Africa hasn’t seen presidents living up to expectations - Dr Brandful

Africa hasn’t seen presidents living up to expectations - Dr Brandful
Written by Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:39:27 PM

GHANAIAN High Commissioner to Zambia Dr William Brandful has observed that Africa has not seen too many success stories of African presidents living up to expectations.

In an interview in the wake of the inaugural exclusive visit to Ghana by United States President Barack Obama on account of the recent democratic credentials for the gold-rich western African country, High Commissioner Brandful said Africans regretted that the practices of most African presidents were not consistent with their campaign promises.

He said this was worsened by the failure by the electorate to make leaders accountable for their promises.

"We haven't seen too many success stories of African presidents living up to expectations. We know what to expect of them, but in practice, their performance has tendered to encounter all kinds of other considerations, partly due to the followership itself because in certain respect, fellowship has also not lived up to expectations," High Commissioner Brandful said. "So yes, they campaign on a certain manifesto and all of that and it ought to have been possible at the end of the day for them to just render public service and find in there the satisfaction that they would have achieved their goals but you know and I know that this is not in practice."

And High Commissioner Brandful proposed that United States set up some programme, similar to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to reward African leaders who display commitment to excellent governance.

"If there is a similar recompense from America to say 'Ghana, on account of... to encourage so that other countries, if they were to go through the same process, we will also expect to be similarly recompensed," he said. "African countries can learn from our experiences and where no lesser country like the United States wants to establish a direct coloration between good governance and economic progress, then we should expect that with that kind of encouragement, countries will want to follow suit."

Asked to justify why African leaders should be rewarded for doing the job they swore to carry out under the country's Constitution, High Commissioner Brandful said: "This kind of reminder is useful because it will ultimately help African countries to do public service the way that they confess they are going to do and hopefully the followership will also overtime mature into that kind of position that will repeatedly call them to account for what they said they were going to do rather than encourage them to do anything other than what they had professed they were going to do."

Obama is visiting Ghana, a country that was picked as his first destination in sub-Saharan Africa because of its democratic record.