This except from a letter attributed to Cheikh Ahmadu Bamba shows that the enlightened and true Sufist leaders were against tyranny and dictatorship.  The Cheikh was always concerned about the welfare of the ordinary and weak and reminded the holders of power to serve the people and avoid being corrupted by power.  Thus it may be that Africans may not have seen rulers as eternally divine.  They were aware of the temporality of power.  The recent politics of the Big Man rule a la J Bayart (Politics of the Belly) is an invention of the post-colonial state which was just a continuing of the system of colonialism which was based on only maintaining the power of the colonialists through coercion, lies, falsehood, subterfuge and mystification.
Mboge

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“And that day will come when the same power you [have] will be taken from… [your] hands to be transferred to other kings who succeed you. So if it happens some days when life seems favorable to you and assist you against your enemies, know [there] will be others where it will promote your opponents against you. And if sometimes it made ​​you laugh, sometimes it also will make you cry. So what joy it inspires [in] you [let it] not deceive you … because this world is inherently misleading and disingenuous. Often it [can] turn … sharply against you to lure you and make you fall into his trap. Also, I recommend to [you to] always continue to assist the weaker, poor and needy, and never fall into tyranny and injustice because "any unjust man will regret it one day" and "any tyrant ensure his own destruction." Never forget that you hold the power and all favors flowing from it …, indeed,  [it] reached [you] only through the death of other people who owned it before you… . Therefore, expect that these same privileges [could]… forsake [you] one day …. Do therefore persevere in acts that will be useful in both worlds, here and in the Hereafter, before that one day you turn … [your] back on these benefits or that they turn away from you forever. Here ends the recommendations I give thee, if thou wilt …, this will be to your advantage, otherwise [thou assume the consequences] because "We all belong to God and to Him we shall return"  ”.   Cheikh Ahmadu  Bamba-( Founder of the Mouridism Sect in Senegal ) to the last DAMEL Samba Loabe Fall (King of Cayor)

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