RAISING A NEW GENERATION OF PURPOSEFUL AFRICAN LEADERS

By: AMB. Abdulrazaq O Hamzat

A Speech delivered at the African youth Charters Summit in Dares Salam, the capital of Republic of Tanzania on the 6th of July, 2013 at the University of Tanzania Auditorium hall.



It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the African youth Charters Summit, a summit dedicated to empowering youths with the required skills needed to excel in leadership and also serve as wakeup call to African youths on the need to rise and assume our rightful roles and duties in deciding the faith and future of our continent, through effective participation in the political processes and assuming leadership responsibilities in our respective communities and countries.

Fellow African brothers and sisters, I say to you once again, welcome to the African Youth Charters Summit 2013.



THE CHALLENGES OF AFRICAN YOUTHS

Permit me to refer to a popular quote which states that, ‘’youths are the leaders of tomorrow’’, and i have been asking myself, when is the tomorrow coming?



In my quest to finding a suitable answer to the question, it occurred to me that, when we promise to get the job done tomorrow and that tomorrow becomes today, another tomorrow awaits us in the future until our lives is no more, and there will always be another tomorrow even after we are old and dead.

This made me concludes that, there is no future awaiting the youths tomorrow, there is only today because in reality, there is nothing like tomorrow. Tomorrow means forever and forever means no time. Therefore, we must all come to term with reality and know that the only tomorrow we have is today and today means now.



Honourable ladies and respected gentlemen,



You would have been aware of the increasing rate of youth population around the world, particularly in the sub- Sahara Africa. In the words of Joel Lowthel, the world is ‘experiencing an unprecedented increase in the youth population. In the ‘sub-Sahara Africa, almost 62% of the population is under the youth circle and this population is seen by many as potential strength of the continent.



However, the youth population didn’t come alone, it has also came along with several challenges among which include, the increasing rate of youth unrest, unemployment, youth involvement in crisis and many more ills affecting the society negatively. Although, it is not supposed to be so, the increasing youth population is supposed to be utilized to bring about increase in development and human capacity, it is supposed to bring about increase in creative ideas for development and potentials to transform the continent from its present shaky state of underdevelopment to a more flourishing land, but the general sense of youth negligence has led to the many negative consequences presently being witnessed.



It is worth to note that, the youth population which should ordinarily serve as positive agent for progress is now being used for selfish and destructive purposes and maim due to frustration and negligence.

According to the Atlantic council, it states for example that, Africa’s youth bulge ‘’reinforces the opportunity for economic growth that is gaining attention and foreign investment, a reality that other emerging regional and global powers including China, brazil, India and turkey, have already begun to seize, but in Africa, the reverse continues to the case.

While young people are playing major roles in policy formulation in other parts of the world, the case in our continent, the mother Africa is contrary to what is obtainable all around the world. This explains the present condition of the continent, where youth unemployment continue to climb on mountain tops, continuous civil and political unrest ravaging the continent, high level of insecurity, internal strife, and of recent, the challenges of terrorism. It is worth to also note that, in the entire crisis ravaging the African continent, the youths are the major players and at the same time, the major victims.

Youths had become tools for all these negativities due to the frustration usually associated with being isolated, neglected, marginalized, dissociated from political process and denied the opportunity of taking part in determining the direction of one’s present and future.

The research of Joel Lowthel in his paper titled, ‘’the role of African youths in electoral democracies’’ best described the situation. Joel stated that recently, Africa has been at the forefront of a democratic revitalization, as many nations now welcome a free and open political system. The pattern of democracy is catching on throughout the continent and the world is beginning to take notice. However, to retain a truly inclusive democratic society, everyone must be involved in the political process, but many segment of the African population remains marginalized, especially the youths.

He explained further that, in other parts of the world, the youth have played a vital role in recent elections, but in Africa, institutional and policy constraints have hindered youth involvement and left them side-lined from the democratic process.

