Tendai Ruben Mbofana
Across the continent, state houses have turned into rehabilitation centers for rulers who suffer from a severe, incurable addiction to high office.
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The fundamental question we must confront, without sugarcoating or diplomatic politeness, is simple: can African leaders simply not handle power?
Every few months, another head of state gazes into the mirror and decides that millions of citizens cannot possibly survive without their personal leadership.
Look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
President Félix Tshisekedi, elected on promises of democratic renewal, is laying the groundwork to rewrite the constitution.
Under the guise of updating an allegedly outdated legal framework, his administration is pushing for a referendum.
This move carries the distinct stench of glissement—the art of resetting the constitutional clock to zero so a sitting leader can sit on the throne indefinitely.
In Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed constitutional amendments extending presidential terms from five to seven years.
Bypassing core democratic principles, the ruling party carved out a legal pathway to stretch executive rule to 2030 and beyond.
This is not governance; it is a slow-motion constitutional coup.
These are not isolated incidents; they represent a metastasizing tumor across African political culture.
From Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara resetting term counters to Rwanda’s Paul Kagame engineering near-perpetual rule, the examples are striking.
Across Togo’s parliamentary sleight-of-hand and long-standing strongmen in Uganda and Cameroon, the playbook remains identical.
The military coup of the 1970s has been replaced by the “legalistic coup” of the 2020s.
Today, compliant parliaments, cowed supreme courts, and rigged referendums are used to grant autocratic greed a veneer of legal legitimacy.
Why are so many African leaders so hopelessly drunk with power?
The root cause lies in state capture and systemic fear.
In far too many capitals, executive power is not viewed as a temporary public trust, but as a lifetime entitlement to state resources, patronage networks, and absolute immunity.
Rulers surround themselves with sycophants who feed their god complexes, insulating them from the reality of the streets.
They stay because they fear accountability.
They stay because they have looted public coffers.
They stay because they view their nations not as constitutional republics, but as personal fiefdoms.
The cost of this political intoxication on everyday African citizens is devastating.
When a leader’s primary agenda shifts from national development to term preservation, governance collapses.
Public infrastructure crumbles and healthcare systems disintegrate.
National budgets are cannibalized to finance patronage networks and internal security forces meant to brutally suppress opposition.
Economic stagnation becomes the norm.
Foreign investors flee the unpredictability of autocratic rule, while young, educated Africans leave in droves in a desperate search for dignity abroad.
When peaceful, constitutional avenues for changing leadership are deliberately blocked by incumbent dictators, young populations are left with few options.
They face a desperate choice between violent street uprisings and military interventions.
The recent wave of coups across the Sahel is a direct consequence of leaders who destroyed democratic channels from within.
Beyond the domestic destruction, this obsession with indefinite power severely degrades Africa’s image on the global stage.
It validates every lazy, racist stereotype of the continent being a lawless domain of unyielding “big men.”
It makes a mockery of regional institutions like the African Union and SADC.
It exposes them as toothless union clubs of self-preserving presidents who issue empty press releases while watching their peers tear up constitutions.
It is time to call this behavior what it truly is: psychological weakness and moral failure.
Real leadership requires the strength to step down, the maturity to trust institutions, and the patriotism to put a nation above one’s personal ego.
Until African citizens aggressively dismantle the machinery of term extensions, they must demand absolute compliance with constitutional limits.
Without this action, the continent will remain handcuffed to rulers who are utterly incapable of handling the power entrusted to them.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com