Dear Fellow Citizens of Africa,
There is a quiet misunderstanding that has cost our continent more than coups, debt, or even corruption. It is the belief that government, governance, citizenship, and governing are the same thing. They are not. Confusing them has silently stalled our nations, weakened institutions, blurred accountability, and normalised failure as routine. This confusion is subtle and persistent. It hides behind elections, constitutions, cabinet reshuffles, and policy launches. It survives transitions of power and often outlives charismatic leaders. Because it is rarely named, it is rarely corrected.
GOVERNMENT IS WHO HOLDS POWER.
GOVERNANCE IS HOW POWER BEHAVES.
GOVERNING IS HOW POWER IS EXERCISED EACH DAY.
CITIZENSHIP IS A PERMANENT RESPONSIBILITY.
When these distinctions collapse, our countries appear busy yet remain stagnant. Noise replaces progress. Activity is mistaken for achievement. Governments change, but outcomes remain stubbornly familiar. Government is the most visible of these concepts. It consists of presidents, prime ministers, ministers, parliaments, councils, and executive offices temporarily entrusted with authority. Governments are designed to change. Authority is borrowed and time-bound.
Citizenship, however, is permanent.
Before anyone becomes a president, a prime minister, or a politician, they are first citizens. They are born into citizenship long before they assume office, and they return fully to citizenship when authority expires. Titles end. Mandates lapse. CITIZENSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES DO NOT.
AUTHORITY IS TEMPORARY. CITIZENSHIP RESPONSIBILITY IS PERMANENT
When leaders forget that they are citizens first, power slowly turns into entitlement rather than service. When citizens forget that leaders are fellow citizens temporarily entrusted with authority, accountability weakens, and deference replaces scrutiny. Governance, unlike government, does not campaign or seek applause. It lives quietly in systems, rules, norms, enforcement mechanisms, and institutional discipline.
Governance determines whether laws apply equally, whether public funds are protected, whether contracts are honoured, and whether wrongdoing carries consequences. Strong governance creates predictability. Investors trust it. Citizens rely on it. Civil servants respect it. Weak governance produces discretion, fear, and uncertainty. According to the World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators, countries in the top quartile of governance quality have GDP per capita levels more than three times those in the bottom quartile. Countries that strengthened governance between 2000 and 2020 recorded sustained growth rates that were two to three percentage points higher than those of countries that did not.
THIS IS NOT IDEOLOGY. IT IS ARITHMETIC
Governing is the daily act of translating authority into outcomes. It is where leadership is tested and exposed. It reflects the quality of decision-making, implementation, coordination, and service delivery. Governing reveals whether institutions function or merely exist. A nation can have a government without good governance. Budgets can be passed while hospitals deteriorate. Policies can be announced while schools underperform. Ministries can exist while coordination collapses.
A BUSY STATE IS NOT THE SAME AS A FUNCTIONAL STATE
Across African cities, the evidence is plain. Flooding returns season after season despite repeated projects. Traffic congestion drains billions in productivity. Power outages persist despite massive investments. These are rarely technical failures. They are governance failures disguised as engineering problems. Roads are built but not maintained. Power plants are constructed but not integrated. Hospitals are expanded but understaffed. Schools are open but under-resourced. These are not failures of ideas. They are failures of systems. Many still believe development will arrive with the election of the right leader. History suggests otherwise. Strong leaders without strong systems produce fragile progress. When they leave, everything collapses. Strong systems with average leaders produce steady outcomes.
STRONG NATIONS ARE NOT BUILT BY STRONGMEN. THEY ARE BUILT BY STRONG SYSTEMS
The world offers powerful lessons.
Botswana built strong fiscal and governance institutions before diamonds transformed its economy. Transparent rules and disciplined public financial management turned mineral wealth into a long-term development driver. Rwanda’s post-crisis recovery was anchored in performance management, institutional accountability, and consistent execution. Between 2000 and 2022, Rwanda recorded an average growth of about seven per cent while improving health outcomes, agricultural productivity, and service delivery. Vietnam lifted over forty million people out of poverty between 2002 and 2022, not through constant political reinvention, but through predictable governance frameworks that supported micro and small enterprises and ensured policy continuity. Beyond the Global South, two classic examples stand out.
Singapore did not achieve prosperity through frequent changes of government or reliance on personalities. It built an incorruptible civil service, enforced the rule of law, and prioritised long-term planning over short-term politics. Governments changed, but governance remained disciplined. Norway offers another enduring lesson. Before oil revenues transformed its economy, Norway invested deeply in governance. Transparent fiscal rules, independent institutions, and the creation of the Government Pension Fund Global ensured that resource wealth served future generations, not political cycles. Governments changed. Governance endured. Today, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund exceeds one trillion US dollars and remains one of the most transparent in the world.