Let me also add that, youths are said to be the strength and backbone of any nation, but what happens when the said backbone are relegated, neglected, undernourished, dis-empowered, isolated and denied of their rightful roles and duties in shaping the society? Of course, the resultant factors would be chaos.

Even though leaders in Africa and beyond fear that disenfranchised young people pose an imminent threat to national security and political stability, youth involvement in the political process is still limited. Instead, many African politicians have utilized the youths voting clout for their own political agenda’s, thereby exploiting Africa’s youth through the political process. It is this kind of mentality that has created violence in recent elections. While such violence is caused by variety of factors that differs depending on the country and situation, it can be determined that youth involvement in election violence is often driven by dissatisfaction with government policies or with on-going manipulations by politicians that seek to gain support by ethnic, religious or tribal divides. Although a particular youth group might pledge support to a candidate or political party with hopes of material gains or greater political influence, these promises are often not fulfilled.

Joel therefore concluded that, in reality, African youths are often utilised as pawns in the political game by veteran politicians. These occurrences have hindered the development of young political leaders and have resulted in a situation in which many young Africans fear that, there is no way to peacefully assert themselves in the political system.



HOW YOUTHS CAN SERVE AS STRENGTH TO THE CONTINENT

Fellow compatriots,

The major challenge presently confronting the African youths is how to peacefully influence the community and key into the political process, this is apart from the environmental, cultural and economic challenges which are also very vital. But one fact that stands clear is that, for African youths to stand a chance of overcoming the economic, cultural and environmental challenges, we must first be able to assert ourselves into the political system and assume leadership responsibilities in our various communities/countries where we would contribute in policy formulation. This would give youths the opportunity to introduce and influence policies that would enhance the general performance of the youths and create opportunities for rapid development and general human improvement.

As earlier stated, the marginalization of the youths in the political process has denied youths the opportunity of being in a position to contribute to solving their own problems as most projects outlined by governments to address the unfolding challenges are of counter productivity, it mostly lacks the youthful qualities that would make it suit the challenges of the 21st century and ensure its proper formulation and realistic implementation. Also, most of the government projects had continued to prove ineffective to solve the challenges due to lacking the youthful passion required to actualize and implement it.



This brings us to the question, how can African youth population serve as the strength to the continent?

In my opinion, there is no other ways of answering the above question than the youths to be empowered, involved in the political processes and taking responsibility. There is no other way.

But who will empower the youths? Who will involve youths in the political processes? And who will help youths take responsibility?



Ladies and gentlemen, The African Youth Charter which contains valuable propositions on routes to positively utilize the potentials of the youths wished that the present set of African leaders could take advantage of the increasing youth population to create positive changes, but time and again, African leaders have proven incapable of looking beyond their personal ambitions. Most African leader’s only sees the youth as tools of manipulation, they use them as tools of violence and tools of causing destruction which must not be empowered and involved to prevent shortage of manpower in causing maim for their selfish interest.

Since this is the case, the youths must look beyond this set of leaders for empowerment and involvements, youths must create alternative route to its political and economic emancipation.



It is therefore imperative for the youths to show the present set of leaders that government or politics is not about the gathering of the old, neither is it the gathering of orators and wishful thinkers that only seek to impose their ways and ideas on others, it is rather a gathering of the affected people who seek to fashion out a common means of solving their own problems.



As the title of this presentation states, ‘’raising a new generation of purposeful African leaders’’, African youths must put an end to leadership recycling in the continent, where only those who had ruled in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s had not seized to rule till date, it is time for the youths to form its own bond and create its own ways.



