Call for Papers: Leadership Values in Africa, 12/09

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LEADERSHIP VALUES IN AFRICA UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA 1 - 3 DECEMBER 2009

The Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, is pleased to invite proposals for presentations on the conference on Leadership values in Africa. This theme is the first of five themes in the proposed five-year research project: "RECONSTRUCTION OF AFRICAN VALUES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY." Is it possible to assess African indigenous leadership values given the history of leadership in the continent in the past decades? Could any such findings be authentic in the face of the contact with the outside world and the change of paradigms for looking at social and cultural change? The conference is intended to address these issues and the coterminous linkage between good leadership and development in human society. The dilemmatic and elusive nature of development in Africa after decades of self-rule and experimentation with different versions of governance requires that scholars of the social sciences, humanities and others engage themselves in both re-interrogating and re-assessing the nexus between leadership and development in Africa. A crucial take-off point may be re-examining the whole concept, process and dynamism of leadership and its associated values and development in Africa especially in relation to the prevailing socio-economic and political worldviews and processes ranging, for instance, from globalisation, economic liberalization, democracy, and universal human rights to current concerns with energy, the environment and of course the global economic recession. But such introspection should be anchored on the notions and perspectives on leadership and supportive social values in Africa that have been pursued by scholars, development practitioners and leaders.

The Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, in "The Trouble with Nigeria" identified leadership failure as the bane of development in Nigeria and by implication in most of Africa. As a matter of fact, even honest African leaders like the late Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), late Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), and Nelson Mandela (South Africa) had in the past pointed at the leadership malaise in development in the continent. While we may have gone beyond the pejorative expression of Afro-pessimism or the crude reference to Africa as the dark continent, Africa still continues to present what may be called daunting development challenges to the rest of the world. It is instructive that the inability of most African nations including Nigeria, Kenya, and Zimbabwe to manage simple elections and husband democracy underline the failure of both the modern state and its associated modern leadership in Africa.

One of the most poignant illustrations of the modern African leader was portrayed by the French scholar, Jean Bayart, who in "The State in Africa: the politics of the belly," depicted the physique of the average African leader as one with stomach protruding from excess eating. In effect, African leaders are corrupt megalomaniac figures whose physical shapes are distorted by unbridled consumption fuelled by reckless dipping of hands into the public till. This description may ruffle some feathers yet it crucially calls attention to the need to ascertain how this type of leaders is representative of African leadership and social values.

The critical examination of leadership values seems imperative since it appears that development in Africa is equally undermined by the unresolved myriad of social and health problems in the continent. Such problems whether in the domain of public health (HIV/AIDS pandemic as typical), in the realm of civil society where there seems a disconnect between government and the people, or in the sphere of service delivery and security are all connected to the leadership structure.

Leadership values may be seen as both the outcome and reflection of culture. In this wise, development challenges cannot be divorced from the cultures of the continent which in some quarters are seen as inconsistent with progress particularly when conceived more or less as Westernization. What is in vogue in the social and human sciences is the tendency to replicate Euro-Americanism as development paradigm. But beyond this, and the disenchantment of the conscientious African with modernity and other viewpoints like it, there is a glaring need to once again take a critical look at our culture and the phenomenon of leadership in view of the axiom that a people often end up with leaders they deserve. Along this line of reasoning, therefore, one wonders to what extent African leaders are also representative of what Africans need and true products of African values. Aligned to this quest is the need to re-interrogate extant theories and viewpoints on leadership and their consistency with the African value system and to ruminate again on the extent to which African culture can be seen as a bulwark to development or an impediment to the evolvement of the modern state in Africa.

Emanating partially from the above is the role and place of sycophancy in the crisis of leadership and leadership values in Africa. Considering the African proverb that he who claps for a bad dancer asks for more nauseating footsteps from him, one may ask: To what extent has sycophancy or unexamined praise singing - which in some instances may be seen as akin to the use of royal bards in the courts of kings in traditional Africa - played a role in the evolvement of the modern African leader? More critical for us here is examining also how this phenomenon reproduces the typical modern African leader and is resonant of the ideal leadership values in Africa.

A cursory observation would reveal that the relative failure of most African nations to develop has created a scenario where the discourse of leadership is in the front-burner of development discourse in Africa and beyond. While these efforts to scrutinise leadership have undoubted merit, there is a pressing imperative to interrogate the extent to which narratives of leadership in contemporary Africa are consistent with the ideal leadership values which characterise Africa both as a geographical entity and a distinct social group in the world. The conference on leadership values in Africa is anchored on the foregoing observations and reconfigured in the following sub-themes:

1. Theoretical Issues in Leadership

v Western Leadership Theories

v African Leadership Issues

v Gendered notions of Leadership

v Other Theoretical Viewpoints on Leadership

2. Leadership Values in Nigeria/Africa

v Traditional Leadership Values

v Modern Leadership Values

v Integrating Modern and Traditional Leadership Values

v Sycophancy and Leadership in Africa

3. Leadership and Development

v Political Leadership

v Leadership and Economy

v Leadership and Religion

v Leadership and Morals

v Leadership and Tertiary Education in Africa

4. Leadership and Sustainable Development

v Social Acceptability of Leaders

v Environmental Compartibility

v Economic Benefits of Leadership

v Leadership and Globalisation in Africa

v New models of Leadership for Development in Africa

In view of the recognition that the above issues are not exhaustive of the broad theme of the conference, the organisers welcome papers in other related issues of leadership and leadership values in Africa as well. We would also appreciate papers based on detailed empirical examination of distinct cases of leadership and social values in Africa and gender-related issues on leadership.

Send abstracts of not more than 500 words to <africanleadershipvalues@yahoo.com>

Deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals: July 30, 2009

Conference fee: 2500 Naira (participants from Africa) $50 (participants from outside Africa)

Accommodation:
C.E.C. University of Nigeria, from 4500Naira Elrina Guest Houses (3 km from the campus), from 4500 Naira

Organizing Committee:
Dr. Egodi Uchendu
Dr. Pat Okpoko
Dr. Edlyn Anugwom

For further enquiries, do not hesitate to contact us: Faculty of Arts Research Project, 2009 - 2014 University of Nigeria
Nsukka - NIGERIA
<africanleadershipvalues@yahoo.com> http://www.unn.edu.ng/arts/

Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.