Afrilition: Leadership and the age of the duck, By Adéwálé Àjàdí

The age of the duck will mean the discipline to test out many African prototypes. An age built on succession that is planned for a youth takeover fully energised for the leadership needed. It is more than the consumption or volume of units sold and even more than those who celebrate our cultures. It is a time for youth who embrace the service that leadership requires and invest themselves in landscaping an Africa they will most likely not live to enjoy.

In the early 2000s, when I was writing my book Omoluwabi 2.0, I embarked on an effort to develop a strategic plan for Ibadan, as I had convinced myself (and it seemed quite rightly) that partisan politics was not the way I could contribute towards being a productive ancestor. In the course of my Ibadan design and planning effort, I sat down with many clubs of Ibadan Indigenes and residents, gaining much insight and wisdom from this. One instance that has stuck to me was when someone said, “aiye pepeye la wa,” meaning that “we are in the Age of the Duck.”

You see, the duck often lets its ducklings precede it, while it follows from the back. It protects with a greater understanding of the dynamics of its environment, not the arrogance of its authority and status. It is time for the high power distance that is often present in the African world to be exposed to the question of its fitness landscape. Simply, is it fit for purpose – this Africa in which the elder is automatically revered even if they are totally unfit for reverence and unable to live up to the assumption that their older age will embody wisdom and capacity.

Afrilition guides us towards our tomorrow, a place in an ageing world but with a very young population. About 40 per cent of the global youth will be continental Africans, and if you add the diaspora, it could be more like 50 per cent. Aside from reducing the dependence ratio of the African labour market, there is a profound shift needed in our thinking to ensure that this incoming youth demographic is a blessing, like China had in the latter decades of the 20th century. It, however, will need us not to bring up this incoming generation on the ‘winner takes all’ materialistic tradition, because if we do then they will be like a swarm of locusts and even more destructive. We must have an incoming generation raised on the deepest and best pre-colonial values such as Ubuntu, Omoluwabi, Mutunchi, etc.

Leading the youth of the world into the end of this millennium and possibly beyond requires a level of authentic work that is currently being choked out by a colonised mindset and the fundamental, distorting displacement of social pathogens, and others like racism. The kind of leadership future young people need cannot be the kind that oversimplifies complexity to receive external validation, as is currently prevalent.

New generations must be raised whose understanding of value and wealth is not limited to material things and shaped by conspicuous consumption but by investment in interdependence and lives transformed. If there is any population in the world that is still capable of this alternative life, it is African. Although materially labeled as poor, Africa is still by far the most generous continent. Although benchmarked out of the happiness surveys since these were reduced to material indices, Africa still leads the world in mental well-being and collective happiness. Yes, there are resource wars, and the complexity, as well as diversity, are weaponised to exploit its mineral endowment. The work ahead requires not just critical review of what must be fixed but also innovative engagement of what is possible.

Leading the youth of the world into the end of this millennium and possibly beyond requires a level of authentic work that is currently being choked out by a colonised mindset and the fundamental, distorting displacement of social pathogens, and others like racism. The kind of leadership future young people need cannot be the kind that oversimplifies complexity to receive external validation, as is currently prevalent. For example, youth culture generates music labelled from outside as Afrobeats or even inside as Amapiano, but the institutions or businesses that manage the culture are from outside the continent or even outside its cultural point of reference, or people who identify as Africans.

The subsequent commodification is done for marginal gain and validation of the artistic elite, who are reduced to consumers of expensive cars and jewellery but have no institutional capacity or legacy projects built from their work. The culture is reduced to ‘pimped out’ commodities and its creatives to rented-out vehicles of transitory pleasures.

Afrilition is about intentionally building a generation that is not dazzled into seeing Westernisation as the only modernisation that matters. It means being educated to engage distinctly and choose eclectically, understanding that their purpose is beyond their lives but actually involves their willingness to serve future generations.

Afrilition is about intentionally building a generation that is not dazzled into seeing Westernisation as the only modernisation that matters. It means being educated to engage distinctly and choose eclectically, understanding that their purpose is beyond their lives but actually involves their willingness to serve future generations. This includes the recognition that the flaws and problems they see in their context are a deep mine for creating solutions that will change the world, rather than just an inconvenience to their comfort. The 21st century Afrilition youth will be imbued with the discernment that guides reflection and resolution towards the kind of societies that truly resonate with our people for collective wellbeing.

The age of the duck will mean the discipline to test out many African prototypes. An age built on succession that is planned for a youth takeover fully energised for the leadership needed. It is more than the consumption or volume of units sold and even more than those who celebrate our cultures. It is a time for youth who embrace the service that leadership requires and invest themselves in landscaping an Africa they will most likely not live to enjoy. An African world where they, as ancestors, build for their grandchildren. Afrilition is the route map to this tomorrow.