Changing The African Governance Narrative, by Donu Kogbar

I first met Professor Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu in 2018 when he was daring to dream and trying to become the President of Nigeria.

His razor-sharp erudition did not prevent him from being friendly and down-to-earth. He somehow managed to combine being a proud native of Anambra State and patriotic son of the Naija soil with being an impressive and sophisticated citizen of the world.

I instantly identified him as a visionary who had what it took to dynamically lead this country out of the doldrums and enable it to live up to a “Giant Of Africa” status it had long ceased to deserve.

And I was not alone.

Many Nigerians – including distinguished personalities such as Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor who was the Emir of Kano in 2018, spotted Moghalu’s enormous potential and enthusiastically endorsed him.

But since Moghalu was running against an incumbent head of state (Muhammadu Buhari) as the candidate of a fringe political party (Young Progressives Party, YPP) that had limited funds, I was pessimistic about his chances of wrestling the political establishment to the ground.

Moghalu was basically David to Buhari’s Goliath. But the Bible is the Bible; and Nigeria is Nigeria; and the miraculous triumph of a brave and principled underdog that many of us yearned for did not happen.

So Buhari retained his crown in the 2019 election; and after a second shot at the presidency was truncated during the run-up to the 2023 election, Moghalu philosophically moved on with a gracious shrug and has now put partisan politics behind him.

But he hasn’t ditched his desire to transform his home country and continent and has just been recruited – by Paul Kagame, the famously high-achieving, no-nonsense President of Rwanda and Hailemariam Desalegn, the former Prime Minister of Ethiopia – to run the African School of Governance, ASG, a groundbreaking new educational institution based in Kigali.

This appointment surely proves that the New Testament was not wrong to tell us that a prophet is not recognised in his own land.

As soon as he was announced as the inaugural president of the ASG last month, plaudits started to pour in from several individuals in numerous nations in Africa and beyond. But surprisingly, Moghalu has yet to be congratulated by President Bola Tinubu.

Moghalu is not bothered by this disappointing silence that some might interpret as pettiness. He is forensically focused on delivering the quality that Kagame and Desalegn want.

Alongside a Governing Board comprising illustrious members like Dr Donald Kaberuka (Rwandan ex-President of the African Development Bank), Makhtar Diop (Senegalese Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation) and Kishore Mahbubani (former Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations), Moghalu is meticulously setting up a solid structure that will put the ASG on a firm footing and ensure that it winds up with premier league students, faculty, graduate courses and advocacy initiatives.

Moghalu is ideally qualified to do this immensely challenging job. He is a globally acknowledged expert in governance, public policy and economic transformation.

He has served as a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He has founded the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation, IGET, and taught at Tufts and Oxford universities. He worked for the United Nations for 17 years.

Moghalu’s strong commitment to excellence is matched only by his determination to anchor ASG in the indigenous African sphere and ensure that it represents the full spectrum of the continent’s diversity and experiences.

All of its academic programmes are being developed with Africa’s socio-economic, political and cultural contexts in mind.

The goal is to provide a multi-disciplinary curriculum that will empower leaders who understand local governance challenges and can create solutions grounded in the continent’s unique realities.

ASG’s pan African ethos and reformist agenda will foster cross-border collaborations and knowledge-sharing within Africa; but African realities will be integrated with global best practices; and partnerships with esteemed non-African organisations are being formed, the most notable at the moment being the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Earlier on this week, President Kagame hosted Moghalu at Urugwiro Village in Kigali and highlighted the importance of ASG, noting that the institution will “carry the aspirations of the African continent”…and was conceived because, although there have been several initiatives to develop the African continent, the tangible outcomes from these initiatives have been inadequate relative to the pace of change needed.

ASG was founded in the expectation that, through its teaching, research and advocacy, “something convincing, that would change the lives of Africans in reality, will emerge”.

He believed that this missing link lay in a mindset-shift amongst Africans about their identity and confidence in a competitive world coupled with a capacity for effective governance in African countries based on knowledge and skills to turn good intentions into concrete reality on the ground. The ASG’s mission is to provide this missing link.

Moghalu briefed President Kagame on various issues, including the upcoming “Grand Launch” of ASG in January 2025 ahead of the opening of the institution’s doors to full-time and executive Master of Public Administration, MPA, students in September 2025.

“It is an honour,” said Moghalu, “to have had an audience with the…Co-founder of African School of Governance H.E Paul Kagame this afternoon. I deeply appreciate his vision and support for the school and his commitment to Africa’s progress and transformation. I share this vision…and I’m honoured to have been tasked with leading ASG’s critical contribution to making that vision a reality.”

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My sister, Lela Kogbara, was in the US when Kamala Harris lost the American presidential election and in the UK when Kemi Badenoch became leader of the British Conservative Party. Today, on DONU’S WORLD, I interview Lela via Zoom and ask her to share her opinions about the two most high-profile black women in the world in 2024.

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