In Africa, every time one speaks of the army,
people straight away get reminded of some coup d’état, useless wars between a
brother and a brother, internecine wars whereupon men and women in uniform fight
amongst themselves for the crown of greed, corruption, senselessness and vanity;
this military setting is not the subject of this discussion.
I am not talking about how Samuel Kanyon
Doe toppled and murdered President William Tolbert Jr’s government, and how
later he used the killing squad to publicly execute Tolbert’s 13 ministers in a
savage spectacle on a beach in the name of liberating the Liberians, and how, later,
he himself suffered a similar fate before Prince Yormie Johnson, a rebel leader
watching over the shame, drinking from a cane of beer from the West; I am not
talking about Sierra Leone and how that humans born from humans unleashed
savagery using the barrel of a gun and machetes, slaughtering and maiming
civilians in a fashion that smacks of insanity of worst nature; I am not
talking about northern Uganda where the Lord’s Resistance Army, GOD knows who
supplies them with weapons to survive this long in a terrain so difficult, uses
a name of some deity to inflict pain, torture and death upon the people they
claim to serve; I am not talking about Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,
where, to satisfy the voluminous and immoral appetite by the West for precious
metals buried under the blessed soil of Africa, men and women from those ‘civilisations’
sponsor violence, providing weapons and money in exchange for metals excavated
through abuse and blood; and I’m not talking about the army leaving their
military barracks to inflict savagery in the name of liberating the suffering
mass.
When I talk of military style of
leadership, I speak of those settings where one can draw inspiration on
sacrifice of highest order when a people organize themselves to defend their
land and values against aggression. In Africa, we have seen this in the wars of
liberation in such countries as Zimbabwe and Namibia where men and women
sacrificed the best they had to bring their people recognition, respect and independence.
Lessons one can draw from such settings and the selflessness of leaders from
such era is what I am discussing in this entry. It should be noted that in
countries such as Angola and Mozambique the victory on the liberation struggle
soon saw another form of struggle—civil wars. My discussion has nothing to do
with those unfortunate chapters of civil wars that followed fights for liberation
in such countries.
People talk of different types of
leadership styles and theories: transformational against transactional,
dictatorial against democratic, laissez faire, emotional intelligence,
situational leadership, concern for people/task, and lately, Ubuntu. Honestly
speaking, I am an admirer of none of these because studying them leads one into
a jungle that eventually seems to say same things is slightly different ways. For
me, the best leadership style which Africa can use to liberate itself from the
oppression of hunger, poverty and diseases is what I describe as, for want of a
better word, military inspired leadership. I must repeat that this is not a leadership
by the military; it is a leadership style one learns from what happens in a
context of danger, and there is no better picture explaining a context of
danger than the battlefront where men and women in uniform face death every
second of their lives. To do this, I will borrow the various leadership
qualities of men and women leading at the battlefront and shall then use them
to apply to situations in Africa where we can use to solve our problems without
waiting for the West who comes with conditions knowing pretty well we cannot
live those conditions because they are not in tune with our local contexts. But
before I do that, I should confess that during my leisure time, I love reading
military novels or watching savage military films.
If you’re surprised I developed this
habit—love for military novels and brutal military films—then I should remind
you Nelson Mandela loved boxing, and Desmond Tutu likes Rugby, a game of
extreme contact where to prove you’ve scored you have to punish yourself,
hitting your body hard against the ground. Besides, I know one Pastor, a very
good man, in fact, one of the very few pastors I have seen who is never
disturbed by prosperity other Pastors around him make, a man satisfied by what
he has, and this man likes watching wrestling. This is not that simple
wrestling that looks like ordinary judo; it is that savage wrestling where the
people twist each other’s hands and legs, throwing the other off a very small ring
at every available opportunity.
But I must also confess that maybe it
all springs from the fact that my half-brother, Late Robert was a major in the
army. When he returned from West Point, US, he wanted me to follow suit, but I
told him I would serve my nation in a different capacity, school teacher.
I am not advocating for the sight of
blood and violence; I do not know what others can learn from such novels and
films. But as for me, I do not copy the violence and the savagery therein, I just
draw important lessons therefrom to apply to my life. In short, from these
films and novels, I learn about the inborn serious side and nature of man—that
love for violence and bigotry—vices we must fight and overcome. I also like
learning from these settings because they teach me there are situations and occasions
in life when we must never accept error. In military settings, there is no room
for error, because error means a loss of life or lives. At the battlefront, men
and women in uniform live one for the other. One US infantry soldier, Pfc Lewis
C Lawhorn, describing of their setting in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet or New
Year’s offensive had the following to say about life among grunts (foot
soldiers) in battle: “You live with each other, you sleep with each other, you
cry with each other, you pray with each other. We depended on each other to do
a lot of things. I was friends with everybody in the platoon; we were all
friends” (Keith William Nolan’s Battle
for Hue: Tet 1968, p 114).
