Were Mandela another African

History will remember Nelson Mandela as a champion for human dignity and freedom, for peace and reconciliation.  We will remember him as a man of uncommon grace and compassion, for whom abandoning bitterness and embracing adversaries was not just a political strategy, but a way of life.  — Bill Clinton.

Charles de Gaulle was a French leader who maintained that “a true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeves which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless”.  Indeed, one can say that Nelson Mandela was one such leader.

As it is, Mandela stunned the world when he withstood all manner of pressure for retributive action against the architects of apartheid and strived for the rainbow nation.  He even astonished his loyalist supporters, when he declined to serve more than one term as President of South Africa.  That really makes Nelson Mandela great.

James Buckham expects every human being to be a better person after going through some experience.  He postulates that, “every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”

When Nelson Mandela died, I was in the UK undergoing leadership training at the Royal Institute of Public Administration in London. I was enthused about the way the British media covered the event on December 6, 2013.  Indeed, the Metro newspaper devoted its front and back pages exclusively to Nelson Mandela.  While the front carried a photograph, the back had a quotation from the Madiba.

The paper quoted the rare human person Nelson Mandela as having stated that: “I have walked that long road to freedom.  I have tried not to falter. I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that, after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.  I have taken a moment here to rest, steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come.  But, I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, my long walk is not ended.”

Commenting on the demise of Nelson Mandela, the paper wrote : “Now his long walk has reached its end, and so we weep for Madiba.”

I was excited to hear on the ABN Television, which rebroadcast Joy FM’s programme, Newsfile, urging Ghanaians to get copies of the Daily Graphic to get to know all that they needed to know and learn about Nelson Mandela.

I listened to US President Barrack Obama say that “Madiba transformed South Africa and moved all of us.  His journey from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings and countries can change for the better.  His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who jailed him set an example all humanity should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal ones.  He achieved more than can be expected of any one man.  I cannot imagine my own life without Mandela’s example and so long as I live, I will do what I can learn from him.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Nelson Mandela “made South Africans and Africans feel good about being who we are.  He made us walk tall.  God be praised.”

As I watched and listened to the tributes and testimonies and returned to Ghana to read about what some of our leaders on the continent said about Nelson Mandela, the rhetorical questions that came to my mind were: If Nelson Mandela was not a South African and had been jailed as a political prisoner in any other African country, would he have survived the 27 years in jail, including hard labour of cracking stones?  Also, if he had been any African, would he have been ready to forgive those who unjustifiably jailed him?  More important, after tasting power and knowing that the law allowed him two terms, would he have voluntarily relinquished power, when popular opinion favoured his contesting another term?

Answers to these questions are critical because on our continent, political opponents who go to jail beyond a few years either die in prison or return maimed or psychologically depressed.  Those who merely contest against the elected leaders to give meaning and function to democracy are treated as enemies, while those who have served their full legally permissible terms engineer the public to demand their return.  Some are so crude and do not appreciate Russian President Putin’s mischievous ingenuity of truncating consecutive terms.

If African leaders appreciate that Nelson Mandela is African but could do what he did, by putting the cause of the country and people before his person, and that made him greater and more beloved than if he had been vindictive and clung to power, then they must begin to put their nations and people above themselves.  

As Mr de Klerk testified of Madiba, and if there was anyone who benefit from the magnanimity of Mandela, he was one: Mr Mandela’s “greater legacy is that he was a unifier and that he successfully broke the bridge between the conflict of the past and the peace of today” and the British Labour Party Leader, Ed Miliband, eulogised Mandela, saying: “The world has lost the inspirational figure of our age.  Nelson Mandela taught people across the globe the true meaning of courage, strength and reconciliation.”

Let African leaders emulate Nelson Mandela, and as Jacob Zuma said of Mandela, “we will always love you, Madiba.” We would recognise, appreciate and love them.