I ask myself one question: what would Nyerere have done if the crisis was on Tanzanian soil - as was the case in Zanzibar in 1995 - and South Africa felt the urge to 'take leadership?’
In today’s article, I'll share a few leadership qualities of Madiba that if put into practice, would go a long way in ameliorating the management of public affairs on the continent.
The first is humility. I happened to witness an act of sheer humility from Mandela on the day of the signing ceremony of the Burundi Peace Accord in Arusha. This special moment had also in attendance the then-US president Bill Clinton. Mandela without doubt was most determined to mobilise as much international support for then fragile country.
On this, I remember it was shortly after taking on his new responsibility that a video conference was held between himself and Bill Clinton as well as the late US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, in Arusha and in the full glare of the Burundian representatives.
Now fast forward to the big day itself and I’ll just add that it wasn’t plain sailing as a few Burundian political groups were not ready to sign the accord for reasons that Mandela dismissed in his speech as self-serving.
Prior to the speeches though, when efforts were in hurried motion to tie everything together in the hall, a lone Mandela on the podium, stood up and walked down the few steps, making his way towards the front row where the Burundian representatives were seated. All of them that numbered approximately 20, stood up in unison.
It was all spontaneous and Mandela in turn made a reflexive left hand gesture to them to sit down. It prompted some amusement but evidently, Mandela was not enthralled by all the open deference on display for him. That was exceptional display of humility.
Another illustration of his humility is found in a lengthy speech delivered on the 6th of April 2000 at the London School of Economics and Political Science, entitled ‘Africa and Its Position In the World Today’, in which he says: "But I do want to point out that some of us have not really made the contribution which the world thinks we have. There are many men and women who have made a greater contribution, for example, in the leadership of the African National Congress than myself. There were people in jail who were more inspiring to their colleagues than I was able to be."
It is equally useful to refer to the afterword of Mandela's authorised biography by Anthony Sampson, which quotes Madiba: “I would like to be remembered as part of a team, and I would like my contribution to be assessed as somebody who carried out decisions taken by that collective.”
It is a tragedy indeed that in many parts of Africa, various people made great contributions to liberating their countries only for an individual to virtually eclipse them and be seen as a messiah.
Even in Tanzania, many of the individuals who worked with Nyerere pre-independence and even helped identify him as a leader are hardly known to the public. Somebody should have done a better job of bringing to the fore these liberation heroes. Consequently, it is a tall order to ask Tanzanians today to identify political heroes. This situation paves the way easily for political charlatans.
Looking at another quality of Mandela that is even more pronounced and is so tied to humility, is how he could brook no nonsense for leaders failing to keep time. In September 1998, a SADC meeting of heads of state was held in Mauritius and of which according to a book by his former personal assistant, Zelda La Grange, Mandela put Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe on the spot for lateness.
"President Mandela interrupted him and asked he stop his address. This was unusual for him and the atmosphere grew tense as silence descended in the big hall; it was one of the few occasions that Mandela interrupted someone while speaking.
"Mandela waited for Mugabe to be seated and then launched into an off-the-cuff speech of about twenty minutes about being disrespectful and wasting other people's time, and that 'some heads of state' considered themselves more important and therefore thought it was acceptable to arrive late. He didn't mention Mugabe's name once, but we all knew. He subsequently used words that never left me: 'If you are late you show that you have no respect for another person's time and therefore no respect for other people because you consider yourself to be more important than others’.”
Another example was within South Africa itself as captured by Anthony Sampson’s book: "On occasion Mbeki arrived forty-five minutes late for a gala evening held in Mandela's honour, shortly after his retirement in 1999. Addressing the audience, Mandela talked of a former ANC president from the 1930s (Alfred Xuma) who used to say that he was 'the black prime minister' and needed to come late to meetings so that everyone could see him. Mbeki knew that was coming and looked up to the ceiling in his characteristic way of saying: here we go again. Mandela, aware that his public remarks were being recorded on the BBC television cameras, then gestured in the direction of Mbeki and said: 'I think that this president here has taken after that president of the ANC'."
It is instructive also reading from Ali Hassan Mwinyi's autobiography that even Nyerere exhibited impatience at President Mobutu Sese Seko at a continental leaders' gathering in June 1994 in Tunisia where he would stare at him and ask, "Wazabanga, don't you have a watch?"
On a final note, one matter that makes Mandela stand tall on the continent was his presidential succession. As it were, Madiba wasn't interested in becoming president. This was revealed by himself on CNN's Larry King show.
That aside, Sampson summed it up aptly when he wrote: "But he was totally committed to democracy, and was determined - unlike most African leaders - to appoint a democratically elected successor: he allowed his deputy Thabo Mbeki, as he explained, to be chosen by the party leaders and their allies without revealing his own preference; and Mbeki was effectively running the country for most of Mandela's presidency.”
Andrew Bomani is a political scientist based in Dar es Salaam. He can be reached at a_bomani@yahoo.com
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