Contemporary Governance in Africa:  Thinking African But Acting with International Mentality

Bola A. Akinterinwa 

Let us begin the New Year 2026 with some deeper reflections on why Africa and its peoples are a problem unto themselves, and particularly why they have sagacious minds and their sagacity has not and cannot be translated into concrete development. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, one song we were taught in the primary school was ‘wherever you go, wherever you may be, do not say ‘yes,’ when you mean to say No.’ In other words, you must know what you want to say before saying it. It is not cultured to say things with unintended meanings. In the use of the word, ‘yes’, it can be used to imply both negative and positive meanings. If a sentence is already used to imply a negative connotation, answering yes to it can imply confirmation. In contemporary African foreign relations, leaders often say yes when they mean to say No. They say no when yes is intended. In fact, they often behave contrarily to their publicly-declared policy decision. They think African but always act internationally which largely explains why they are also generally taken for granted in international politics. For example, the world has been variously categorised for different purposes. The typology of Pew is for data analysis while that of the US State Department is for political groupings and that of the AP World History is for historical study. But whatever is the rationale for the categorisation, Africa is generally identified as an entity either as a whole region or as a continent.

And true enough, African leaders contested the United Nations’ categorisation of Africa as a region. The whole world is variously categorised: Africa (Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Africa, Eastern Africa, Central/middle, and Southern Africa); Americas (North America, Latin America, and Caribbean which comprises Caribbean, Central America, and South America); Asia (East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia, also considered as Middle East); Europe (Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western Europe); Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia); Arctic and Antarctica; etc. In essence, Africa is generally considered as a region, in spite of the carving out of Sub-Saharan Africa as a region of its own. In this regard, how is a ‘region’ a problem in governance?

Governance and Exercise of Sovereignty  

From the foregoing analysis of what constitutes a region of the world, what does ‘Africa’ mean to the people and governments of Africa, especially in light of the incapacity of African leaders to implement its policies? What does it mean in light of lack of political will and excessive dependence on external powers? We strongly believe that African leaders hardly walk their talks, which is most unfortunate. African leaders think African but act extra-African. The most guilty country in thinking African but acting with international mentality is Nigeria, especially if we consider the fact that it was in Nigeria that the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community were done. Both the Plan and the Treaty had the rapid development of Africa as one of the major objectives of African leaders. It is because of this that the Abuja Treaty specifically divided Africa into five main regions in its Article 1(d) and that Article 1(e) for carving out a sub-region from any of the regions so created. 

Consequently, it is expected that policy writers and makers, leaders, and public servants would be made to keep themselves abreast of current African and international developments. However,This has generally not been so. Media professionals are also induced into error by frequently referring to West Africa as a sub-region instead of a region. When media professionals follow the instructions given internationally and begin to teach Africans contrarily to what the African leaders have prescribed, why should people complain about underdevelopment in Africa? African leaders agreed that, in order to fast-track integration in Africa, the continent should be divided into five regions: West, North, Central, East, and Southern. Why are African scholars and media professionals still referring to West Africa as a sub-region? They cannot be promoting internationalism to the detriment of African interests.

The notion of a region can be confusing at the level of West Africa, as there has to be a distinction between West Africa region and the ECOWAS region. With the withdrawal of Mauritania’s membership from the ECOWAS, ECOWAS region does not include Mauritania any longer. Whenever one is discussing about West Africa, one is necessarily referring to the ECOWAS and Mauritania, even though Mauritania has purportedly joined the North Africa region with its membership of the Maghreb Union. The notion of West Africa region is further made complex with the carving out of the Alliance of Sahel States from the ECOWAS region to form a sub-region as defined by Article 1(e) of the 1991 Abuja Treaty.

In his inaugural presidential speech on 29th May, 2023 President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) noted as follows: ‘the crisis in Sudan and the turn from democracy by several nations in our immediate neighbourhood are of pressing concern. As such, my primary foreign policy objective must be the peace and stability of West African sub-region (emphasis mine) and the African continent.’ With this statement, there is no disputing the fact that PBAT and his speech writers are advancers of the international definitional school and not of the Abuja school of thought. Why should the leader of Nigeria that played host to both the Lagos Plan of Action and the Abuja Treaty be the one refusing to promote the redefinition of Africa from the perspectives of African leaders? In the same inaugural speech, PBAT noted further that ‘as we contain threats to peace, we shall also retool our foreign policy to more actively lead the regional and continental quest for collective prosperity.’

This further statement shows the confusion as to what is regional quest and continental quest for collective prosperity. Regional and continental are the same from the perspective of the United Nations. At the level of the African Union (AU), regional is not the same as continental.This is one manifestation of how African leaders carelessly and consciously undermine the growth and development of the continent of Africa. If a decision is taken continentally, then all public institutions in all the Member States ought to ensure compliance at the levels of public governance, media practitioners, and civil society organisations. 

