Inspirational Leadership in Africa

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INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA.

It seems, since the coming of our current president Lieutenant General Ian Khama, a former army General, through the automatic succession, our country Botswana has gone steep down the hill in its democratic standings. The automatic system means that people are chosen a leader for, which means that who ever becomes the president is someone else’s choice. The system, originally, had not had any problems, since the chosen people had respect the rule of law, democracy and freedom of speech. That though had come to an end since the rising to power of our former army chief. When the current President ascended to the highest office, he introduced, the now infamous four D’s, being, DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT, DIGNITY AND DISCIPLINE. Important to note that since then, only one D had been put into effect, being discipline, with Democracy being shoved off the back. According to the president, you cant have Democracy without Discipline, forcing him to forget all together about Democracy for the time being.

Since our President rose to power, all Government decisions had being based around his views, with anyone with a different view risking the wrath of power. Since his ascend to power, legislators have been recalled from their seats, made to apologize for their opinions, being removed from their constituencies’ standings to make way for his favorite people, and suspended from the party. The president of course, says all is in the name of discipline. Since he rose to the presidency, laws have been passed without much input from the legislators. The president through his cronies he has appointed as ministers have argued that, they are being effective and not wasting the publics’ money and time by discussing bills forever, as if the public had ever complained. In fact, the public argues that for laws to be of high quality and well informed they need to be discusses at length, with different views taken on board before that are finally ironed and passed  as law. In an unprecedented move, six laws had been passed in a matter of twenty minutes, something that had never happened in the history of Botswana. Legislators from the ruling party are given instructions on how to vote, and all bills coming from the ruling party, or better yet, imposed by the president through his cronies are given thumps up, while any law coming from the opposition, regardless of how good that bill is, is rejected, the ruling party definitely using its majority to suppress any voices of reason. Legislators are given only twenty minutes to contribute to a bill, and before they even get started, their time is already up.