(OR THE DILEMMA ORDINARY AFRICANS FACE IN CHOOSING A LEADER)

As we’ve just seen in our summary of the poem, “The Leader and the Led”, the poet persona’s main preoccupation is about the difficulty of choosing a leader.

“The Leader and the Led” vividly describes to us the dilemma facing “the led” (the pack of animals) as they try to choose a leader.

Clearly, these animals seem to have too many options placed before them. The challenge, however, is that none of the numerous options seems to be good enough.

This is exactly the challenge facing the African people. The political exercise of electing a leader is not an easy task for “the led”.

In effect, therefore, being a follower is almost as tough as being a leader whose required qualifications we have seen in the words of the Forest Sage. Neither of these is something to be taken lightly.

There is no shortage of aspiring leaders on the continent. It is just that none of them appear to know how to fix the many challenges facing their followers. The simple reason is that they’re not really leadership material, to begin with. It is also interesting to note that the poet is gravely concerned about the unfortunate situation where, just like the animals, Africans have fallen into the habit of sidestepping the people who have the potential to offer competent leadership.

And, too often, the reason for this is simply this. Trivial considerations such as the physical attractiveness of the individual are made to take precedence over common sense and the public good.