Category: Collection

Respectfully, I call on the African People to cease the bad habit of referring to government officials as “Excellency”. 

Not only is this a colonial hangover, but it is not applicable for most African officials today. Excellence is an honorable status of demonstrated elite performance and achievement in public service! 

A position does not make you “Excellent”, but only your consistent deeds of genuine service throughout your tenure that advances the welfare of the people. Based on that criteria, who then deserves to be called “Excellency” in Africa today? 

Many politicians get into office, often not even in free and fair elections, but through “Selectocracy”. Then, without achieving anything or proving value, they are showered with “Excellency”. Even if they are abominable, detrimental to progress, corrupt, and negligent… they are still “Excellency”. 

I cringe whenever I hear “His/Her Excellency” and I cannot reconcile the said Person with the genuine sense of Excellence. 

When you give a person an unearned title of honor, you only harm them by flattering their vanity. It only breed’s a condescending arrogance instead of genuine humility. 

Look across all governments in post-independence Africa and especially today. Honestly scrutinize and objectively assess their individual contributions and value to African nation-building, then candidly confess: how many are genuinely deserving of Excellency? What achievements can they show that demonstrates Excellence? We should also apply the same scrutiny to ourselves. 

Excellency should be awarded over a lifetime of achievement and dedicated labor to uplifting the people. It should not be so cheaply given because someone is “Minister” or “President”. Respect should be given not because you have a position, but you exemplify the qualities demanded by the position! 

I also believe any self-respecting African official will feel intuitively uncomfortable with the “Excellency” title, when they know they have not earned it through diligent deeds that show their tangible achievements over a long period.

I say this out of a deed sense of respect for the notion of “Excellency”. In Africa, we need to raise titles and positions again to honor. Officials should not be endowed with Excellence because they occupy a position, but only because they consistently perform their work Excellently! 

After a lifetime of such genuine service and achievement, only then should an official who has struggled for the African Cause and its People, who has laid everything on the line… only then should they be anointed with the honorable “Your Excellency”. 

~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, Ph.D., MBA

Builder of the African Future

On May 12-13, 2025, the Africa CEO Forum took place in Abijan Côte d’Ivoire.

Under the theme, “Can a New Deal Between State and Private Sector Deliver the Continent a Winning Hand?” the forum brought together public and private sector decision-makers for two days of high-level debates, negotiations, discussions, and workshops.

Sounds ambitious and grand, and maybe in the past such gatherings might have peaked my interest, but experiences have stripped the veil. While there is value from such conferences, most of these gatherings tend to be pomp and pageantry and a plethora of recycled rhetoric which seldom lead to revolutionary action that yield tangible results for the African people.

The elephants in the room remain safe and invisible like Casper the Ghost. You observe the participants from government and private sector and wonder how, in view of the current tragedy of Africa and its retrogression, people can be so relaxed and casual even as people face serious hardship.

Where is the fire blazing in people’s eyes? The rolling thunder of urgency in their voices? The roaring tempest of revolutionary action? The inviolable movement of policy tectonic plates that realigns Africa and shakes the globe?

Why are so-called African leaders in government and private sector so nonchalant? And why be so diplomatic with your words? Speak directly to the pressing issues facing the African people without mincing words, and say exactly what you mean!

Stop justifying and explaining to the world, as if the global community needs to be convinced to validate the African position. Take a stand, make a decision, then boldly press forward. The world will adjust.

We need people whose souls are erupting with volcanic heat for aggressive African nation-building…unapologetically! Who are allergic to endless talking and sitting in airconditioned offices writing 200 page reports that no one reads. Whose bones are rattling for action and execution to physically manifest progress that directly affects the lives of the African people in the shortest possible time!

What is all this jamboree I see when people with focused energy should be spinning the wheel of development forward in high speed with strategic planning and tactical execution? There is way too much conviviality and photo ops, or, using local Nigerian parlance, most people just “jollofing and peppersouping”!

Everywhere you turn there is an African Conference on a range of issues, but if you look on ground little is changing. So what are we talking about?

I applaud the genuine efforts of the few who always put in real work. But mostly Africa is facing a crisis of genuine leadership that has transcended talking, and is serious about taking bold action and producing real results on ground for aggressive policy African nation-building!

~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, Ph.D., MBA
Builder of the African Future

The voices among African people grow louder for change. Many want change, feel ready for change, but unfortunately fail to take the first and biggest step required to effect societal change in Africa today:

… personal involvement in politics to contest for office. 

Many talented Africans at home and in the diaspora conveniently sit on the sidelines, criticizing current leaders, giving policy recommendations, offering internet consultations from the West, attending Conferences, all in the delusion that they are taking “action” and engaging in politics to advance Africa.

The highest involvement of most Africans today is personal business initiatives in Africa that will net them a return on investment. In other words monetary gain for personal enrichment without the responsibility of public service. 

We talk change, yet we ourselves avoid the sacrifice of personal participation and the crucible of public scrutiny that contesting for office demands. 

We say “politics is dirty” so we will stay away to keep ourselves clean. Sounds good, but this is really an excuse. It is self-complacency disguised as self-righteousness. 

Politics is neutral like water, it is who gets involved and the qualities they bring into it that make it dirty or clean.

The older generation is firmly entrenched in office and will remain there! So to expect them to voluntarily give up their positions to allow us and our “fresh ideas” to control and guide the national destiny is unrealistic; it is a disney movie and soap opera disconnected from objective reality. 

If we want it, we have to go get it and be willing pay a personal price. We have to organize and mobilize ourselves to vigorously contest and struggle to take office from them. Nothing will be given easily, so we have to get it. And it will cost us something like every major effort does. 

Our forefathers knew that political organization was necessary to gain mass support and control from the colonial governments, so they organized themselves and pressed ahead. 

Today our generation has more education, international exposure, resources, technology, and the benefit of hindsight. Yet we cannot even be inconvenienced to politically organize ourselves to vigorously contest and earnestly struggle to takeover from the older generation. Yet we boldly talk change in Africa on the internet?

Truth is our words are serious but our actions are not. And it is time to change this. 

So what change do you want in Africa? 

Organize and mobilize yourselves into political action groups, put yourself or others from your group forward, then go and do it! 

Enough talking, it is time for action. 

~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, PhD, MBA

Builder of the African Future

The brief essay below was a commentary in response to the following article by Nairametrics.

Foreign policy is a necessary part of the Presidency, so I understand the occasional need. However, many African Heads of State and here President Tinubu included, have the bad habit of spending more time traveling abroad than vigorously visiting the different parts of their own countries, their regions, and Africa.

And we wonder why relations between African countries are often so strained, why they can hardly work together like harmonious siblings, and why they struggle to internally resolve geopolitical crisis without consulting Western powers. A Congo lawmaker pitching a mineral-for-security deal with the US to help them against their African brother, then they (DRC & Rwanda) fly to Qatar who has to play referee between them. So much personal humiliation for the collectively poor state of African leadership.

There are always exceptions to the rule, and we understand the need for foreign engagement. But what the African people are calling for now is visionary leaders who prioritize unifying the people of their country, then region, then Africa… in a shared vision for progress that aligns with the words of The Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah when he said, “Africa Must Unite!”

I call to my people: Where are the Lions of Africa?

~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, Ph.D., MBA

Builder of the African Future

…i.e., Dr. Juris-Diplomat