Why We Need Political Education

By Baba G. Jallow

Since African countries gained independence from colonial rule in the late fifties and early sixties, the continent remains mired in seemingly intractable problems of underdevelopment, unethical leadership and bad governance. Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and other investments from both within and without the continent have failed to improve the lives of ordinary citizens. Respect for human rights and the rule of law are disregarded with impunity by irresponsible, unethical and selfish rulers and the great majority of Africa’s people remain subject to the whims and caprices of unconscionable dictators whose favorite pastimes are bullying their people and blaming the West. As we have argued elsewhere, the problem of irresponsible leadership and bad governance in Africa is directly linked to a serious anomaly between political perception and political reality, political institutions and political cultures which, in turn, is a consequence of a lack of transformative leadership and proper political education on the continent. Unless and until political perceptions are brought in line with political realities, Africa will continue to be mired in problems of irresponsible leadership, bad governance and all their attendant negative and stifling consequences.

Colonialism imposed western systems and institutions of governance on traditional African political cultures that have remained largely unchanged from the pre-colonial, through the colonial to the post-colonial periods. Following the colonial conquest, European administrations adopted varying versions of Indirect Rule, which purported to rule Africans through their own traditional authority systems. Where traditional African rulers willingly cooperated with the colonial administration, they were allowed to keep their positions but subjected to the power of the colonial rulers. This meant that their power and legitimacy now derived not from their constituents or people, but from the colonial government. They were now beholden to the colonial governors and district commissioners rather than their own advisers, councils of elders and their own people. Where individual rulers did not exist, such as among what were termed stateless societies – such as the Igbo, the Kikuyu, and the Maasai, among others – collaborators with the colonial authorities were selected and appointed chiefs. It did not matter whether these collaborators had any status in the society, or whether they were people of ill repute within their communities. Whether chiefs were traditional or neo-traditional (invented), they ceased serve the interests of their own people in favor of the interests of their new masters – the colonial regimes.

This shift of the sources of political power and legitimacy from the bottom (people) to the top (colonial regime) encouraged the abuse of political office by irresponsible and unethical rulers. It also did nothing to alter popular traditional perceptions of rulers and political authority. Just as in the pre-colonial days, African societies continued to regard their leaders as possessing the spiritual blessings of unseen and omnipotent powers whose authority and wishes may not be questioned. Colonial rule did nothing to alter what we may call this political culture of the divine right of rulers. And the men who took over from the colonial governments at independence either ignored or encouraged this anomaly because it enabled them to behave like traditional rulers in constitutional state settings. As a result, the majority of Africans still see African rulers and governments through the prism of pre-colonial traditional political lenses that have little or no bearing to post-colonial political realities. Presidents are still called terms approximating “king” (Mansa, Burr, Borom Rewmi, Lamdo, etc) because the term “president” does not exist in traditional African vocabularies; similarly, constitutional republics are still called terms approximating “kingdom” (Mansa Kunda, Ngurr, Laamu). The abiding currency of these and other political misnomers, often deliberately encouraged by African rulers and governments lies at the bottom of the problem of Africans’ political powerlessness and incapacity to hold their governments accountable.

It is not uncommon to hear arguments to the effect that the majority of Africans cannot be given an effective political education because they are not literate in western languages. Given that their lives are governed by a western nation-state system, and considering the low rates of western literacy across sub-Saharan Africa, this argument is tantamount to imposing an interminable prison sentence on the African people. If we must wait until we get 100 percent literacy rates in western languages before embarking on a process of political education for Africans, then we are doomed to wait forever because that is not likely to happen anytime soon. We contend that language barriers are not obstacles to political education in Africa. Africans are capable of learning anything and everything about modern political systems, ideologies and institutions in their own local languages. No concept or theory of the western nation-state systems that govern Africans’ lives is so complex as to defy effective exposition, communication and understanding in African languages. A well-crafted political education curriculum taught by well-qualified professionals will effectively remove the anomaly between political perception and political reality. It will deconstruct damaging notions such rulers are God-ordained and replace the misnomers we mentioned above with terms appropriate for the naming of the concerned institutions. This, alongside other aspects of civic education such as knowledge of their constitutional rights and responsibilities, and the limits of constitutional authority will politically empower Africans and render them capable of holding their leaders and governments accountable.  This would represent momentous progress towards the achievement of responsible leadership and good governance in Africa.

Africans need not only deconstruct the above misnomers, but also distinguish the subtle but very important differences between leaders and rulers or mere power-wielders. There are many scholars who argue that these terms are essentially the same. However, an equal or greater number of scholars argue that leaders and rulers or power-wielders are not the same. Leadership has certain moral, ethical, persuasive and positively interactive undertones that rulership lacks. Rulership or power-wielding is more of a top-bottom regime of command, control and unjust coercion. Leadership on the other hand, is more of a horizontal and multi-directional process of interaction and mutual influencing largely devoid of unjust coercion and guided by certain unassailable moral and ethical standards of behavior that apply to everyone involved. In a leadership situation, leaders are led as much as they lead. This needs to be made clear to those who are victims of unjust power wielders who lack legitimacy but still lord it over their populations while strutting around draped in over-flowing gowns and wearing funny hats.