For me, Africa is a kind of battlefront
where, to live, we must do it the military way. In other words, I personally
find no better situation or context to learn from as far as the power of exercising
great meticulousness and the art of living one for the other is concerned as the
battlefront.
Our approach to fighting hunger, poverty
and diseases in Africa should resemble the art at the battlefront. Suppose Africa
had confronted her ills with the courage and determination of a man or woman in
battle, what measure of success would we have achieved by now?
So what are the characteristics of this
leadership style? Leadership scholars will give you lists and lists of them,
but I think leadership qualities should not be that complicated. So, I will
borrow from what Glenn Llopis calls ‘8 Qualities that make Leaders
Memorable’(see www.forbes.com).
I find this list simple beside the fact that they are all present in what I
describe as military inspired leadership. These qualities are authenticity;
desire to share wisdom and secret of success; doing what others don’t;
embracing the lessons of failure; giving the people their valuable times;
creating special moments; making followers feel valued; and leading to leave a
legacy. I will discuss each one of them to demonstrate how each is valued in
military settings and what results they produce in such settings. Later, I
shall show how our leaders and we as followers can learn and borrow from them so
as to run our affairs with military efficiency in our families, communities,
public institutions, nation, name it.
First, a leader ought to be decisive.
Decisiveness can only be measured by how consistent one is on principles one
believes will work to serve the people. Allow me to use the example from one
military novel I love to read—Hamburger
Hill: The Brutal Battle for Dong Ap Bia, May 11-20, 1969 by Samuel Zaffiri.
Hamburger
Hill
is an account of events in Vietnam when the US Army, Marine Corps, and South
Vietnamese forces launched Operation Apache Snow and the objective was to
annihilate the Communist forces out of the area known as A Shau Valley. The
greatest battle centred on the control of an isolated mountain on the western
side of this valley. This mountain is known as Dong Ap Bia or simply Ap Bia,
and is 970 metres above sea level at its peak. On this peak, are two
ridges—Hill 937 and Hill 916. The centre of this discussion is Hill 937, also
known as Hamburger Hill, because on that human meat grinder many lives were
lost.
Only days before the Operation, a number
of soldiers were asking why on earth they were going there in the first place.
At page 6, Lt Charles Denholm, who had led Bravo 3/187th, only two
weeks before in a battle in the area and had witnessed first-hand the magnitude
of resistance and the capacity of the ‘enemy’ from North Vietnam, hoped the
situation would be different. At page 7, Lt George Bennit, a platoon leader
said he “personally thought the entire operation smacked of lunacy”.
It should be noted that some three years
before, in 1966, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers had attacked a US
Special Forces’ camp in this area, A Shau. The situation had hit that desperate
point, the Americans had to abandon their camp to take shelter in the
communications bunker, and Captain Blair, one of the Special Forces there, had
to send a poignant and desperate emergency radio call, “reinforcements. Without
them, kiss us good-bye” (p 26). Two Skyraiders (planes) had to destroy the camp,
by now occupied by the North Vietnamese soldiers.
Of the 434 men on that Special Forces’
camp, only 200 survived, many of them wounded. When evacuation was attempted,
it turned another disaster. Eventually, Lt Col Charles House who had arrived
under intense fire to lead the mission, “led this ragtag group—which included
Nung tribesmen, South Vietnamese irregulars, Green Berets, and helicopter
pilots and their crews—out the northwest side of the camp . . . ” (p 27).
In the end only 180 had made it out of
the A Shau Camp alive. And here they were again, in May 1969, going back into
the A Shau Valley; the apprehension was understood.
However, despite this dangerous reality,
the US Commanders were bold-determined to send the men in again, and this time
against a more entrenched NVA contingency. The short and breadth of what was to
happen at Dong Ap Bia was that the Americans were to secure it at a very heavy
cost with serious political repercussions at home. And soon, Major General John
Wright, the man who was to replace General Melvin Zais as Commander of the
101st was to order the men to abandon the mountain recently secured. This was
to raise questions as to what the purpose was sending men to assault a
mountain, leading to heavy casualty, only to abandon it soon after securing it.
