Primordial Loyalties for bolstering Accountability of Stewardship

Primordial Loyalties (PL) or strong attachment /affinity to something original in a person’s life have been instrumental in forging cohesion and coexistence in community societies. PL emanate from where the umbilical cord of a person has been buried at the time of birth. In Africa, when communities were brought together to create nations, the underlying assumption was that PL will be transferred from communities to the nations making such entities the most powerful and enduring construct in the world. This phenomenon occurred, to some extent, in the immediate struggle for independence of the nations. Several decades after, PL remain to shape the psycho-social compositions of the populations, continue to influence belief systems, perspectives of existence, interactions, representations, and participation in politics of nations.

Quite remarkably, PL have been elevated in Africa to influence public expectations regarding the use, misuse, abuse, and management of public resources, and the protection of the public purse by those assigned the responsibilities. This means that if a public official is engaged in wrongdoing, such an act is tolerable and fine so long as the person hails from same community, and thereby begetting rampant impunity and recklessness regarding the handling of the commons. Certainly, this mentality of public office is dangerous and does not augur well for building progressive nations, and transformative development.

There are several instances PL have been used by past and present leaders in Africa to undermine democracy principle of accountability. This mechanism has been observed in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and several other nations on the continent. It is likely in this context that the former president of Ghana, the late JJ Rawlings advocated for incorporating PL into accountability arrangements to guarantee that public officials are not careless and selfish in the use of common resources. Such a recommendation is in the right direction of enabling change mechanisms of accountability regarding protection of the public purse on the continent.

With this recommended approach, the oath of public office, allegiance and commitment would be crafted on an underlying notion of existence which does not literally separate humans from the environment regarding exploitation and accumulation of resources. This is because public perception of these resources of the land are shaped by the belief system of past, present and the future translating into a caring consciousness and awareness value of intergenerational responsibilities that is, present generation hold in trust resources for the future and unborn generations while striving to meet present needs, realities, and aspirations. This structure and content of oaths of public office would be augmented with ideals and practices including state of the nation addresses, budgeting, taxation obligations, reports of watchdog expenditure agencies. By this arrangement, PL will bolster accountability mechanisms instead of being weaponized as a source of refuge to evade responsibilities.

The forgoing perspectives of utilizing PL for bolstering accountability of stewardship for public resources are detailed in the open access publication, “Leadership in Independent Africa; Six Decades On: The Blended Representation Principle as a Cause for Afro-Optimism” by the same author, which can be accessed at www.bloomsburycollections.com.

By Kofi Anani, Managing Partner, Blended Knowledge Solutions Network

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