SINGAPORE AND NORWAY PROVE THAT GOVERNANCE OUTLIVES GOVERNMENTS
This distinction explains why corruption often survives regime change. Transparency International estimates that countries with weak governance lose between five and ten per cent of GDP annually to corruption and inefficiency. In Africa alone, illicit financial flows exceed $80 billion each year, more than the continent receives in development assistance.
Changing leaders without fixing systems only changes who benefits.
The confusion between government and governance also explains the African resource paradox. Our continent holds over thirty per cent of the world’s mineral reserves and nearly sixty per cent of its uncultivated arable land. Yet, exports raw materials and imports finished goods at enormous cost.
THE ISSUE IS NOT RESOURCES. IT IS GOVERNANCE.
Mining licences are issued without long-term planning. Environmental safeguards are ignored. Revenues are poorly managed. Communities are displaced. When resources are exhausted, the land is degraded, and the economy is no stronger.
EXTRACTION WITHOUT GOVERNANCE CREATES WEALTH WITHOUT DEVELOPMENT
Yet the most overlooked dimension of this crisis lies with us, the citizens. The most dangerous assumption we make is that governance is the responsibility of those in office alone. It is not. Governance is a civic culture long before it becomes a state function. When citizens abdicate responsibility, authority expands unchecked. This is where a critical truth must be stated plainly and without hesitation. Citizens do not need to hold board seats, director titles, or senior public offices to understand or practise governance. Governance is not a credential. It is a discipline. It is not conferred by appointment. It is learned through values and exercised through daily choices.
Governance lives wherever fairness is demanded, rules are respected, and accountability is expected. It is practised by parents insisting on responsibility at home, by teachers enforcing standards in classrooms, by traders honouring agreements in markets, by community leaders managing shared resources transparently, and by citizens who ask difficult questions without fear or favour.
WHEN GOVERNANCE IS TREATED AS AN ELITE SKILL, SOCIETIES WEAKEN. WHEN IT IS TREATED AS A CIVIC DUTY, NATIONS STRENGTHEN
Boards and public offices may formalise governance, but they do not own it. Governance fails most catastrophically when citizens believe it belongs only to those in suits, offices, or positions of authority. The absence of titles does not excuse the absence of conscience.
This is why governance education must start early.
Governance is not an elite concept reserved for ministers or boardrooms. It is the daily understanding of fairness, responsibility, accountability, transparency, and consequence. A child who understands why rules exist grows into an adult who questions power responsibly.
CITIZENS DO NOT NEED AN OFFICE TO PRACTISE GOVERNANCE
We practise it when we insist on fairness in schools, discipline in associations, transparency in cooperatives, accountability in local councils, and responsibility in community leadership. The failure to teach governance early produces societies fluent in slogans yet ill-equipped to interrogate systems. Excuses become normalised. By the time individuals enter public office, poor habits are already entrenched. This is why many African nations endlessly restart. New governments arrive, but old behaviours persist. New policies are announced, but weak systems quietly sabotage them. The problem is not ambition. It is the absence of a governance-minded citizenry. Strong nations are not built only in parliaments. They are built in classrooms, homes, markets, faith institutions, and civic spaces. Governance literacy must be treated with the same seriousness as civic education itself. Without it, democracy becomes performative. Development becomes reversible.
A STRONGER CLARION CALL FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
Fellow citizens, the inconvenient truth is simple and demanding.
GOVERNMENT CAN BE ELECTED.
GOVERNING CAN BE BUSY.
BUT ONLY GOVERNANCE CAN ENDURE.
Presidents will change. Prime ministers will rotate. Political parties will rise and fall.
CITIZENS REMAIN. GENERATIONS FOLLOW. Our task is not merely to elect governments, but to build governance strong enough to help every government govern well, and stable enough to protect long-term national interest beyond political cycles.
MAKE GOVERNANCE THE SPINE THAT SUPPORTS EVERY GOVERNMENT.
MAKE GOVERNANCE THE BRIDGE BETWEEN TODAY AND UNBORN GENERATIONS.
Let governance move from conference halls to classrooms.
From policy documents to daily behaviour.
From elite discourse to civic practice.
TEACH GOVERNANCE EARLY.
PRACTISE IT WIDELY.
REWARD IT CONSISTENTLY.
PROTECT IT FIERCELY.
Because nations that understand governance do not endlessly restart.
THEY GOVERN FOR GENERATIONS.
By Professor Douglas Boateng
Chartered Director (UK IoD) | Chartered Engineer (UK) | Generationalist | Governance and Industrialisation Advocate and Strategist
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