Dr. Suleiman Walhad
The Horn of Africa States region is a resource rich region but is devoid of visionary leadership. Many of the region’s leadership have, indeed, failed themselves and their countries and peoples. Some have overstayed, well versed in Africa’s overstaying born again leadership styles. Some are in the third, fourth and fifth and even more administrations in power and others seem to be copying those who came before them. In effect, they have created kingdoms without calling themselves kings – they call themselves presidents and/or prime ministers.
The issue is not the overstaying or dictatorial tendencies they show. This is part of human nature to keep what one acquires legally or illegally. It is the inability of these leaders to put in the wealth they earn back into the country, at least, to leave some legacy that can be witnessed and seen by those who may come after them or even centuries later like what the pharaohs did in ancient Egypt – they left the pyramids at which we wonder or the Great wall of China, which we also admire or even the Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe or the Stonehenge of the UK and many others. This would, at least, have left a trace of their deeds for leaders, scientists and tourists of the days to come to visit and admire.
It is very strange when one compares them to the other dictators on the other side of the same seas they overlook, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, where the long staying emirs and kings have developed their countries so well to make them the envy of the world. Taking Dubai, for example, one knows that it was a small village even some forty to fifty years ago, with barely a few hundred thousand people living there and most of them foreigners who came for work opportunities.
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