John Calvin Maxwell, the renowned American author and pastor says Africa's underdevelopment despite her huge natural resources is the result of leadership failure.  

According to him, everything rises and falls on leadership. Since leadership must be praised when things succeed they must take the fall when things fail.

“When leadership is good, good things happen and when leadership is bad, bad things happen. The greatest blessings for a group of people are to have a good leader because good things will happen to them. The biggest curse in people’s lives is to have a bad leader because bad things will happen to them,” he pointed out.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, John Maxwell said that African leaders have failed to use the power at their disposal to influence and empower and birth other leaders who can fend for themselves.  

He calls this “a follow me culture.” 

Africans, he argued, are always lined up waiting for the leader to act before they can do anything because all the power is concentrated in one man.

“In Africa, many of the leaders hold on to power, gather power, control power, and just don’t train and develop the people. And, therefore, everyone waits on the leader to do something,” he added.  

But Maxwell is advocating an “empowering leadership culture.”

His comments come at a time most African countries have been hemmed in by poverty.

Despite huge Natural resources such as gold, diamond, timber, cocoa and crude oil,  African governments rely on grants and loans from other countries to finance their annual budgets.

The result has been a life of squalor for the African who competes with others for scarce resources such as hospitals, schools and roads which are mostly in a state of disrepair.  

This is notwithstanding the fact that leader after leader has promised to improve the wellbeing of their people when elected into office.

The people gave the vote but the promise about their wellbeing is yet to be redeemed.

But John Maxwell believes that not until the people are empowered to act for themselves, the situation may not improve soon.

The video below has more.