African Leaders Don't Resign....

The African National Congress (South African ruling party) issued a statement last week expressing its disappointment with the fact that the ASA (Athletics South Africa) meeting had decided that there was no reason for anyone in its leadership to be fired or to resign due to the Caster Semenya debacle. In spite of the fact that ASA President Leornard Chuene publicly declared a week earlier that he had indeed lied and misled the nation about whether any gender tests were conducted on Caster before the Berlin tournament in August. Chuene had publicly declared that he was not aware on any such tests, it turned out, he knew that tests were done and there was even a recommendation to withdraw Caster from the tournament. He even had the audacity to claim that he lied to protect Caster and by inference that he would do it again in similar situation.

We all remember the accusations made by many political and sport leaders soon after Caster won gold in Berlin and the media started to question Caster's gender. The allegations were also targeted towards the "racist whites who were attacking Caster because she was black." It was sickening to hear leaders play cheap politics with this issue. Asked whether they knew that Caster's gender would a controversial issue in Berlin, ASA and Chuene said they didn't know or anticipate it and they were surprised by the furore.The confession by Chuene that he lied implies that ASA knew that there would be questions around Caster. Either way one looks at it, Chuene and ASA lied to the nation and the world.Even the Department of Sports of South Africa asked that Chuene must go. Of course sport bodies like ASA do not directly fall under the government and government can't hire and fire the sports officials.

The ANC too had blindly bought into Chuene's lies and accused people who questioned Caster's gender as white racists and jealous people. ANC Youth League president Julius Malema was at the forefront of "attacking" anybody who questioned Caster's gender. One has to be extremely naive or outright stupid to deny that Caster is not your average girl and rather than being sober about it and look at the issue, ANC politicians and ASA officials decided to arrogantly insult anybody who asked questions.Therefore to now turn and be disappointed by ASA's decision not to act against anybody who misled the nation on Caster is extremely hypocritical of the ANC. It is also an insult to all of us to think that we are stupid enough to buy their hypocrisy.

Just as the ANC is hypocritical, so is ASA in claiming they lied to protect ASA. ASA knows the culture of lying, pretending, cheating and dishonesty in African leaders and therefore ask the question "why should anybody resign or be fired when no African leader resigns or is fired for messing up? Chuene is doing what everybody in a similar position does. How many African leaders (in all spheres of society and across the continent) have resigned for being dishonest, lying, cheating, misleading the nation and messing up?

African leaders don't resign and no one has the guts to fire them because whoever might have the "power" to fire them, is very likely to also have "skeletons in his/her closet."
The fundamental problem of many leaders in Africa is lack of accountability. This is made worse by the fact that society is either unable or unwilling to call them to account. There are literary thousands of cases where one shakes his or her head when looking at the arrogance of African leaders and the inability of society to call leaders to account.

What is even worse, sometimes society even condones and supports leaders who mess up. How many times have people toy-toyed at the courts in support of a leader who is being tried for corruption or for doing something unacceptable? One hears sentiments such as "corrupt or not corrupt, we support him." Until African societies begin to exercise their power to hold leaders to account and ensuring that leaders get the message loud and clear that "you mess up, you go" leaders will continue with their arrogance because they know they will get away with it.
The message to the ANC is "ASA will not act because African leaders don't resign. Accept it because you to have contributed to towards this culture."