My interest in this isn’t that the
Americans secured the Mountain at a heavy cost and so soon abandoned it, but
the stand General Zais had taken to send his men there in the first place.
General Zais had made his decision to send his men there, sure of his
objectives, and when it didn’t work the way he had planned and hoped, he stood
by it.
When making some public policies,
leaders ought to get decisive and stand by their principles so long as they are
sure the result will eventually work in serving the people better. Many public
policies are abandoned because often we look for immediate results; there are
situations when leadership has to look at the broader picture and the greater
happiness and relief the policy will bring the people rather than bow down to
pressure or to fear to try.
Winston Churchill who became British
Prime Minister on May 10, 1940 (the day Hitler’s armies of 2.5 million men
attacked Belgium, The Netherlands and France) at circa 6 o’clock that evening,
is another man who often demonstrated decisiveness when dealing with issues to
do the the War (Second World War). On November 12, 1940, Churchill received a
warning that Coventry would be bombed on the night of November 14 and 15. The
source of the information, a deciphering machine known as Ultra, was so
important for Britain to keep penetrating Germany communication system. If
Churchill was to warn the city Germany planes were bombing them on the night
between 14 and 15, Germany would realise that the machine they were using to
send coded information, the Enigma, had been compromised. This would have
forced Germany to change the codes and Britain would not be able to know in
advance Germany’s next move. Churchill had to make a terrible yet strategic
choice, opting to sacrifice the city in order to keep Ultra a secret.
According to Anthony Cave Brown in Bodyguard of Lies, p 44, Coventry was
indeed bombed that night and Churchill had not sent the city warning. In the
end, 554 of the City’s citizens had been killed in that bombing, 150 of them
buried in common grave. Further 865 had been seriously wounded, 4,000 suffering
other wounds and burns.
The decision to let Germany bomb
Coventry had fooled Hitler into believing that Britain had not penetrated
Germany’s coding system, the Enigma, when in fact, Britain had. This decision was to
help Britain and her allies win the Second World War, for they were always ahead
of Germany through the Ultra, an instrument helping them decipher German Army’s
manouvre intelligence.
Great leaders also desire to share
wisdom and secret of success. In politics, the one who carries the day is
granted licence to torment the loser; such is never the case among military men
and women. On June 14, 1982 when the British Forces defeated the Argentine
Forces during the Falklands War over the Falklands Islands (known as Isles of Malvinas
by the Argentines), the politicians in London demanded ‘unconditional
surrender’ as a term. The Argentine Governor Menendez of the Isles insisted on
the term ‘surrender with conditions’. The British General, Jeremy Moore, agreed
to delete the word ‘unconditional’. General Moore understood the Argentine
position that surrender should not be mistaken for humiliation.
One of the reasons some leaders refuse
to hand over power is that we tend to scare them with humiliation. If we had
prepared decent places where these men and women would retire to and accept
their handover of power as part of the system, there would be little fuss over
handing over power. Unfortunately, opposition parties, sometimes aided by the
West, tend to spew threats in them, warning them they would face persecution once
outside power. Africa ought to revisit its stand on this.
When Gustav Kaliwo, then Director of the
Anti-Corruption Bureau, ACB, arrested former Head of State Bakili Muluzi on corruption
charges on July 27, 2006, the President then, Bingu wa Mutharika, fumed because
“Kaliwo had not followed procedures” in arresting the former President. I support that
position though many take the position that the same had compromised the whole
question of independence of the ACB. There is an approach to issues that can seem to satisfy, but it is always important to look at the broader picture especially implications on the local context. I suppose we must do that which will make us
solve our problems through a system that will work in our context. A decision
to arrest a former Head of State ought to have been thought through carefully. Russia
and the US can bomb some places, leading to sights bordering on war
crimes yet you will never see anyone seriously pestering these powers to
account for that. I am not saying our leaders should not account for their
sins, no. What I am saying is that we must develop our internal mechanisms of
dealing with our issues, mechanisms we know will bring us peace first, and then
trust and confidence second. And I would suggest that there are occasions when
letting bygones be bygones is the best policy.
Another quality of good leadership is
that a leader should take time to explain to the people his beliefs and why he
or she believes they will eventually work. Before an army attacks, those to be
involved are briefed on what they are going to encounter, the estimated number and
capability of the enemy given and their level of resistance put forth, often in
some exaggerated language so no one underestimate his power. Africa can only
beat its ills if the people are told the truth on the gravity of the situation.
