Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in London on Tuesday that she wants to inspire a new leadership style for war-torn West Africa by stripping her own presidency of its "demi-god-like" trappings.
Sirleaf, elected Africa's first female president in November after years of war and dictatorship, called for reviving old leadership traits in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank.
Sirleaf lamented how Africa's "nationalistic, selfless and visionary" post-independence leaders had given way to a generation of military rulers who often "terrorized, dehumanized and impoverished" their peoples.
She praised legends like Tanzania's Julius Nyere, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah and Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser as well as South Africa's Nelson Mandela, still alive, who "represents the moral conscious of the continent."
However, too many of the new leaders invested not in food production or in shelter "but instead in military hardware and adventurism" and in their "own lavish lifestyles," Sirleaf said.
They plundered their nation's resources, denied their people an education and keep them divided by "pandering to ethnic and religious sentiments," said Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who once worked for the World Bank.
"In perpetuating themselves in power, they ushered in a cycle of military overthrow and violence," she said.
In the subsequent search for peace, including in Liberia, the international community backed power-sharing deals with warlords as a trade off for peace, but the arrangements failed to respond to ordinary peoples' needs, she said.
However, the elections that followed Liberia's 1990-2003 civil conflict have created opportunities for a "new Liberia based on the tenets of good governance," Sirleaf said.
The presidential election "has not only broken the glass ceiling" for women, "but has certainly sent an unmistakable message of a growing need for an alternative leadership style on our continent," she said.
She promised that Liberia's leadership will respect the rule of law and protect human rights as it seeks to promote peace, security, education and economic growth.
Although there have been some reforms, they have not come fast enough to meet the demands for "democratic participation," she said.
"That's why our leadership must take the lead in dismantling the imperial presidency.
"This involves the task of presiding over the liquidation of some of the prerogatives and trappings which have made the Liberian presidency a demi-god-like institution," she said.
Sirleaf arrived on Monday morning for a three-day official visit to Britain — her first since she assumed office in January — which aimed to attract business and investment.
She has met development and other ministers, but not Prime Minister Tony Blair who is on holiday.
Tom Cargill, an Africa expert at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Sirleaf still has a long way to go before convincing investors her country is safe and transparent, but she is seen as sending the right signals.
"There are huge obstacles that still need to be overcome, but it's a good start so far," Cargill told AFP, citing a common view among foreign observers.
AFP
