What kind of leader

The Heir

Define it, then. What kind of leader?

Africa

A leader who makes himself unnecessary.

The Heir

That is not a leader. That is a caretaker.

Africa

It is the hardest thing a human being with power can do, and almost no one on my soil has done it, which is why I begin there. Everything the word "leader" has meant to you, the man on the poster, the voice on the radio, the father of the nation, the one who is needed, every one of those is a description of the One. I am asking you to measure a leader by the opposite: by what still works after he is gone.

The Heir

Give me the measure, precisely.

Africa

Four questions, asked on the day a leader leaves office.

One. Is there a court that overruled him while he was in power, and is it still standing? Malawi, 2020: the constitutional court cancelled a presidential election for fraud, the president accepted the ruling, and lost the rerun. The judges were threatened, and they ruled anyway, and they are still there. That is a court.

Two. Is there a newspaper that shamed him, and is it still printing? Ghana has hundreds; a president who tries to buy them all goes broke. Nigeria's press, under military rule, was jailed and bombed and kept printing. That is a press.

Three. Did he leave a successor who could replace him, and did the successor replace him, without the army? Senegal, 2000: Abdou Diouf lost, telephoned the winner, congratulated him, and went to Paris to run the French-speaking world's cultural body. Botswana, four times. Ghana, four alternations. Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria in 2015, when a sitting president conceded before the count was finished. That is a succession.

Four. Did he leave a company that could undercut his friend's? Did prices fall when he left? Did the man who owned the cement get a competitor? If prices did not move, the leader was a shareholder.

A leader who passes all four has built the second keys, and he is remembered for a century. A leader who passes none has built nothing, however many roads he opened, because the next man can take the roads and the keys together.

The Heir

By that measure almost nobody passes.

Africa

Six do, by a judgement that was not mine. The Mo Ibrahim Prize, founded by a Sudanese engineer who built one of the continent's largest phone companies, is awarded only to a leader who was elected, served within the constitution, left on time, and governed well. Five million dollars. It is not awarded in most years, because in most years nobody qualifies, and the committee says so publicly, which is the most honest thing any prize on earth does. Those who won it: Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who ended a sixteen-year war and then declined to run again when he could have. Festus Mogae of Botswana. Pedro Pires of Cape Verde, who refused to change the constitution to stay and left his country richer and freer than he found it. Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, the first woman elected to lead an African country, who took it from war to two peaceful elections. Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, who in 2021 became the first president of his country to hand over to an elected successor. Six, in nineteen years. That is the honest number of leaders who made themselves unnecessary. It is small. It is also six more than there were in 1990.

The Heir

And the men you praised earlier, Kagame, who rebuilt Kigali. He fails your test.

Africa

He fails it, and I will say so plainly, because a project that only praises its friends is a radio station with one owner. Rwanda is cleaner, safer, healthier and better run than almost any country on my soil, and it has one man, a changed constitution, an election result of 99 per cent, and a press that does not shame him and journalists who have died. Both halves are true. Rwanda is the sharpest proof I have that a good man can build a great deal and still leave the One standing. When he goes, we will see what he built, and I hope I am wrong.

The Heir

Why does it matter so much? Suppose the man is good and the roads are built. Why insist on the locks?

Africa

Because of what comes after. Nkrumah was honest, and Ghana got five coups. Nyerere was honest, and Tanzania's party ruled for sixty years. Khama was honest and built the locks, and Botswana has had six presidents and no coups. The good man without locks is a loan at interest; the country pays it back with the next man. The whole lesson of the first two generations in one sentence: a house that only works if the owner is good will always end up owned by the worst.

The Heir

So you want leaders who distrust themselves.

Africa

I want leaders who refuse to be trusted. Who, on the first day, ask: what stops me? And if the answer is nothing, who build something. There is an older word for it than "leadership". It is stewardship: the one who holds a thing for others and must give an account. Every faith on my soil has it. The Quran tells the believer that every one of you is a shepherd and will be asked about his flock. The Christians have the parable of the talents. The old kings of Buganda and Ashanti had councils that could remove them. The kgotla in Botswana let any man stand and tell the chief he was wrong. This is not a Western idea imported. It is the oldest idea on my soil, and it was the One that was imported.

The Heir

Then why has it been so rare?

Africa

Because it is unnatural, and because it is lonely. The man who builds the court that can overrule him will be overruled, and it will hurt, and his friends will tell him he is a fool. The man who builds a press that can shame him will be shamed, sometimes unfairly. The man who grooms a successor will watch the successor undo his work. Every second key is a wound the leader gives himself, on purpose, for people who are not yet born. That is why it is rare, and that is why it is the only leadership worth the word.

The Heir

And the fourth generation can produce such people? A generation that, by your own count, has no jobs and cheers for soldiers?

Africa

The same generation that filled Dakar and Khartoum, that built the phone banks and the maps, that reads each other's news. Yes. But not by accident, and not by speeches. In the next two rounds I will show you first the proof, every place on my soil where a second key has already been cut and has held, so that no one can tell you it cannot be done here; and then the constitution, the one key that holds all the others, and how it can be made to bind the powerful in a continent of a thousand customs and a dozen faiths.