The people’s role in nation building should be made clear. We live in an era
where individual parties can no longer manage to change the welfare of the
people. The people themselves ought to understand their roles in uplifting
themselves and in nation building. We must be forthright with them otherwise we
will promise them the moon, in the end piling upon ourselves untold pressure
once we fail to deliver.
At the battlefront, the responsibility
to construct one’s fox hole or shelters, etc, is one’s own; there is no that
pleasure of waiting for aid. Africa can learn that individual villages can work
to address their own problems. Men and women can contribute in a more committed
way to service for the benefit of their society and thus themselves.
Innovation in a leader is another important
quality. This means a leader should be innovative, doing what no leader before
has ever done. Military leaders study where previous missions failed and fight
to overcome those barriers. They look to history to learn rather than despite.
If previous leaders demonstrated a life of greed and insatiable appetite for
accumulation, repeating the same does not inspire. If previous leaders refused
to work with the opposition, it does not inspire to keep hating the fellow on
the other side. If previous administrations had refused to open up the national
broadcaster, repeating the same does not speak of innovation. Leadership must
study what it is that made others fail in order never to repeat the same.
A leader should study carefully why
previous attempts failed and learn from them to correct the present and the
future. Good leadership should not say, “They did it and escaped unscathed;
we’ll do the same.” Two blacks do not make a white.
Innovation is also seen in the manner in
which military leaders handle contingencies or those situations that just arise
from nowhere. An example of innovation in this regard is what
Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff (DSO, MC) exhibited during the Second
World War in North Africa. Lt Col Peniakoff known
by alias Popski, had a private army which was fighting on the side of Britain
and the US and their allies in North Africa and later Italy. At pages, 449-50
in his book Popski’s Private Army, he
narrates of how one Christmas one new recruit of his had brought him a terrible
piece of news, strange one but common at the front:
“It’s like this, Sir, the recruit had said. “I have decided to kill myself. However, as it is Christmas afternoon and all the lads have enjoyed their dinner so much and are so happy, I wonder if it would be a good thing to do today, or should I put it off till tomorrow?”
The boy, his name was Richards, said he
had hoped that he would be killed in battle but was not, and so had decided to
kill himself, and at that, he pulled a bomb out of his pocket and began toying
with its pin. Quick thinking, Popski said, “If you want to kill yourself on
Christmas, I won’t stop you. But you had better made a good job out of it. . . .You
would be an ass if you tried to kill yourself with an unprimed bomb” (450). At
that point Popski had asked him to handover the bomb so he should check whether
it was primed. A primed bomb is one prepared to explode or put in a state it
can explode. What Popski meant was that if Richards would use unprimed bomb his
friends would laugh at him, thinking he was just pulling a joke knowing the
bomb was not going to explode anyway, as it was unprimed.
When he handed over the grenade to
Popski, the latter is said to have unscrewed the cap, making it harmless before
handing the ‘toy’ back to him. Richards received treatment at a military psychiatric facility and was declared fit
again though Popski refused to take him in again.
Innovation in leaders is also seen in
the way a leader chooses those to work with. When Churchill, then 66 years of
age, was asked to form the British Government, i.e. to become Prime Minister in
May 1940, he “immediately surrounded himself with a youthful, blue-blooded (noble)
staff” (Anthony Cave Brown, p 33). Perhaps this also explains why Churchill did
not believe in moving around people, as for him, experience mattered so much in
running important government business. At page 613 in The Second World War: Closing the Ring, volume v, Churchill says:
“I always deprecate (i.e. strongly
disapprove) military men being moved from employments or commands where they
have gained a great mass of special information and are pursuing a definite
theme, because of promotion in ordinary service routine. An ambassador has to
be given time to take root . . . .”
In some way, Churchill does not
subscribe to the tendency to keep moving people around because that affects
efforts to attain efficiency.
It is also important that leaders create
some special moments for their followers. Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda had a
tendency to feed his people. It was a small bun and bottle of Fanta, but we
appreciated that spirit to live together and eat from the same place. He did
not do that because we were poor; he did that because the person who remembers
your stomach is a great friend. Leaders can do this by demonstrating they can
sacrifice some pleasure and comfort for their people. Who can forget such a
great gesture? When Thomas Sankara came to power in the Upper Volta (the land
he soon named Burkina Faso), he brought in a humble way of approaching presidential
business, drastically reducing pleasure and flaunt of wealth by using a
moderate fleet of vehicles, doing away with what many leaders like, very
expensive vehicles. Sankara actually took part in leading his people in work,
actually doing the grim work itself, carrying rocks, et cetera. This is why
even after many had tried to obliterate his name and legacy, his people and
many right-thinking Africans value his approach to government business as the
only sane way Africa can liberate itself from the grip of the West who will
never do a thing to see Africa truly free.
