“The bulk of African nations, which have collapsed or are currently in a crisis has been due to internal rather than external threats.”

Since the birth of the modern nation-state around 1648, after Europe’s 30 years’ war, mainstream thinking in the security sector was that the primary threat to any nation’s survival was from outside its borders and military in nature. To survive, nations formed armies and equipped them with weapons.

While this orthodox view of threats to security has since been challenged by alternative threats like the environment, politics and the economy, national leaders, particularly heads of state continue to be presented as guardians of national perpetuity and sovereignty.

With this thinking, the president is promoted as a moral leader who supposedly puts national interests above any other and is a protector rather than a danger to national survival.

In Africa’s case however, beyond the rhetoric, there is little evidence to show first that the threat to national survival comes from outside, and secondly, that presidents are necessarily protectors rather than threats to their nations.

Instead, there is evidence to suggest that some presidents are a direct threat to their nation’s survival and that they use state machinery to wreck their own countries.

This isn’t to say there aren’t presidents who genuinely serve their nation’s interests or that outside threats don’t exist.

Nor does it suggest that neocolonialism hasn’t played a part. Instead, my point is that most post-colonial heads of state in Africa have ended up being a danger rather than a solution to their nation’s wellbeing.

To illustrate this point, with perhaps the exception of Uganda — which was attacked and its government overthrown by a combination of Tanzanian forces — a decision influenced by General Amin’s provocation and attack on Tanzania in 1978) and exiled Ugandans in 1979 — almost all African countries that have collapsed have been due to internal mismanagement by their top leaders rather than from foreign invaders.

Of course one could talk of Mobutu’s overthrow in late 1990s by Kabila’s rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda or Uganda’s attach on the RPF and the eventual overthrow of the genocide regime; but even these were due to an internal leadership failure. We could also write about the skirmishes between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Overall however, the bulk of African nations, which have collapsed or are currently in a crisis has been due to internal rather than external threats.
From Somalia, to the Central African Republic to Sierra Leone, to Ivory Coast, to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya the story is the same.

At the moment, there are perhaps no better countries that exemplify the danger some leaders on the continent pose to the survival of their nations than Burundi and South Sudan.

President Pierre Nkurunziza’

What is ailing Burundi at the moment might, for example, be explained differently depending on who you ask, but the root of the problem was President Pierre Nkurunziza’s conclusion that keeping his job was far more important than keeping the peace.

In South Sudan, there are, of course, many challenges facing the young nation. However, the current fighting between President Salva Kiir’s forces and former first vice president Riek Machar’s rebels has little or nothing to do with protecting or promoting national interest — it’s a fight for supremacy.

Put simply, to most African leaders, retaining the job and remaining the unquestionable chief of the land seems to override other interests; their continued stay in power is equated to national survival.

That’s partly why, in a number of polities, even criticising the “big man” or his family or his policies is directly interpreted as unpatriotic, unlawful and, in cases, even treasonable.

In some countries, due to the privacy attached to protecting the “big man’s” job there is a perception that all state institutions, including the military, the police and the judiciary exist to serve the “big man’s” interests rather than the nation.

Put that way, it could be argued that like many things in post-colonial African governance, the idea that the enemy of national survival is from without and military in nature was imported; it was never born out of experience; just as the idea that a head of state is the guardian of national perpetuity is an illusion.