Leadership for Africa's Development: Revisiting Indigenous African Leadership and Setting the Agenda for Political Leadership

The African continent remains at the periphery in world affairs, as many have argued. Similarly, many scholars have advanced cogent reasons for this unfortunate reality. The development of the continent is also unimpressive, relative to the potential of the African economies. It is therefore important that Africa pursues its own socioeconomic development approach instead of what appears to be inappropriate policies that are being implemented in most if not all African countries, as argued elsewhere. This article makes a case for African (traditional/indigenous) leadership and examines political leadership in particular with the view of ensuring that Africa reclaims its lost glory and recovers its stolen legacy (to paraphrase George James). The article argues that African leadership should be infused with thought leadership, thought liberation, and critical consciousness. And critical consciousness and thought liberation should be linked to decolonizing the minds of Africans, as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and others have argued.