In 2001, the ECOWAS signed the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance to prevent military coups and promote rule of law, human rights, and justice. Additionally, in 2007, the African Union came up with the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) which vehemently prohibits unconstitutional change of government, and promotes rule of law, and democratic values. The AU and the ECOWAS say they have zero tolerance for coup-making in Africa. However, the same AU has a double standard approach at the level of implementation of its own protocol. How do we explain the fact that the coupists in Mali, Guinea Conakry, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon were sanctioned for reasons of unconstitutional changes of government and Zimbabwe in 2017 and Republic of Chad in 2021, both of which were guilty of the same unconstitutional changes of government, were given a soft landing? Put differently, for how long will African leaders prevent African interests to prevail over extra-African interests in the development of Africa?

The meaninglessness of the African Peace and Security Architecture (Peace and Security Council, AU Commission, Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), African Standby Force (ASF), Peace Fund, and Regional Mechanisms (RECs/RMs) is to the extent that African leaders cannot jointly mobilise all African soldiers to contain terrorism or contain civil wars in the continent. They prefer to rely individually on foreign alliance. The African Union promotes the principle of subsidiarity in ensuring regional security in the continent. However, the regional organisations have not always been able to act jointly. Individually, members hide under national sovereignty to seek foreign help. At the end of the day, it is self-mockery. 

How do we explain the fact that, in 2016, the African Union launched as its theme ‘Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africans Development’ by 2020 and the policy failed and had to be repackaged with 2030 as a new deadline? What guarantees are there that all guns will be silenced in 2030 with the way African leaders still behave? The ‘Silencing the Guns’ (STG) is an initiative under AU Agenda 2063 to end civil wars, prevent genocide, stop gender-based violence, reduce the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, and improve political stability. 

In Guinea Bissau, the new style of coup-making is no longer by soldiers. It is the elected president of the country that initiates the coup. In Benin Republic, the story is different but the problem remains the same. The elected president, Patrice Guillaume Athanase Talon, has a major problem of poor governance and dictatorial democracy and his second-term tenure expires in April 2026. This means that he is no longer eligible to contest. However, a coup d’état was organised to remove him on Sunday, 7th December, 2025. If the issue is about democratic election or electoral politics, why not wait until April 2026 to remove President Talon?

Without whiff of doubt, African leaders have been aiding and abetting constitutional coups by keeping silent during the manipulations of national constitutions. The manipulation of the Constitutions in Uganda, Cameroon and Togo are cases in point. How do we explain the fact that the AU is no longer having the mediation credibility in Africa? In other words, why should the warring factions in the Ethiopian civil war in Tigray reject the mediation of the African Union? Can the location of the headquarters of the AU in Addis Ababa be sufficient a reason for rejecting AU mediation? The point is that the AU is perceived and believed to have partisan attitude which should not be. The AU cannot be respected by keeping silent in the face of gross 2015 human rights abuses in Burundi and violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Without jot of exaggeration, the non-seriousness of purpose of African leaders is best explained at the level of economic governance. Economic observers have suggested that only about 15% of all decisions taken since 2001 have been fully enacted at the level of the AU Member States. Why sing the song of African Economic Community and preach the sermon of the African Continental Free Trade Areas, but refuse to take decisive steps to grow intra-Africa trade which is put at about 15%? 

Most African countries still place priority on trade with Europe? Rationalisations are given that all African countries are basically primary producers and therefore do not have many products to exchange. Most unfortunate! What prevents the AU from promoting inter-African universities research on how to stop the recidivist financial dependence on Europe? Why replace financial dependence on Euro-American with another form of independence? Decisions are taken supra-nationally but implementation at the national level is often impeded by the right of sovereignty. Can this problem be addressed in 2026?

Thinking African and Acting Internationally 

The way African leaders behave in their various organisations can be compared and contrasted with some Multinational Corporations (MNCs), especially in terms of business failures and successes. In her analysis of the six steps that can lead with a global mind set, Charlene Solomon, the President of the RW3 CultureWizard, noted on April 27, 2021, that ‘global companies with above-average levels of diversity outperform their counterparts,’ not only because ‘their leaders embedded inclusive practices within their company culture,’ but also because ‘effective leadership requires more than diverse teams and inclusive practices.’ 

And perhaps more significantly, as revealed by the Conference Board, and DDI in a 2018 report, ‘effective global leaders also operate with different mind sets, not skillsets.’