In war, special moments also have to do
with setting examples by identifying with the boys. In war, if you want to
build a fighting heart in your people, lead by example. On this, Colin Powell,
former US Army General, confesses: “The most important thing I learned is that
soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture
them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.”
Political leaders can make one public rally
after the other, but if they do not lead by example, there is little the people
can take from them, and this is because people are always inspired by action,
and action represents the epitome of leading by example. If we talk about
fighting corruption, we, entrusted with leadership positions, must lead by
example. We must lead in presenting a life of pure transparency and in making
all our businesses open. People can observe from the way we respect those
pieces of legislation that encourage openness, learning from the same in the
course.
A leadership that fails to make a people
feel valued had better forget about progress. People feel valued when they are frequently
consulted, and here I’m referring to that honest engagement with the ruled, the
type of engagement that also values the skein of feedback. It also entails
giving the people an opportunity to criticise constructively where they feel the
sovereign are not serving their interest. This is a system through which
leadership can show the people that they, as leaders, can be willing to reverse
decisions whenever the people genuinely demonstrate it is a project not in
their interest. However, the ruled must understand there is no room for
violence or threats in such an engagement, for we have no right to threaten the
sovereign; we have an opportunity to negotiate with the sovereign to reach a
health consensus for our country.
A people can also feel valued when a
leader demonstrates his or her willingness to suffer on their behalf. One of
the earliest works I read when young, I think I was in standard 6 or thereabout,
was Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambia Shall be Free.
Then I had almost memorised the opening part of that work, but thanks to people
who know how to borrow books but never buy their own, they borrowed it and I
lost that treasure. Fortunately, recently, I got a little solace through an
extract of this title in Gathering
Seaweed: African Prison Writing, a work edited by Jack Mapanje.
In the extract, “Colour Bar” Kaunda,
narrates a story of how, while working as school teacher, he went out to
challenge the colour bar, that tendency by the white man to put boundaries
between him and other races in such places as shops, and street passages.
At page 2 (Gathering Seaweed) Kaunda narrates of how that one day in Mufulira
he got determined to expose a system that never allowed Africans to enter
European shops by the front door, but to buy through a hole in a wall. Kaunda
says, “I determined to expose this system for what it was, an insult to my race
and my people.” So Kaunda went straight into a shop where he asked for a book.
He was marched out. He says he went to the boma,
to lodge a complaint. When the police officer there suggested to him: “Look
here, Kenneth, if ever you want anything just come along to me and I will give
you a note,” Kaunda replied: “But that is not the point, what about all the
thousands of others who want to be treated like reasonable human beings in the
shops?”
When Kaunda went again to the shop and
was shown the door again, he went to the boma
again. He says this time the district officer accompanied him to the shop
warning the chemist that the man he was ill-treating could soon be sitting in
the legislative council, something that scared the chemist. Kaunda says the man
told him he should have said he was Mr Kaunda. But Kaunda says he once again
explained to him he was not asking for special consideration. “I was simply asking
that my people should be treated with reasonable courtesy in their own
country.” I am not surprised GOD is still keeping for us this giant of a
politician.
If Kaunda was a different person, he
would feel satisfied as soon the problem affecting him as an individual was addressed.
He was not like that; he wanted it addressed for his people first. His value
was on his people.
Then there is this quality—leaving a
legacy—and it is not the same as making a mark. In making a mark you do
something extraordinary, but unless that mark lives on and on, it is never a
legacy. That impression, that long-lasting influence, that appreciation
everyone makes of them is what qualifies for a legacy. To leave a legacy, one
must value the time one is leading as an opportunity in which to set the
yardstick and standards against which everything in future will be measured.
Such standards will inspire others to follow because history will show such
standards worked and so can work, and that anything outside them is bound to fail.
This is not to deny the followers or successors of innovation; this they must
but something in them should keep telling them to seriously take into account
the values set by one’s legacy.
In Africa, there are a number of leaders
who have left us this great value—legacy. Nelson Mandela and Sankara are two
such. In Mandela, we know we can live together and build our future together
despite the acrimonious history.
