THE SECOND DAY
…one thousand years.
Visitors from other parts of the world found cultures and kingdoms when they came. As in all governments of people worldwide these kingdoms had acknowledged leadership structures. Kingdoms ordered their communities lives, through edict, tradition and centralized form of government. There were various forms of governance mechanisms including patriarchs, monarchies, various forms of leadership councils and elders courts. We shall leave the details to historians. Visitor contact started with singular initiatives and later institutional interests that started to focus on Africa and send their agents inland.
As the visitors scouted the land they drew up accounts, records, maps and sketches of Africa that captured the imagination of the world – and also drew the attention of the world to Africa’s riches, reserves and robust races.
SLAVERY
Africa was literally dragged into the global arena through the humiliating door opened by slave trade. Africa’s recorded contribution to global economies dates as far back as the 15th century. The deposition of Africa on the world stage was occasioned by exploration of the globe and the “discovery” of new worlds. Africa’s job was to supply the labor. Suffice to say that slavery continued unabated partly because the capacity to organize the kind of resistance necessary to put an end to this evil was disjointed. The people did not have any matching resources materials or means to draw on to fight this intrusion. Leadership in Africa was sent reeling from the comfort of clan, culture, community and country.
Individual bravery and group resistance to this menace abounded across Africa, but leadership was unable to mobilize corporate efforts against a common enemy because of the fractious relations between communities. Traders would predictably raid one village after another playing on the poor inter-village liaison and relations. Villages were hopelessly vulnerable. The leadership efforts to put an end to this inhumanity were illuminated by the conscience of mankind.
Africa had made a guest appearance. This ignominious entry was followed by a period of “silence” as global players moved briefly to other provinces. But respite was short lived before Africa could recollect its thoughts Africa was to come to the world stage again on quite a different pretext.
MISSIONARY
As slave trade in earnest was winding up the missionary was stepping onto the coasts of Africa and working his way inwards. Leadership in Africa saw a different kind of intrusion who appeared visibly harmless and in singular numbers claiming god and a good book. What harm could that possibly do? But leadership in Africa was alarmed when the missionary’s brothers quickly followed him claiming the land with gun in hand. This paradox made many a leader reject this “guns and gods” philosophy as some sort of deceitful ploy. But the missionaries had gained a toehold and maintained an edge over the colonizers. They set up churches and more important for leadership in Africa they set up schools that introduced leadership to the wider world.
400 YEARS
For over four hundred years the visitors came and departed at will. Introducing in the process political dynamics on the continent that unsettled disorganized and disrupted the social fabric and rhythm of life in such a way as to render leadership in Africa unable to enforce governance of their own lands, peoples and resources. Then the visitor decided to stay. Independence was ceded away as sovereignty was forced to negotiate (co) existence with the intruders for reasons of raw power.
THE CAKE
So intense was the zeal of the intruders that they sat down and divided Africa like a birthday cake in closing hours of the 19th Century. Each carved out a piece from which they would drag the riches from the people and the soil. The colonizers tried to stake claim to the future of Africa. But this time things would be different. Though they hacked at its heritage and ignored its history they could not access its heart. As dusk gathered across the land on the second day a call went up.
LEADERSHIP
Where was leadership in Africa when all this was happening? The people fought like any people would for their land and livelihood but the fact that they were overpowered is true. To say that leadership in Africa took no action is false. Leadership in Africa resisted but power is not an objective force. Right and might is not the same thing. However, victory for leadership in Africa would have to await a cogent strategy that would incorporate understanding the latest developments of their current circumstances.