Burkina Faso: Lessons on dialogue and leadership

Last month, Blaise Compaore, former President of Burkina Faso for 27 years left the country in a hurry to escape the wrath of the masses that had laid siege to the city for days protesting his intention to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for office again.

Burkina Faso experienced a temporary power vacuum that had to be filled.

There was the possibility of the country degenerating into chaos after the leader of the Presidential guard Isaac Zida declared himself the interim leader while Army General Honore Traore announced he had taken over.

Civilians did not approve of the army take-over and neither did the African Union, which sent delegations to Burkina Faso to deliver warnings of sanctions unless the army returned leadership to civilian rule.

Colonel Zida acquiesced. A meeting of the Church, Army, all political parties and civil society groups appointed Michel Kafando, a diplomat, as the interim transitional president.

What lessons do we deduce from Burkina Faso?

First, the patience of the people with leaders who are given to bad governance has a limit and second, dialogue can achieve, in a relatively short period of time, what posturing will not.

Kenya is going through its worst period of insecurity since independence; the cost of living has gone up while unemployment continues to soar.

These are problems that leaders, irrespective of party persuasion, should sit down to a round table and device ways and means of combating.

The opposite obtains here as elected leaders throw barbs at each other, refusing to forget their differences and work together for the common good.

The problems facing Kenya will not go away for as long as leaders bicker and talk at each other.

National leaders have declined to embrace dialogue because election winners subscribe to the winner-take-it all mentality while losers believe working with the winners is demeaning and injurious to their future political careers.

Leaders need a paradigm shift to move the country forward.