Herbert Mensah

The Mad Man

When talking of Africa’s potential and Africa’s problems the question of leadership always arises. There is never the assumption that the educated elite or existing systems can save the continent. It is always invariably about leadership and history has shown that our success (where there has been) has evolved from the strength of a single “madman” (as TS put it) or a collective pain, taking action to right the abuses of political leaders gone astray!

Thomas Sankara said “It took a mad man of yesterday for us to act with extreme Clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.”

Hmmm … so true .. sadly many of us appear to respond best to both fear and money rather than principle (those who do are in the minority).

We have always lived with processes which invariably have not worked to serve the people who need it most. History has taught me that public servitude based on different cultures and institutions erected based on foreign value systems simply do not work and that is why there is a constant and almost institutionalised abuse of our western adopted democracy. As such our politicians tend never to resign on points of principle (few display any other than self interest) and rarely display a need to be publicly accountable.

I wish it weren’t so but sadly i am yet to be convinced otherwise. We need strength in leadership and control in a “mad man” with a sense of both servitude and integrity as intimated by Thomas Sankara if we are going to make real progress for our people!

The singular problem for the madman though is the hypocrisy of our people who want the changes that create a sense of equity, patriotism and growth for Africans but don’t want the pain required to flush out the misplaced and unacceptable mindset of current custodians!