Contents Chapter 1 Leadership in Postcolonial Africa: An Introduction 1

B A B A   G .   J A L L O W

14

and constructed stadiums in which to address his people . . . He 

bought off his enemies and turned his friends—most of them 

from his Gbande tribe—into overnight millionaires . . . He spent 

$15 million sponsoring the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman 

world championship fight in 1974. Said Ali: “Zaire’s gotta be 

great. I never seen so many Mercedes” . . . Mobutu was hardly 

the penniless army sergeant of a decade ago. He was now one 

of the world’s wealthiest men, with assets conservatively esti-

mated by Western intelligence sources at more than 43 billion. 

(1983, 45)   

 In nearby Central African Republic, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, also 

a coup maker, had “a huge fortune and immense power, so 

many decorations that he needed a specially made jacket to 

display them all, and a fine family numbering nine wives and 

thirty legitimate children” (Lamb 1983, 50). But Bokassa suf-

fered what all dictators suffer, and what I call “the small man 

syndrome,” an acute sense of smallness and inadequacy that so 

starkly contrasts with the fact of being head of state as to be 

painfully obsessive. The dictator is always trying to feel “big.” 

Whether he was a physical giant like Idi Amin or a midget 

like Bokassa, the dictator’s uncontrollable urge for a feeling of 

greatness drives his every sensibility. So severe was Bokassa’s 

“small man syndrome” that he sought to deal with it by emu-

lating Napoleon I and crowning himself emperor of what sud-

denly became the Central African Empire, up from the Central 

African Republic. Lamb (1983, 50) observes: 

 Surely no one would take him lightly if he was emperor. And to 

the amazement of everyone, including his two million subjects, 

Bokassa declared one day that his republic was now an empire 

and he was no longer a mere life-president; he was Emperor 

Bokassa I. Bokassa invited the Pope (who respectfully declined) 

to the coronation and offered international television rights to 

the highest bidder. He waived the edict that foreign journalists 

entering the country had to post a $400 bond at the airport, 

and hired the French firm of Guiselin, which had embroidered 

Napoleon’s uniforms, to design a coronation robe with two mil-

lion pearls and crystal beads for $145,000. He drew up a list of 

earls and dukes, imported white horses from Belgium to pull his 

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

---

L E A D E R S H I P   I N   P O S T C O L O N I A L   A F R I C A

15

coach to the cathedral and spent $2 million for a crown topped 

by a 138-carat diamond. 

 All this seemed a bit lavish for a Texas-sized country with only 

170 miles of paved roads and a per capita income of $250.   

 Gambia’s Jammeh betrays the “small man syndrome” in the 

practice of donning huge boubou’s even under the most siz-

zling of weathers, perpetually clutching a sword and worry 

beads in one hand, a “holy book” in the other, and publicly 

claiming to be possessed of strange powers that enabled him to 

cure AIDS and rendered him indomitable to his enemies, espe-

cially Western enemies in the Commonwealth and the United 

States. 

 As  demonstrated  in  the  case  of  post-Nkrumah  Ghana,  the 

most obvious consequence of leadership failure in postcolonial 

Africa has been a chronic series of military interventions in civil-

ian politics. These have tapered off somewhat in the twenty-

first century, but they remain a distinct possibility alongside the 

eruption of rebel movements and guerilla wars against sitting 

governments. The dozens of military coups that characterized 

the quarter century or so after independence generated leaders 

who were often worse than the civilians or other military dicta-

tors they removed from power. Both Mobutu and Bokassa were 

coup makers. So were men like Kutu Acheampong in Ghana, 

Sani  Abacha  in  Nigeria,  Siad  Barre  in  Somalia,  Idi  Amin  in 

Uganda, Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia, Eyadema in 

Togo, Gadhafi in Libya, and Jammeh in Gambia. The list is 

much longer. So chronic is leadership failure in Africa that it has 

paradoxically lent considerable credence to the political excep-

tionalism that democracy, human rights, and the rule of law 

are not suitable for African conditions. Lamb (1983, 58) asked 

and answered the question this way, a view that persists in some 

quarters to this day.  

  Is a Western-style democracy pertinent to the needs of Africa? . . . I 

don’t think so. Not now, anyway . . . In countries where national 

goals are not clearly defined, such freedoms enable the various 

factions to fight for self-interests at the expense of majority con-

cerns. National institutions are not strong enough to withstand 

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

---

B A B A   G .   J A L L O W

16

these pressures. And governments are not cohesive enough to 

endure forces motivated by anything less than nationalistic con-

cerns . . . At this stage, most African countries are best served by 

benign dictators. Democracy can come later, if it is to come at 

all. But for now, democracy is no more a panacea for Africa’s ills 

than is communism.   

 Lamb obviously does not like dictatorship; no decent person 

does. But he was mistaken in thinking that functional and 

effective democracy, the opposite of dictatorship, is not suitable 

for Africa because “national goals are not clearly defined” or 

because “such freedoms enable the various factions to fight for 

self-interests at the expense of majority concerns.” One need only 

look to the US Congress and the British House of Commons 

to appreciate that the politics of factionalism are not unique 

to countries “where governments are not cohesive enough to 

endure forces motivated by anything less than nationalistic con-

cerns.” In fact, in Africa, “national institutions are not strong” 

and “governments are not cohesive enough” precisely because 

of the absence of legitimate political factionalism and diversity. 

Weak institutions and incoherent governments are the results 

of bad leadership and lack of democratic rights in postcolonial 

Africa. Lamb is equally mistaken in his view, expressed below, 

that there existed some kind of “middle way” between dictator-

ship and democracy that Africa could adopt.  

  What Africa needs to develop is an African political system, 

imported from neither East nor West, that combines elements 

of capitalism and socialism, both of which are inherent in the 

African character. It should include two concepts that Africans 

today mistakenly view as contradictory—economic incentive 

and social justice. (1983, 58)   

 In  fact,  what  Lamb  should  have  added  is  that  this  perceived 

contradiction between economic incentive and social justice 

was a fiction invented and perpetuated by African leaders; it 

was a pseudoculture they created and imposed on their peoples, 

and not necessarily one shared by all Africans. There was no 

“African character” in which elements of capitalism and social-

ism were “inherent” either. The “African character” so visible to 

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

Copyrighted material – 9781137478115

---