Power: A lethal drug

I AM now completely convinced that power has the same effects as a lethal drug. Leaders, who stay too long in power certainly show advanced power addiction, which makes them think and feel that they are immortal.

And it is very worrying that we have so many of these leaders on the African continent, who are powerdrugged to the point of wanting to rule until they die.

As I write, Zimbabweans have voiced, in their millions, their displeasure at President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to amend the Constitution to remain in power. This was also the case with the late former President Robert Mugabe.

In eSwatini, King Mswati III is killing his people, who have for months been registering displeasure with the way he is running the affairs of the mountainous kingdom.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was once widely praised outside the country for his reformist zeal, but that image was shattered after he launched a civil war in the northern parts of the country last year.

Africa is the Eden for power-drugged leaders. These power addicts will do anything in their capacity to stay in power.

They will even mercilessly kill people, like Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir who declared a state of emergency in a country where the power-drugged leadership was wagging war on citizens who were rejecting their continued rule.

Some try to be smart by amending constitutions just to have another opportunity to keep drugging themselves.

I also think Africa has this very peculiar problem of leaders who do not want to graciously leave office because historically this continent has been ruled by kings and chiefs who reigned until they died.

So terms such as democracy and term of office are alien to us. They do not exist in our DNA.

So if they do not exist in our blood, who can blame these politicians who are clinging to power? We must be a cursed continent to have leaders who want to rule us until they die, even if they are absolute failures. Sad!