How African dictators are groomed! Akot will be one!

When I saw Emmanuel Akot from Uganda talking to President Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe, I despaired. I could not help but said to myself: this is how dictators are born and nurtured in Africa. The young innocent boy soiled himself: the audience he was addressing were not impressed. Even President Mnangagwa nodded unconvincingly about the boy’s message. To tell the listening audience how Akot Emmanuel is going to be very important: crowds will stampede to come and listen to him talking, was a bit of a stretch. Very cruel to groom a boy to utter such an arrogant statement at his tender age. It was evident he was mentored to say this in the public. I will not be alive to prove my statement: this is how African dictators are groomed for presidency. When this boy turns 40 years, he will be a full-blown African dictator worse than Idi Amin of Uganda, curiously from Uganda. 

Whoever is feeding this boy impressions that could destroy his personal development and his future: please, leave this boy to grow up. You are destroying him perhaps unknowingly, pepping him to utter unintelligible statements. From the onset, he is a brilliant boy, normal in every African child who has a good schooling environment. It is wholly normal for children of his age to dream. To elevate him so soon makes his ego also grow. This is the time and age when he was supposed to be left alone to read extensively, study whatever; attend Makerere University and grow at his pace. He seems to master natural science more. To expose him so soon destroys what is not yet ripe, biologically. Akot cannot handle the public evidenced by his self-exaltation’s. His choice of words is evident of a mentor grooming him what to say: dangerous red flag!

I was impressed when Akot met Professor PLO Lumumba. However, what was disturbing in that meeting is, there was no eye-level contact between the two. Akot was sitting while the professor was standing, giving him reading material to read them to expand his knowledge base. Somehow, the meeting was not planned properly, tell the boy he cannot remain sitting while the professor was standing: a boy who already has been told he is better than his peer group! A recent interview with another boy of his age, his answers stretched his importance against the other boy interviewing: a red flag. 

Another red flag: wishing to meet President Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe means he does not have adequate information about him. It would have assisted him more if he made slender research about President Mnangagwa. That was naivety and innocence at its best to travel to Zimbabwe to meet a dictator with genocide record of killing, maiming millions if his citizens in the early independence of Zimbabwe. So, his going to meet President Mnangagwa means he admires him and his leadership. This is a very sad development: At that tender age he has shaken hands with a president with blood on his hands. I believe he has no idea about the history of Zimbabwe.

Mnangagwa’s body language was unwelcoming the message this boy was saying in a crowd that was also not impressed. But his youthfulness did not capture the mood on the ground. He needed to say something extra-ordinary than to tell them he will be attracting large crowds that will unendingly clap hands when he is President. Did he come all the way from Uganda to tell President Mnangagwa he will be the first African president; how important he is going to be when he becomes president of Africa? Whoever is grooming this boy must stop it because it is cruel even to see it on Videos that have been produced about him. 

My advice to this Ugandan hopeful Akot Emmanuel is leave the limelight because it is too soon for you to assume it without adequate knowledge of African history. Read extensively it is time to make vast input first before you expose yourself. You deserve university education first, the knowledge you must get here in Africa. Makerere produced good revolutionaries; it is good that Makerere is home in Uganda. When you have read, you will realize it was a big mistake to meet president Mnangagwa. Again, it was a good to have met Professor PLO Lumumba of Kenya. Please stay grounded, nothing will run away from you. The continent belongs to the youth of Africa, you included. 

I am 71 years old, and you are about 12 years. I am giving you this advice as your great-grand mother of the African soil. I wish you success in all your endeavors especially your big dreams about Africa. This advice should never be interpreted as a discouragement, I thought about it seriously. I am an author of books and essays, all about concerns for Africa and its Agenda 2063. There is another hopeful from The Gambia; his name is Ousman Touray. I hope you will join hands with him one day. He is currently in Rwanda doing his post tertiary education. My first reaction when I saw you on social media was, another Africa hopeful. 

Stay grounded and never expose yourself too early in your life. Education is your first mentor. You will never say-after-me sentences formulated by a mentor. I would advise you to pursue academic excellence that is given in you. What are you good at, natural science of social science. If the calling to be political leader is telling inwardly, please carefully hide this while you advance academically. Later you will know that it is the media elevates politicians; later, they are destroyed by the media again. That is my take, the choice is yours.