Of degrees and leadership in Africa

When Nigeria inaugurated a new president in June, it marked two milestones in the country's history. It was the first time power had 'peacefully' passed from an elected head of state to another who was elected albeit in a very flawed process. It also marked the first time Nigeria has a head of state who has a university degree. Yar'Adua, one of only three Nigerian rulers without a military background, has a Masters degree in Chemistry from Ahmadou Bello University. Nobody will contest the fact that you do not need a university degree to be a good leader but it is still strange that a country like Nigeria, with its many universities and millions of degree holders in all manner of subjects, has never had a leader with a university degree until now. One reason can probably be the fact that the country has been ruled for so many years by military men who are not normally people with high academic qualifications.

At the time of independence there were not many highly educated Africans from whom the leadership cadre could be picked. But in Ghana, we have had a bounty of degree holders as heads of state. Even if Nkrumah relied on his 'veranda boys' to bring home the votes, he himself had a degree and had even started his doctoral thesis in the USA. Busia was a professor of Sociology, Limman had a doctoral title in a certain subject. Our present head of state may sound drawling in his speech but he has a British degree behind him. It is only our military rulers who never had degrees. Anytime Ghanaians had the chance to freely elect a leader, they always chose one who had a university degree. The only exception was Rawlings who transformed himself from a military to a civilian ruler in an election he really should not have participated in after 11 years of having been the top man. Whether degree holders do better than their non-degree counterparts as heads of state in Africa is an empirical question. The evidence so far doesn't give any pointer. Africa has been misruled both by people with the highest academic qualifications and by those who didn't complete primary school. Hastings Banda, who trained as a medical doctor, ruled his country, Malawi, into his own senility. Kwame Nkrumah would have ruled Ghana until his death, if he had not been overthrown and Houphouet-Boigny hanged on until death forced him to hand over to someone else. Robert Mugabe has several degrees and we now know what has become of his once prosperous country.

No, degrees don't necessarily make good leaders but today, in a place like the USA, it is quite impossible to become president without having some formal university level academic qualification. The same is true of many of the western democracies. This may be due to the generally high level of education of everybody. Sweden, where I live, stands apart, however. Here, a high academic qualification has never been important or relevant for political office. This is a democratic country whose Justice Minister did not read Law. The immediate former prime minister did not complete his first degree. The present prime minister has a first degree in Economics and the finance minister (the young man with a ring in his ear and a pony-tail) abandoned his doctoral studies, also in Economics. Most political posts go to people who have been groomed through the party machinery starting from the youth level. Indeed, in the present cabinet, only the education minister has a PhD (in Political Science) but almost no one in Sweden knows that. She is never called 'Dr this' or 'Dr that' like she would be in Ghana. The rest of the cabinet is made up of people who have only had scraps of university education (including the knowledgeable foreign minister – the one with the acerbic tongue) as well as one or two who didn't even complete high school. And yet this is a country whose universities have produced a large crop of high quality PhD people holding their sway at the topmost academic and research institutions around the world. But they don't need one to lead them. The country is still better governed and the economy better managed than any in Africa ruled by people with the longest degrees.

We adore titles in Ghana. Everybody goes everywhere with the titles they have acquired even if those titles have nothing to do with the particular issues at stake. That is why one Atta Mills, who is seeking the presidency of the republic, is called 'Professor' with every mention of his name even though his professorship has absolutely nothing to do with the post he is aiming at which could as well be occupied by someone with a middle school leaving certificate. Mr Mills is, indeed, a professor, but that belongs to academia, not the public space he is trying to fill. We refer to people so much by their titles that we often forget what they did that earned them those titles. Nobody in Ghana today remembers what Limman studied to get his PhD. Even when he was head of state, not many people knew. But he has always been called 'Dr Limman'. We call our ministers and parliamentarians 'Honourable' even though we are all aware of the fact that our politicians, judging by their activities, are among the most dishonourable people in the society. We learnt some of these things from the British but it appears we have far outdone the British in these practices. British parliamentarians call each other 'Right Honourable' on the floor of the house but drop that terminology once they leave the precincts of Westminster Palace. Gordon Brown, the new prime minister, has a PhD in History but no one is referring to him as 'Prime Minister Dr Gordon Brown' just as no one says 'Secretary of State Professor Dr Condoleeza Rice' or 'German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel' - a lady who wrote her doctoral thesis in quantum chemistry which is a difficult mathematically based subject straddling the borders of physics and chemistry but miles away from the political arena! In Ghana (or worse still Nigeria), they would surely find a means of calling them all of that, and adding a bit more. It is only Ghanaians and Nigerians who can concoct the tautology of preceding their names with Dr. and still add the abbreviations PhD, M.A., B.A., Dip, Cert., or something else after those names. That is the way we are.

Our obsession with adding titles to people's names may be rooted in our tradition of respect for the elderly and those in authority who, in turn, expect such fawning obeisance from their underlings and may take umbrage if it is not accorded them. Here, again, the Swedes are so different. In a country where children call their parents by their first names, there is no equivalent for 'Honourable' that they use for their ministers and parliamentarians who are all referred to simply by their ordinary names - like everyone else. In fact, the word for 'Mr' in Swedish (Herr, or its female version, Fru) is very archaic and rarely used for anybody these days. We don't have to go as far as the Swedes and we should show respect for our public officials but there is no need for us in Ghana to call them 'Dr' or 'Professor' or 'Honourable' in their capacities as public officials. Dropping these appellations can help narrow the conceptual gap between the ruler and the ruled and further us along the path of democracy we are trying to chart. The media will have to show the way, and the rest of society will follow.

I don't know if General Yakubu Gowon felt cowed by the degree holders who helped him rule Nigeria through some of the most turbulent years of that country's history. After his overthrow, he went to university in the U.K. and did not stop studying until he bagged his PhD. Maybe, Rawlings, our only living former head of state (military or civilian), can borrow a leaf from General Gowon. He can go outside the country and study towards a degree. He will have a hard time doing it since as ruler he was used to being served and telling others what to do – something he has not quite grown out of. In the lecture hall, he will have to listen to the lecturer and argue out his points with his mates without assuming that he alone knows what is best. If he succeeds, he will see the theoretical bases of some of the decisions he faced and dealt with in practice as head of state. It will surely make him a much more experienced and a wiser human being.

Kofi Sapathy