How to be an African leader in ten easy steps

Today I'm proud to bring you step-by-step instructions on how to make yourself an effective national leader in this continent, particularly for those with an eye on despotism. Obviously I don't have personal experience in the field, but a few months of casual observation is all that is needed to make anyone an expert in the topic.

1. Firstly and most importantly, steal the equivalent of your country’s GDP from government funds and keep the lot in a personal bank account in Switzerland. There’s millions and millions of dollars stashed there – more money than one individual could ever spend in a lifetime of squandering – enough, even, to catapult the infrastructure of your country forward 20 years in one fell swoop – but that doesn’t matter. It’s important to have it there to make you feel like you’ve earned a personal fortune, even though you filched every penny.

2. Own as much of the press as you possibly can, and any other media channels you can get an influence in. Make sure that any media that you don’t own is intimidated and threatened unrelentingly so that no-one can say anything really bad about you, or worse, the truth.

3. Regularly reshuffle your cabinet. If any members have fallen out of public favour due to corruption allegations, make a big show of sacking them but then make them ‘senior presidential advisors’ to keep them on the gravy train so they don’t stab you in the back. It doesn’t matter if you have a hundred senior presidential advisors, as a president can’t have too much advice. Reward useless sycophants with big cabinet jobs to keep them useless and sycophantic, so you can retain your autocracy.

4. Use any means necessary to mobilise political support, including creating endless new districts so you can make lots of new jobs for your friends in the new administrations. It really doesn’t matter if some of the new districts are based around towns that are little more than a group of shacks, or even just a road junction – the more people you can get on the gravy train, the better, as long as they don’t actually have any real power.

5. Give political rivals enough leash to create the impression of a multiparty democracy, but no so much that they could actually have some power. Let the big guys do and say what they want, but make sure their followers disappear mysteriously.

6. Distract any potential pockets of internal resistance to your regime by allowing them to fight amongst themselves for interminable years. Never mind the misery that will ensue amongst ordinary people – it stops these dissenters giving you any real challenge. This is where tribal differences come in handy. You should exploit these as much as possible to create the most enduring internal conflict you can. Make sure there is a ready supply of weapons to the dissenters or the conflict will dry up too soon.

7. When campaigning for upcoming elections, import cheap sugar from Central America and give half a kilogram each to illiterate mothers in rural areas. Exploit the fact that they value half a kilogram of free sugar once every five years over ongoing and lasting improvements in the education of their children, the health of their family, or the road leading to their village. In fact, try not to improve education too much in case they suddenly realise that a government is supposed to do more than twice-a-decade sugar distribution.

8. When it comes to elections, rig them to make sure you win by threatening or bribing people in the electoral commission. If you can get your own people in the electoral commission, all the better. Make sure anywhere that has international observers, things run like clockwork, but everywhere else make sure the real votes are burnt. As soon as you are declared the winner, your rival will instantly proclaim the elections as rigged, and even though they were, it is important for you to denounce him as a traitor to democracy and an enemy of the country.

9. Remember that the world is full of leaders for life. Generally their countries are in a total mess, but don’t be put off by this. History will show that the leaders of Zimbabwe, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and all the others, are the kings of their day. As the years go on, gradually remove all obstacles to your continuing in office until the day you die, and then surround yourself with the world’s best unscrupulous doctors to make sure that that day is delayed for as long as possible.

10. Relax! You may have had to do some terrible things to get to where you are today, and you may be causing untold harm to your people, but you’re president for life, and what can provide a better indemnity than that? There’s still the thorny issue of what’ll happen at the pearly gates, but that’s all the more reason to get them to keep you alive until the last possible moment.

Friendometer

I seem to be receiving more than my fair share of complaints about this blog, which I would gladly react to if it weren’t for the inconsistency of them. For example, I have Mr Ibbs grumbling about “monosyllabic Nigelisms”. I don’t know what these are, but they seem to imply a criticism which is the exact opposite of Suzanna’s, who is always carping about my perceived verbosity, as if I write with a thesaurus open by my side. What nonsense! Rubbish! Baloney! Poppycock! Twaddle! Claptrap! Drivel!

And then you get Ben complaining about my blog being “full of frustratingly ambiguous teasers” while my own mother wastes no time in voicing her opinion that my last offering contained “too much detail”. What is an amateur (and mildly self-aggrandising) travel journalist to do? You people just can’t be pleased!

However, I must admit I'm thoroughly enjoying slipping references to a girlfriend at plausible junctures in my blog, as for all you lot know she could be a figment of my imagination, or even a ruse to provoke responses from heretofore silent acquaintances. It certainly gets them crawling out of the woodwork, as many an unsolicited email has testified. It still doesn’t seem to have stimulated any activity in the comments section, though.

Office Hours

Just stop for a moment and imagine living with your boss for a month. If you are flirting with your boss in an effort to gain promotion by illegitimate means then you may be thinking the set-up would suit your purposes rather well. I, however, am not attempting to follow such a cynical and depraved course of action to reach the top, mainly because my boss is neither attractive nor female, but also because the top is occupied by him already and there’s no room for me. Living with him therefore means that I get my head pecked not only from 9 to 5, but also from 5 to 10, lengthening my office hours by a factor of 50% (and giving me a very sore head).