Countries are only as good and successful as those who govern them

There can be no progress or achievements in any country whose leadership never changes, or whose development programme is constantly or intermittently interfered with by selfishness, greed, fear, nepotism, corruption or blatant and condoned abuse of office.
Many African states have been ruined or had their progress retarded if not halted altogether by the occurrence of official tolerance of several or more of the above state sicknesses.
It can be said that many states, including our own, have in addition to the above calamities been ruined by tribalism and ethnicity. In the context of East and Central Africa, any given country is regarded as a victim of many of the handicaps resulting from the above causes.
In countries where such diseases are not decisive in determining the leadership, political and war lords in charge of governments resort to other outlawed or undesirable means such as intimidation, blackmail or torture in order to seize and retain the power to rule the country for indeterminate terms of office.
Of course it is a well-known phenomenon that a country’s economic or physical development is damaged or temporarily halted by natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and droughts. When such events occur, leaders and their people are blameless, but also united to jointly remedy the situation caused by such natural disasters.
However, the most destructive disasters are not only man-made but with hindsight, knowledge and vision, they could have been avoided or had their effects minimised but were not for the lack of vision, patriotism and selfishness of their respective leaders.
Ugandans vividly remember how one of our leaders proclaimed himself to be the only one with a clear vision of how and where our country would fare and enjoy its riches and opportunities to prosper in human and economic terms. Alas, the fruits of the same prediction and vision, if any at all, have been very few and far between. The NRM and all of us who either founded, nursed, served or supported it in our pledges ordained in the 10-point programme and the people’s Constitution have also been the cause of the failures we continue to witness as a result of breaking the pledges we made.
As people living under the former British Empire, we were persuaded or coerced into embracing that country’s principles of governance and emulating its policies and methods of work. In instances where we did obey and continue doing so, the British as an empire were often not as transparent or honest as their dependant subjects. In any event, as Britain has failed or is struggling to survive in a competitive world, we would be unwise now to continue copying the British instead of carving out new paths of our own for our survival and destiny.
In consequence, it is misleading to say that a given country is so corrupt, or underdeveloped when in reality it is the leaders of such a country who are themselves the instigators, participants or protectors of those who do evil to our respective nations whose governance and welfare they were mandated or otherwise acquired responsibility to rule them.
This brings us to the last but most important revelation. Who is to blame in a southern African country where leaders fought for liberty, respect and protection of human rights with many of their comrades dying or maimed for the same causes and then the survivors, having been given leadership of government begin to rule for themselves, their families and friends, with their president declaring that only God can ever remove him from the joys of office?
Who is to blame when in another southern African country where the most revered African father briefly ruled with exemplary characteristics, but the incumbent president who is alleged to be corrupt has ruined that country?
Who is to blame in a country which fought a protracted civil war and adopted new programmes that protected liberty and human rights and then entrusted its governance to an oligarchy which proceeds to break all its promises it solemnly made to the people and then wantonly proceeds to mislead the same country resisting any suggestion for change?
Who is to blame when leadership of its neighbour on the north which fought for its own independence and secession from another sovereign state selfishly or otherwise engages in a protracted civil war that severely damages the unity and fabric of society of that new country coupled with an uncontrolled disease, famine and starvation and the bulk of its population only survives by the mercy of God and handouts from a concerned world? Who is to blame in the Great Lakes region countries where the incumbent leaderships who fought and swore to hold and rule their respective countries democratically but are now fighting one another and have buried the ideas of freedom and national development indefinitely?
It is definitely the leaders of Africa and not its peoples or environment who have impoverished the continent to the extent that millions of them are fleeing from their homes and ending up as unfortunate and deprived migrants or slaves in the countries of Europe.

Prof Kanyeihamba is a retired Supreme Court judge. [email protected]