.