By Hugo Odiogor, Foreign Affairs Editor

Dr. Dan Mou retired as a Director in Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs.  While in service, he served as Special Adviser to three National Security Advisers in the Presidency, In this interview with Vanguard,, the erudite scholar examines the legacies and challenges of the post Mandela era.

Sir, beyond the avalanche of praises and tributes to Dr. Mandela, what do you think African leaders owe his memory?

The greatest tribute we can pay to Late Nelson Mandela is to transform Africa into a continent to be respected and even emulated by the rest of the world. His philosophy of a Renaissance Africa should be carried to its logical conclusion in practical terms. Many of us forget that at Independence, Nigeria for instance, was  more developed than China, Indonesia, Korea, and the present “Asian Tigers” or  was  more or less at the same level, developmentally speaking, with just one or two of them.

Yet today, Nigeria, like most other African countries, has been left behind very far despite the fact that God had given us more natural resources, such as crude oil and other minerals more than all of the Asian Tiger countries combined.

Our problem for a very long time, until recently, when Nigeria came up with Vision 20:2020, and The  Transformation Agenda, was lack of a long term vision, gross mismanagement, overdependence on foreign “experts” and allowing International Donor Agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to define for us “our vision” rather than coming up with one and insisting that their support should be strictly tailored at helping us to accomplish our vision rather than sheepishly yielding to their conditionalities and bogus prescriptions on what we must do and have to do in our economies and societies, and even in our Public Services.

None of the Asian Tigers that we now admire, and even China and India that are leading the world in growth and development at the moment, got there by following IMF or World Bank conditionalities and prescriptions.

Mandela will rest in perfect peace to discover that the fortunes of Africa have been turned around for the better; that African countries are now doing what they want to do, rather than what they are being told to do.

There is absolutely nothing stopping Nigeria, for instance, from becoming an African giant if she pursues with commitment and determination her Vision 20:2020 and The Transformation Agenda. Africa is called or was called a Dark Continent, not because of the absence of Sunlight.

No  continent compares to Africa when it comes to sunlight. We have summer all year round.  But Africa earned the ignoble title of Dark Continent because of our lack of knowledge, especially the Knowledge of the Truth.

Our present or future crops of leaders in Africa must make Africa truly the tourism fantasy destination of the world. Let the peoples of other continents when they are experiencing the harsh conditions of winter in their nations troop to Africa to enjoy themselves.  Let meaningless internal wars, violence, poverty, disease and hunger, and everything negative, disappear from our continent.

This will surely make late President Mandela very happy in his grave. All we need to do is sit down and think of solutions ourselves.  There is now a growing consensus by development theorists working in and on Africa that The Lagos Plan of Action for Africa, for instance, has remained a far better ROADMAP than any proposal the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other external actors had ever proposed for Africa.

African leaders and states need to lead the way in deciding what their countries need; and that the donora agencies and other foreign actors on the continent should support their agenda and vision. Let them stop dictating to Africa, African leaders, and African states concerning the roadmap to follow to development and prosperity on the continent.

Africa is worst off today because of the imposition of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) on the continent which was one of their imposed roadmaps. Had Africa stuck to The Lagos Plan of Action Document, poverty, unemployment and hunger could have been almost wiped out on the African continent by now.

Do you think African leaders would have learnt lessons from Nelson Mandela?

The major lessons we can learn from the life and times of late President Mandela are many.  First, he has shown that no matter what obstacles are put on our way to accomplishing our goals or vision in life, if we remain focused, and determined and willing to pay the required sacrifice, we shall in the end succeed.

Secondly,  that the purpose of life is in what we do for God and our fellow human beings, and not necessarily for ourselves. He mirrored, quite pungently, Jesus Christ’s admonition that we should love God and love our neighbours as ourselves.  Leaders in Africa, who have spent their opportunities in power stealing and killing their fellow nationals to perpetuate themselves in power and accumulate massive wealth, are certainly on the wrong track.

They  will discover in the end that they squandered the golden opportunities God gave to them.  These opportunities were supposed to be used to glorify God and serve their fellow nationals and not to be misused in selfish parochial pursuits.

Thirdly, he demonstrated to all of us, especially African leaders, that it is not how long you hang on to political power that matters. What matters is what you do with the great opportunity God has given you to lead your people.

Fighting tooth and nail to stay in power and trying to change the rules of the game in the process as Presidents Gynassingbe Eyadema did in Togo; Samuel Doe did in Liberia; Emperor Bokassa did in Central African Republic or Mobutu Sese Seko did in Zaire; is the most irresponsible and dishonorable thing for any leader to do.  In the end, you lose the grace and favour of God over your life and that of your Government.

Finally, President Mandela proved to all of us that the greatest mark of leadership is mentoring others to take over from where you  stop. As men and women, we are mortal beings.  All we can be expected to do is to mentor others to take over when we leave.

Many people have described Madiba as the greatest president Africa has ever produced what is your take on this?

Late Dr, Nelson Mandela was one of the greatest men that ever lived. He was certainly the greatest African President ever. His greatness stemmed from two key things: His person and his perception or if you prefer, call it his vision.  His vision of Africa was one of Renaissance. He felt Africa was still in the Dark Ages that needed Renaissance.

His personal qualities of forgiveness and love for mankind can only be compared to Jesus Christ. He was a symbol of the best that Africa has to offer by way of leadership in a continent where there is great drought of good leadership.  His death is a great loss to me personally as he was a living model for me of leadership and humility, after Jesus Christ.

His death is a great loss to Africa in particular and the world in general. However, he has done his part on this Earth. We can only thank the Almighty God for giving him a long life and good health despite the torture and psychological brutalization that he went through in the days of minority rule in South Africa.