Poor leadership on display

There are some things that mystify me. Ever since the fight against illicit brews was initiated by the President, MPs have been falling all over themselves to show they can eradicate moonshine from their backyard.

They have been at the forefront of leading frenzied mobs to break into drinking dens and bars where they have destroyed alcohol as they danced and chanted slogans. Actions that are patently illegal.

Police officers have not been let out— they have been arresting drunken revellers to prove that they are doing their job.

This scourge has been around for more than 20 years, so why the sudden urge to fight it?

Local leaders should have realised that the country was losing a generation of youths long before and acted.

Their knee-jerk reaction is not a sign of inspired leadership, but a belated attempt at trying to be relevant. This crisis has  demonstrated how ineffective our leaders are, and how they lack the initiative to handle issues affecting the public, their constituents.

What has previously stopped legislators from taking action?

The Mututho Laws were spearheaded by one sober man, but he was so isolated that  he sounded like a person shouting in the wilderness.

The lethargy that accompanied Mututho’s lonely crusade is in stark contrast to the wild-eyed fanaticism the new anti-alcohol champions exhibit.

We have paid lip service to the war on corruption  for too long and allowed the corrupt to walk scot free as the institutions mandated to fight corruption and drug abuse wrangle.

We clamoured for the establishment autonomous institutions to address some of our social ills yet we still rely on the President to intervene because we have refused to act.

Does it mean we need a more hands-on president, intervening in every facet of our lives? A lot has been said about the authoritarian leadership of the late Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Ying.

His benevolent dictatorial rule produced results that propelled Singapore from a Third World, backwater city state to a First World power house.

Does it take benevolent dictatorship to get things done in the Third World? Some think so, and one experience illustrate this.  My friends were crossing into Rwanda recently and had to empty all plastic paper bags and transfer  their personal belongings to bio-degradable paper bags because Rwanda forbids the use of drainage-clogging paper bags.

Drastic measures, but the results justify the means.  Do we have leaders who are proactive?