Crises of leadership and the ethical grounds of revolution in Africa

Abstract

Leadership is conceived as a vocation to service backed by authority to exercise administrative powers not for any personal gains but for the good and development of the people and the state. The leadership in Africa seems to derail from this rather noble understanding of leadership while tilting towards the egocentric idea of leadership where there is a shift from the people centered leadership to the person centered leadership and where the interest of the leader and his group is protected. This leads to underdevelopment in most African states and a protracted suffering of the citizens of these states which often comes in form of mismanagement of funds, abuse of human right and wanton discrimination in the state. The need to survive these long sufferings has led some people to demonstrations against the government which often come in form of civil disobedience and more recently revolution in some African countries. This work examines ethical rounds of these revolutions while asserting that no matter how moral a revolutionary movement is, care should be taken to avoid damage that will create more problems instead of solving them. Key words: Leadership, crisis, Africa, revolution.