adminthe youths as “our future leaders”. Yet no concomitant structures are put in place by governments, with perhaps a few exceptions, to inculcate leadership skills as a way of preparing youths to take their place of the helm of their nations when the old guard, like leaves, fall away in the autumn of their incumbency.
Well, how can that be when after gaining independence a good number of the continent’s leaders forgot about youth empowerment and instead scuba dive in the shallow ends of seas of wealth ceded to them by former colonisers? In some cases, the leaders fish for “good governance” awards when, in reality, these leaders are adept at punching air bags or doing shadow boxing.
Small wonder then that the empowerment of youths across political and economic sectors has become a rhetorical after-thought for almost African leaders and youths from the African Union’s five regions. Youths in North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa vented their disappointment with the lackadaisical pace of their empowerment at the Pan-African Parliament meeting in Midrand, South Africa, recently. Zimbabwe’s agrarian reform, was applauded by all youth representatives who also noted that of all the founding fathers of African independence and freedom, President Mugabe had charted the right course for the empowerment of Zimbabweans.
Yet we still have political leaders in the country who oppose not only land reform while knowing full well that even their blood relatives also need this asset and oppose economic empowerment because they want to please imperialists. The imperialists desperately seek to maintain a stranglehold on the country through the impoverishment of Zimbabweans, making them dependant on political aid for their sustenance.
Perhaps worse than that, young people who call on their governments to nationalise economic sectors, such as mines that continue to form the power-base of former racist rulers, are told to shut up apparently so they will not upset the apple cart with dire consequences for the new rulers.
Julius Malema and other youths in South Africa appear to have unsettled some people in their own African National Congress government by demanding the nationalisation of the country’s mines. Malema and other members of the ANC youth league are now under fire and facing harsh sanctions for remarks they made concerning the political set up in neighbouring Botswana – remarks that enraged their government.
But is it untrue that those remarks reflected the kind of universal political order all young Africans envisage for the continent’s future, their own future, when current leaders are gone? No doubt, the ANC youths leaders inadvertently put their own foot in their mouth on Botswana, carried away by their overzealousness in the manner in which they, and probably other youths elsewhere, want to see Africa governed by her own people.
But was it not a significant political statement?
For instance, when an ANC leader says of Zimbabwe’s indigenisation vis-à-vis the same empowerment move in his own country – that it is something good only to be talked about, is that not a tragic goof when one considers that the land that South Africans fought for and economic power remain near and yet so far from the indigenous majority there?
And Zimbabwe’s premier MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai calling for inclusion in the new constitution of gay rights which are ultra-vires the country’s Christian values – is that not putting a foot soiled by decadent Western values in one’s mouth as well as in the mouths of every other Zimbabwean.
Worse still, is that not tantamount to an attempt at empowering the country’s youths to engage in homosexual orgies?
The time appears long overdue for African governments to be led by unmitigated patriots and visionaries capable of laying strong foundations grooming the continent’s young people as future leaders with a clear vision of where to take Africa in a world riven by conflicts, home grown and exported by foreigners hell-bent on making every African country, especially those rich in natural resources, the other of their own countries.
What also this suggests is an unwavering ideological thrust, a rendezvous or meeting point of the minds of African youth concerning how they must work towards reshaping the continent’s destiny. It is difficult to see how Africa’s youths can be rallied round a common course and cause when the prevailing political system carries on its back fractious political parties pushing neo-colonial or self aggrandisement agendas both of which leave youths in some kind of unfocused, leadership dilemma.
Or could a continental youths’ organisation with regional branches be the right movement to reorganise youths to become more conscious of their role in making Africa a better continent in which to live? This might make the youths eschew stone throwers against rivals among other dysfunctional practices to which some political parties assign them.
All that nauseating talk of youths, future leaders, blah, blah, with no real mentoring taking place should be discarded as cheap, time buying by leaders who see a threat in every youth who is a rising star.
- Stephen Mpofu is the former editor of Chronicle.
Otherwise, to keep sedating Africa’s young hopefuls with the feature leaders stud while confining them to the peripheries of the real political power politics in the social, political and economic spheres could result in a leadership vacuum and crisis when the oldies entrenched in strategic positions succumb to the vagaries of age and time.
What this suggests is that people holding down critical jobs and are of a nervous political disposition and allergic to any young potential feature leader who comes anywhere near their power base, should be socially and politically conscientised to become more patriotic by putting country before self. Failure by governments to urgently and sufficiently empower their youths could perpetuate rather than redeem Africa’s underdog status in a world arena where cut-throat political dynamics favour the more powerful while political minnows are often left sucking their thumbs watching from the sidelines.
Online Reporter