Most importantly, mind set in this case is about organisational practices that enable high-quality development planning and personal development. Again in the words of Charlene Solomon, a global mind set is the ‘ability to recognise, read, and adapt to cultural signals, both overt and subtle, so that our effectiveness isn’t compromised when you’re dealing with people from different backgrounds… Put simply, personal development is at the core of a global mind set.’ In this regard, she identified six steps to bear in mind when discussing a successful global mind set: recognising one’s own cultural biases and preferences; appreciating that other cultures have values and behaviours different from one’s own; learning to recognise culturally-based behaviours; learning about the cultures of the people one is working with; developing personal strategies to adjust to different cultural styles; and opening to continuous learning and diversity appreciation. 

At the level of Africa’s political organisations, what does a global or international mind set mean? As for MNCs, having an international mind set appears to be a desideratum for business survival. They need to compete for business outlets and acquisition of raw materials. In the context of Africa’s political organisations, the need to compete for politico-economic survival is not a desideratum. In fact, the politics of granting development aid to Africa does not allow African leaders to see clearly that such aid is an inhibition to creative ideas. African leaders can comfortably sell, not just their land, but also their own people, into another round of classical esclavage. 

Africans generally feel contented:  scarce landslides, limited volcanic eruptions, limited pandemics and forced relocations. Even when political governance is poor and military coups take place, they simply support the coups rather than talk about unconstitutional change of government. Funnily enough, Orem Frien, an Assyrian and author in America, has reflected on how it is hard or easy to be happy in a Third World country. As he sees it, Africans ‘are happy when life just goes smoothly, without diseases, forced relocations, and the like. Their expectations are not terribly high, and therefore, easily met. By contrast, individuals in developed countries can see many materialistically better lives than their own and aspire to the wealth, prestige, and power that they do not have, but appears within reach. Accordingly, they feel a sense of dissatisfaction with their own lives not being optimal and this manifests as unhappiness.’

Is it that Africans are truly happy and contented? Do they not complain and protest against bad governance and violations of human rights? When they protest, and for that matter, peacefully, do African governments not repress protesters by manu militari? When protesters are repressed, do foreign partners of African leaders not also aid and abet the repression? Africa’s development future is a special problematic that requires further and more-focused diagnosis, especially in terms of international political cooperation and economic partnership. It is only in Africa that unwanted convicted criminals in Europe and America are happily accepted in exchange for a financial pot of porridge. The United Kingdom does not want some refugees and immigrants. It gave money to Rwanda to accept them. Rwanda, acting under the right of sovereignty and independence, disregarded the hostile condemnation by Africans of its action. The United States of Donald Trump did the same with many African countries, including Eswatini. Nigeria refused to accommodate the Venezuelan criminals from the United States. Some reported strategic calculations have shown that Nigeria would be made to pay dearly for confronting or rejecting Donald Trump’s export of criminals to Nigeria.

Should any African country, under the threats of possible sanctions, sell itself to another country and government? Is the political mind set of African leaders so poor, so impoverished and so poverty-stricken to the extent of not knowing the implications of self-enslavement and not knowing the dynamics of the divide and rule of contemporary international politics? Why should any logically-thinking person ask another country to consider accepting people that are unwanted by him? Where do we place ‘what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander’? If some criminals are not good for the United States and the United Kingdom, why are they considered good for Africa, good for Rwanda and Eswatini? Is the Euro-American thinking not that of ‘giving money to African leaders and they accept to sell their birth-rights?’ The mere consideration by the UK and the U.S. of relocating unwanted convicted criminals, refugees, foreigners, etc., to Africa is very sadist in design, satanic in implementation, wickedly myopic as a policy, and politically injurious in the long run. The African leaders that accept the unwanted criminals are major obstacles to African unity and integration. Do the African leaders not know that the new wave of recolonization is by technologizing? Can they not also see the emerging meaninglessness of African Unity? When African scholars came up with their own definition of security by underscoring human security to the detriment of state security, and when they argued that there is no country in the world that is not developing, the global institutions simply set aside their politics of First, Second, and Third, Worlds. They now talk about low and middle income countries to describe the hitherto Third World countries. However, the so-called Third World to which the whole of Africa has been classified only simply and always acquiesce to international manipulations and Africa happily follows. This is most unfortunate. Promoting AU Agenda 2063 within the framework of such a dependentist mentality is unacceptable. In 2026, Africa should stop accepting ridiculous development aid and start to seek self-help from within. 

There is nothing wrong with being under-developed or being a developing continent, or being a continent of low-income and shit-hole countries. What is wrong is knowing that Africa is under-developed and then deepening it through foreign dependency, or having the capacity to self-develop and not using it. Let African leaders change their mentality or allow for a new generation of pro-African leaders. Africa should begin to develop according to its available resources. 2026 makes it 63 years after the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity. In other words, it is 63 years of Africa’s struggle to assert itself in international politics, but the struggle has been to no avail.  2026 should be a year for a fresh self-appraisal and re-strategy.