Thanks to Sankara, today, people in
Africa know that a leader can get determined and live a life simple, leading
his people at work. Thanks to Sankara, today we know leadership can champion
the fight for women emancipation, can bring a people a belief in themselves, a
belief that they can feed themselves and feel proud of what they have or
produce. Although Sankara’s life was ended prematurely, the leadership examples
he set can never be wiped out. Unfortunately, African leaders today cannot
emulate this simple yet powerful example, a formula that has everything they
need to leave behind a great legacy.
Just imagine one day we wake up to some
news that our leadership has on his own decided to trim to a third the fleet of
vehicles he uses to a ‘developmental’ meeting to inspect some project funded by
some donor? I hold my vote, waiting for the day some leader will tell me, “Well,
from now on, I will be using an ordinary Toyota Land Cruiser when visiting my people
in the villages.”
We do not have to wait for donors to
tell us to stop being corrupt; we know what is right; we can do the best for
our people and leave a great legacy. Let us borrow the exigencies of the
battlefront and work to liberate ourselves from the ills that have kept holding
us back for over fifty years. We deserve something better for ourselves.
The Bible refers to Christian life as a
battle, taking Jesus Christ as the Commander or one leading. He led by example
when He lived life of a human on Earth. There must be a very good reason GOD
decided to portray the Christian life as a battle; it must mean it is a life
that requires supreme sacrifice (done on behalf of us all by Christ Himself)
and so setting an example to all to live and lead by the same.
Military inspired leadership is not a
leadership by the military; that style has no room anywhere in the world let
alone in Africa; military inspired leadership is a leadership of civilians modelled
on the great high principles of men and women who lead in battle, men and women
who face the greatest of all dangers—death.
If Africa can strive to work with the
efficiency of a military unit and the urgency of those in battle, Africa can
beat all the ills dogging it within a short period of time. We gained
independence; we must show we were ready to take care of our own affairs when
the West gave us back that freedom.
When I was in primary school, I used to
pass by the Army General’s House when going or coming from school. The
building, a huge cream structure carrying a green corrugated-iron roof is just
outside the State House brick fence. Only a patch of bitumen road, the one tourists
take when going or coming from Ku Chawe Inn, that popular tourist sight atop the
beautiful Zomba Plateau, separates them. Every morning a Malawi Army soldier,
and a boxer, Metazama, in T-shirt and a pair of shorts, used to lift rocks,
mending flower beds for his boss there. The man was short but strongly built,
and the physique showed on his hands and legs. Today, whenever I pass that
place the picture of that great soldier appears before me. Today in my City of
Zomba, young men in what look like nappies gather at the once mighty Community
Centre Hall to compete on what is described as weight-lifting. They are paid
money for that. It’s great, physical exercises are great, but I always ask
myself whether it would not make more sense us using that opportunity further
than that to serve our nation or City.
Soldiers and police officers like to run
and do physical exercises. Often, early in the morning, they pass by my house,
singing some funny songs—‘Which deserves more respect, a shirt and a pair of
shorts?’ And they chorus, ‘Pair of shorts must!’ They proceed to give a reason,
a reason that always leaves me quaking in my blankets. However, whenever they
do this, I remember Metazama.
In some countries police officers and
army officers are trained in agriculture too so they can produce for themselves
and their nation. Perhaps we can borrow something from them and see the good
old days again when police officers and soldiers used to receive food rations. It
pains me that we allowed that system to die. But with Metazama spirit we can
bring back that glory.
In short, even the military in Malawi has
always demonstrated how that we can use our talents and skills to build our
nation. We must make a choice to do the best, to lead by example in all fields
of life, not only in being punctual at work or in showing others we must wear suits
at official functions; it must be on fundamental things that define governance,
rule of law and constitutionalism; it must be on making each one of us
contribute to the building of our great nation, and the military in Malawi and
elsewhere gives us the lessons we can learn from to build ourselves and our
peace.
Military inspired leadership can work
because it is based on things that work on the ground, things proven. It is
unlike other leadership theories, complicated and based on someone’s thinking
in some office, good for classroom setting only. Military inspired leadership
will see Africans borrow from the military and work ‘until the last man drops
dead’ to see Africa liberated from the bondage of poverty, hunger, diseases and
donor dependency. Through military inspired leadership, Africa can witness her fortunes revivified.
References
Brown, Anthony Cave (1975) Bodyguard of Lies. London: WH Allen and
Co.
Churchill, Winston S. (1952) The Second World War: Closing the Ring,
volume v. London: Cassell & Co Ltd.
Freedman, Lawrence and Gamba-Stonehouse,
Virginia (1991) Signals of War: The
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