African Insights Ezine – January 2005

African Leaders needed – A moment in the life of the President of Uganda:

The Celebration was on.  President Museveni had arrived and the people were still welcoming him to the 19^th Anniversary of the National Resistance Movement, the party in power, President Yoweri Museveni its leader and guiding light.

He was in Kololo, in person, not just on TV, not just a picture in the newspaper, but there he was in real life, the President of Uganda.  The people were delighted to see him up close and personal and he basked in their adoration.  Everyone became caught up in the excitement, even the security guard looked at the President and just about missed Anna Namala who had come to the celebration wearing a long multi-colored kitenge dress, clutching a blue and white plastic sack with “Tilda Kibimba Rice” on the front of it.  Yes, the guards just about missed her heading up the stage, just feet from his Excellency President Yoweri Museveni, leader of all Uganda. 

I was not there, but having been to some larger events in East Africa, I can just see it in my mind.  The woman continues to move toward the president, when the guards finally lunge for Anna Namala.  She, a woman in her late 40’s, is wrestled to the ground by the elite bodyguards.  Uganda’s finest, toughest soldiers have been caught off-guard by a middle-aged woman on a mission. 

That alone would be a story for the local newspapers, but there is something else that caught my attention and caused me to write about it.  Something not noted in the local newspapers, even though it is maybe just as newsworthy.

President Museveni had looked on quietly as the woman was dragged away. He asked the Police to find out what the woman wanted from him.  The woman, weeping by now, was ushered back into Museveni’s presence where she knelt before him, (a sign of respect in Ugandan culture) and handed him a note.  It has been rumored that she wanted the President to help her find her missing son.

Museveni asked Police Chief Major General Katumba Wamala to handle the case and this General spoke to the woman for twenty minutes, telling the inquisitive Press later, that “She has her own problems. Leave her alone.”

There are all kinds of leaders.  Africa has every brand of them also.  There are the autocratic ones who have their picture placed in every office and business.  They don’t want people to forget what they look like, even though the picture is usually from better days gone by.  Can you imagine having to put up President Bush’s picture into every store in America? That would be interesting to say the least.  Not from the USA, how about the picture of Gerhard Schroeder up in every restaurant in Germany, Tony Blair of the UK having his picture in every Pub in England.  I do not that will happen anytime soon, but you can see it all over Africa.  It seems that the more autocratic some of the leaders are, the more insecure they become and that causes untold problems, all you have to do is look at the life of the dictator Idi Amin of Uganda or Jean Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic who crowned himself emperor and performed all kinds of vile deeds on his subjects.

Leadership is an art form that often gets lost in the day to day shuffle or premiers and presidents.  There are many who call themselves leaders, and once were, but now have no one following them.  They then have to resort to some form of dictatorship and usually their rule is short lived because it takes more than pretense to lead.  Leadership is not something one learns on the mountain top, but being a follower, one who can receive input into one’s life.

My favorite kind of leader is a servant leader such as Nelson Mandela the former president of South Africa.  Over and over he has demonstrated in his care of the common people of South Africa.  It is because of his style of leadership, his demeanor and caring ways that South Africa did not implode and explode after apartheid ended.  Servant leaders are the ones who do not reject the little people in life.  Servant leaders do not forget their roots and humble beginnings, but lead and serve those who elected them, as in the case of Museveni. 

President Museveni is no innocent saint; he is a politician, a leader and soldier.  Since becoming President he has fought against all kind of opposition, both within Uganda and from without.   The struggle to stay in power can cause various problems and people opposed to him may see him as an insensitive ruler.   On the one hand there is a move afoot to retire him, while others want to keep him on as their leader and change the term limits for president from the present two terms.  This is not about that, but the way in which he treated Anna Namala as she rushed toward him.  In most other countries she would have been locked up, but President Museveni had compassion on her and felt her pain and did something about it. He acted out what it means to be a servant leader in a graceful manner.

I have met people with titles and degrees as long as the pedigree of a Schnauzer dog.  They are totally impressed by themselves.  One can easily tell that all those titles, all those degrees, has not made any more sensitive toward the little people in life.  They are often rude and arrogant and exude a shallow sense of self-importance.  Thinking themselves as one kind of leader or another, but the reality is self-delusion.

 Africa needs more leaders that understand the little people in places like Kololo who go the big rallies not because they are so political but thinking, “if only I could talk with him, he might help me find my son.”  Funny, there was another servant leader a few thousand years earlier that allowed for interruptions in his schedule in order to be with the little people of life, the least, the last and lost.  Africa needs men who will serve their people rather than have the people serve them.  I am sure that Anna Namala is happy that she was able to get close to President Museveni on the 29^th of January 2005, and hopefully she is re-united with her son…jon