WHEN SHEPHERDS BECOME BUTCHERS: THE FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA
The need to express this opinion arose from last Sunday’s Service, 18 July 2021, 1st and Gospel Readings within the Catholic Church (16th Sunday in Ordinary Time).
The 1st Reading was from Jeremiah 23: 1-6 and dwelt on God’s displeasure with the leaders of the Jewish community who were likened to shepherds. As shepherds take care of the sheep, God expected the leaders also to take good care of the people over whom they exercised authority.
Jeremiah wrote, “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD. Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them.”
In contrast, in the Gospel reading, Mark 6: 30-34, we find Jesus proving to be a good, compassionate and caring Shepherd: “When he [Jesus] disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”
Because of Covid restrictions, I participated in the Mass by Video. The Priest, Fr. Michael Coutts in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, shared an appropriate personal story. He had gone to the Holy Land as a tourist. He was on a bus with other tourists, and the tour guide explained to the group that the practice of shepherds there was to lead the sheep and the sheep would follow them. A few minutes later, along the road, there was a man walking by the roadside, who followed a flock of sheep. The tour guide asked the bus driver to stop. He confronted the man following the sheep that his practice had made him the tour guide to be a liar, as he had told the tourists that shepherds in that area lead the sheep, while in his case, he was following the sheep. The man responded that it is true that the shepherds in that area lead the sheep. In his case, he was following the sheep, because he was not a shepherd. He was rather a butcher and was taking the sheep to be slaughtered.
A reflection on this story and the two readings, led me to think about our continent and how successive leaders have failed the citizenry. Their primary concern has been to amass wealth at the expense of the people whom they are to lead. The practice of leaders amassing wealth at the expense of the wider population can be likened to the case of butchering the sheep, instead of feeding and caring for them. The failure of leadership has resulted in the deprivation of adequate resources for the majority of the population, to the extent that most people live under the poverty line. The First Reading from Jeremiah spoke of the leaders who, instead of providing for the sheep, rather scattered them. We are aware of how so many able-bodied young Africans risk their lives to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea to seek better lives. Are they not scattered by failure of leadership? Through forced migration, they are scattered. We have created bottomless pits of national resources to cater for the insatiable taste for luxurious lifestyles of the small percentage of the elite in our countries, those who do not, in any meaningful way contribute to the economic development of the countries. Members of Parliament, for example, receive salaries, cars, allowances, ex-gratia and other benefits. We have created allowances after allowances just to enrich the pockets of people in leadership positions, while “those who lay the golden eggs are slaughtered and scattered” by paying them pitiful salaries. Farmers, especially the cocoa farmers, whose produce have over the years supported the economy, live in poverty-stricken environment. There are cases where some leaders collect about 10,000.00 Cedis a week from sitting allowances alone. One sitting allowance alone may exceed the whole month’s salary of some employees. Are we not slaughtering these people? We slaughter them by denying them their fair share of the national cake. The majority of the citizenry are slaughtered on the altar of abject poverty, deprivation of any decent living standards, lack of fresh water supply, unemployment, substandard living conditions, etc.
Unfortunately, most people tend to think that failure of leadership is associated with the political leaders alone. Leadership, for purposes of social and economic development is spread across all sectors of every country. We find it in both public and private institutions, in churches, educational institutions, judiciary, boards, etc.
Within our own country Ghana, we can identify one particular institution, whose misguided policies can be likened to the shepherds who have not provided for the sheep, but have rather scattered them. Let us look at the policies of the General Legal Council in relation to the professional legal training in the country. Currently, majority of the LLB graduates do not have access to the professional training in the country. Some of the students therefore have to travel to The Gambia for their professional training. There was a time when some had to go to Rwanda for the same training, while others go to the United Kingdom and even the United States at considerable cost. It is all because the General Legal Council is failing in its leadership role of providing appropriate system for professional legal education in the country. The General Legal Council is thus scattering the students, instead of feeding them in their own country.
When those in leadership position fail to cater for the needs of the citizenry over whom they exercise authority, which sadly has been the trend on the African continent, in general, as well as in our own country Ghana, God condemns their actions:
“You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them.”
By
Kwame Frimpong
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