Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has blamed the underdevelopment of many African countries on the lack of effective leadership over the years.
According to him, the colonization of the countries on the continent created a lot of self-doubt in the leaders on the continent, which has trickled down to the citizens and resulted in Africans failing to achieve their full potential.
“What I came to realize during the very long public service, which took me to all the five continents in the world, and also enabled me to know our continent Africa quite well, I came to a conclusion that the real bane of Africans under development if I may use that word is poor leadership,” he said.
“And I don’t blame us the Africans, we have had a very sad history over the past 600 years, history that sucked our self confidence and history that also instilled some real self doubt in us.”
Speaking at the launch of an Endowment Fund for his John A. Kufuor foundation, the former president said even after independence, the continent has been characterized by diverse social and economical challenges which have brought many countries in Africa to a standstill economically despite the abundance of resources on the continent.
“So when we became independent not too long ago we see a mess of ignorance, disease, poverty, when in truth, nature endowed our lands with so much wealth. But we are still wallowing, as if we just don’t have vision.”
Kufuor also said that over the last few decades, the continent has been at the mercy of leaders who have no regard for the vision of the African continent.
He however expressed hope that the continent will witness a revival due to the rise of leaders who are committed to ensuring the development of the continent.
“Since independence many of our countries unfortunately have been under people who style themselves as strong men, who really didn’t respect the dignity of us Africa. The first challenge is to find the people, the leaders. When we look at our continent it’s taken a bit long for us to come by the leaders who will take us to the promise land.”
The launch of the Endowment fund is to raise 80 million to sustain the vision of the former president under the John A. Kufuor foundation.
The year long programme has the theme “80for80 (80 million Ghana cedis for 80 year years)”.
According to the CEO of the Foundation Baffour Agyeman-Duah five million cedis would be used to construct the Kufuor Center for Leadership and Governance.
The launch saw a number celebrities including Claudia Lumor, Bola Bay, Okyeame Kwame, Stephen Appiah, Coach Kwesi Appiah, Larry Otoo, in attendance, all of whom pledged their support to the Fund.
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By: Ann-Shirley Ziwu/citifmonline.com/Ghana