The youths must channel its energy into positive ventures, we must never allow frustration take over us in our pursuit for relevance. We must resist every temptation of being part of the problems or being used by others for negative purposes, but should rather channel the energy into pursuing our own agenda and dream of liberating the continent through democratic and electoral processes. We must utilize the resources in our environment to create empowerment, utilize our intellectual prowess to create initiatives, create network within and outside our domain to sell our ideas and harmonize our thoughts to create political movements for change.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR YOUTHFULNESS THE REQUIRED LEADERSHIP

Brothers and sisters,

We all must understand that Africa is not under developing because it lack, it is under developing because it lack purpose. And at the same time, what is missing is not the lack of leaders, but lack of purposeful leaders who can apply our numerous resources appropriately to tackle the challenges confronting you and i. Therefore, the new generation of African leaders must stand on purpose and lead purposefully to upturn the negative precedence.

For us to appreciate and come to term with the subject matter of this discuss, there is a need to define some basic concepts associated with it.

The concepts to be defined are as follows:

Youth
Leader
Leadership
Purposeful leadership

1. Youth: from the oxford dictionary, a youth is a young person who is strong and has only existed for a short period of time.

It is worth to note that, the youths have the ability to either use their strength for positive or negative ventures depending on their choice; it is up to you to decide on what path to take.

However, if youths decide to take on the path of purpose, they have even greater capacity to explore their hidden potentials; the part of purpose that they have taken gives them added opportunity to unleash their internal creativities for positive accomplishment.

Youths could also be said to be new creatures with virgin reasoning, fresh thinking and new ideas. This means that, youths are also capable of seeing the errors that is holding the continent down in the old practices. In addition, Youth may also be said have the capacity to overcome obstacles and overcame a dysfunctional society. Having identified the challenges, the youths are endowed to proffer solutions that would address the obstacles. It is therefore pertinent that the African youths understand their importance and the powers they hold in deciding the direction of their societies.

2. Leader: the second concept to be defined is a leader. A Leader is defined as an agent of change. But, change from what to what?

It is also defined as someone who influences the actions and lives of others by bringing about either a direct or indirect change to the live of individuals or organization and society.

We may also say that, a leader could be an agent of change who influences the lives of the others to bring about either a positive or negative changes to the lives of others.

If we take a closer look at the definitions, we would realize that being a leader is not such a difficult task or a special accomplishment, as virtually everyone can become a leader in one way or the other. We could also become either a positive or negative leaders. So, being a leader has nothing to do with being good or bad, it is only a skill that helps individual organize and influence others. The African youths must not just seek to lead; Africa already have more than enough leaders, what we lack are leaders with purpose and that is what we must all strive to become.



3. Leadership: Leadership has been defined by many as the act of influencing others, i.e. organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal. This definition is said to work well when describing a quality in an individual, but when a deeper understanding of leadership is sought, the word becomes much more mysterious. On Wikipedia, leadership is described as ‘’a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.



From the above definition, it became obvious that leadership has to do with accomplishing a common task. But what the leadership definition didn’t inform us about is, if the task aimed to be accomplished is a positive or a negative task.

So, weather you seek to accomplish a positive or a negative task; you have to possess some leadership qualities. The more you master the act of leadership would determine the level of your success in your leadership venture. This has nothing to do with your mission, either positive or negative. This informs us that, as aspiring leaders, we must acquire and master certain leadership skills and having acquired these skills, we must apply them positively for collective gains. We must be able to lead by followership, by giving those we seek to lead a sense of superiority and take their priority as our priority to command their willing respect.



Leadership is not about leading for others to follow; it is about pursuing a mission and having the skills required to carry other along to accomplish it. Your ability to carry others along to jointly accomplish a mission is what we mean by leadership.

4. Purposeful leadership: The final concept to be defined is purposeful leadership. Purposeful leadership may simply be defined as the act of making dreams come true or transforming dreams into reality in a way that helps others.

Another way of saying this is that, purposeful leadership is a special form of leadership that incorporates positive ethical values and is aimed at serving others.

Going by this definition, we may simply say that, purposeful leadership is a transformational leadership. A kind of leadership that sought to positively affect others and makes things better for them through empowering them to do what is good for them.

Transformational leadership is said to enhance the performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. These include connecting the follower’s sense of identity and self to the project and the organization, being a role model for followers that inspires them and makes them interested in the right direction, challenging followers to take greater ownership for their work and understanding the strength and weaknesses of followers, so the leader can align followers with tasks that enhance their performance.

We can therefore conclude that, purposeful leadership is the leadership of positivism, where the sole aim of the leader is selfless service, or the service that circled around helping the followers be what they want to be and achieve what they wish to achieve.

(Concept definition was copied from ‘’Decline in purposeful leadership, bane of Nigeria’s woe’’ a paper presented by Abdulrazaq O Hamzat, the writer of this piece.)

My dear brothers and sisters, based on the above submission, if we become leaders without being purposeful, we would have become a waste with no value to mama Africa. If we become leaders without purpose, making a positive difference that impact in human and capital development would be impossible and hence, we would have become nothing better than the present leaders we condemn.



THE FUTURE IS NOW

Ladies and gentlemen,

Youthfulness or being a youth is an opportunity to make change happen in your time, if you fail to effect the changes you deserve as a youth, you shall live the rest of your life hoping on others.

You must act and position yourself as a purposeful leader in your community, school, and area or anywhere you found yourself. You must also become a role model for others through your actions and inspires them to act positively. You must always strive to make others be interested in the right direction and challenge them to take greater ownership of their life, their work and their society.



Let me inform you once again that, you have the opportunity of being part of the new generation of purposeful leaders that would transform Africa and change its history from the history of need, to that of sufficiency.

However, if this is to be achieved, you can no longer afford to sit back and expect opportunity be offered to you, you have to create the opportunities. You can also no longer expect a chance be given to you; you have to make chances, not just for yourself alone, but also for others.



In conclusion, for youths to stand a chance of restoring the negative precedence of our fathers, the new generation of leaders must set a new standard of leadership, devoid of the inherited tribalism of our fathers. We must embrace each other as brothers and sisters irrespective of tribe and religion and collectively set a common standard of leadership based on a common purpose with truth, sincerity, love and oneness.

We must do away with unwarranted suspicion that creates disunity between us, which brings about the crisis that still loom in the continent. We must acquire our continent and take full responsibility from the hand of the present set of leaders and dedicate our life pursuit around making Africa great.



Thabo Mbeki, a former South African president said in one of his presentations that,’’ I asked myself how an ordinary African, particularly the youths, could make the 21st century an ‘’African century’’?’’

He noted that, As African youths, it is not easy to influence your community, country or continent because of the economic, environmental, cultural and political barriers.



However, he advised that, Young people should stop talking and acting for the future, they should start talking and acting about now.

As stated earlier, permit me to also refer to the popular quote which states that, ‘’youths are the leaders of tomorrow’’



Again i have been asking myself, when is the tomorrow coming?

When we promise to get the job done tomorrow and that tomorrow becomes today, another tomorrow awaits us in the future until our lives is no more, and there will always be another tomorrow even after we are old and dead.

This made me concludes that, there is no future awaiting the youths tomorrow, there is only today because in reality, there is nothing like tomorrow. Tomorrow means forever and forever means no time. Therefore, we must all come to term with reality and know that the only tomorrow we have is today and today means now.



Brothers and sisters, you are that youth who have the capacity to overcome the dysfunctionality in our society now, you have the capacity to overcome the obstacles of government negligence now, you are capable of seeing the errors in the old practices and correct them now. Don’t wait for any opportunity to come, create it now.



Why can’t you become the president of your country now? Why can’t you lead your state as a governor now? Nothing is stopping you if you put your mind at it. Organize yourselves into groups now, peacefully challenge the institutional, environmental and cultural barriers that has been preventing youths to act now, take control of your life now, decide your political future now, and be responsible and creative now. Don’t watch your future pass; it’s your time now.



Africa’s greatness, a possible accomplishment.



Thank you and God bless you all.

discus4now@gmail.com

Abdulrazaq O Hamzat is the Nigerian Ambassador to the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC). He is Also a Transformational Speaker and Initiative Creator.