A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history. — Lee Kuan Yew

Recall “ [K D] Knight and other key supporters of Peter Phillips openly questioned party President Portia Simpson Miller’s managerial competence during the 2006 PNP [People’s National Party] presidential election. ‘If the person is popular and cannot hold the party together, the party is going to lose,’ Knight said in 2006.” (The Gleaner, July 16, 2008)

Did K D Knight consult with Nostradamus, the French apothecary and reputed seer? I don’t think so. What is evident, however, is that Knight and others saw the dismal future of the PNP, and by extension the country, under the leadership of Portia Simpson Miller.

The then future is now the present. “Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.” (Nicolo Machiavelli) Buyer’s remorse is a veritable plague on the land.

The cut-throat divisions, Benedict Arnold-like simulations, political horse-trading gone south, and Goldilocks internal management of Norman Manley’s party are real-time lessons in classic ‘misleadership’. ‘Powerless Portia — PNP president seems to have lost control of party’, screamed the front page of last week’s

Sunday Gleaner. A deadly and mutating political ague has befallen this Administration. We, the ordinary folk, experience most of the sweating fits and shivering. Those of us who, as country people say, use our heads [brains] for actual thinking, and not just the wearing of caps, are not surprised.

The sad reality is that Portia Simpson Miller’s prime ministership has crossed the Rubicon.

One of my regular readers, a Jamaican who resides in Switzerland, sent me a very succinct question after reading last Sunday’s piece: “What of post-Portia and her Administration?”

Jamaica, for starters, does not need another primus inter pares who is besotted with the duties of an “assistant governor general (AGG)”. This apt AGG description of Simpson Miller’s public political persona was recently used on a radio programme by social commentator and businessman Kevin O’Brien Chang. I agree.

One of the hundreds of understandably disgruntled supporters who journeyed from St Elizabeth earlier this month to see the PNP president at party headquarters was predictably snubbed. In disgust he remarked, “Portia wants to walk in the rain and not get wet.” Jamaica does not need another sunshine leader who believes the prime minister’s primary role is cutting ribbons, kissing babies and raising hell on the political stump. Simpson Miller’s handlers, it seems, have only read a half of

The Prince

Jamaica’s next prime minister would do well to examine some of the approaches to leadership and governance of presidents John Magufuli, Tanzania; Paul Kagame, Rwanda; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia; Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria; Mauricio Macri, Argentina; Jimmy Morales, Guatemala; and the late Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew.

These leaders are by no means perfect models; no human is. I recommend them because they have practically challenged the status quo of their territories. Their societies have many cultural, economic and historical similarities with ours. They have also demonstrated a practical commitment to the primary functions of good government. These are to secure order, liberty and economic growth and development.

Again, I am not advocating that we ape, mindlessly, these leaders and their country’s templates. Instead, we should draw the best of what they and other countries have done, and tailor these to our unique needs and circumstances.

Tanzania

John Magufuli took power on a tidal wave of support in October 2015. Since then Magufuli has embarked on a remorseless purge of corruption — an issue that has plagued the East African state. “In 2014, donors suspended aid to the East African state after senior politicians lifted over $100 million from the central bank. Tanzania languishes in the bottom third of Transparency International’s corruption index. Shoddy governance partly explains why, despite abundant natural resources and being the second-largest aid recipient in Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty remains endemic in Tanzania, with 70 per cent of the population living on less than US$2 a day.” (

CCN, January 14, 2016)

Magufuli, nicknamed “the bulldozer”, warned “great and small” at his inaguration that a “new broom” had come to clean up Tanzania. In his inaugural speech he said, among other things: “I’m telling government officers who are lazy and negligent to be prepared: They were tolerated for a long time. This is the end.” Since that speech he has proved to be as good as his word.

“In the weeks and months since taking office, he has declared war on corruption and waste, including:

1. Slashing the Cabinet from 30 to 19 posts, merging some ministries and dispensing with others.

2. Firing officials such as Ports Authority Director General Awadhi Massawef and anti-corruption chief Edward Hoseah.

3. Banning nonessential foreign travel for politicians, and business-class flights for all but the most senior figures.

4. Personally visiting ministries to ensure that staff are at their desks.

5. Cracking down on lavish State events. He even banned independence day celebrations in favour of leading a street-cleaning campaign to address the nation’s cholera outbreak.” (

CCN, January 14, 2016)

Rwanda

Paul Kagame, nicknamed the “Lee Kuan Yew of Africa” has transformed his country from the ashes of a genocide that ended with the slaughter of one in every 10 Rwandan. Seeds of ethnic hatred, buttressed by gradation of differences rooted in the Willie Lynch doctrine, sown, watered and fertilised by German and Belgian colonials, with much help from native Rwandans over decades, exploded into a putrid disaster in 1994.

“It was 100 days of hell,” survivor testimonies agree on this common denominator. Witnesses said the preferred method was to cut off body parts one at a time, or to slice bellies open, leaving the victims to die in slow agony.” (

Newsweek, April 24, 1994)

Twenty-two years later, Rwanda is rated as one of the safest countries in the world. Rwanda has achieved an average of nine per cent economic growth per year for the last 10 years. On September 27, 2015, the globally respected Gallup Global Law and Order 2015 Report named Rwanda among the few countries in the world where people feel safe walking home alone at night.

“No country in Africa, if not the world, has so thoroughly turned itself around in so short a time, and Kagame has shrewdly directed the transformation. Measured against many of his colleagues, like the megalomaniac Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who ran a beautiful, prosperous nation straight into the ground, or the Democratic Republic of Congo’s amiable, but feckless Joseph Kabila, who is said to play video games while his country falls apart, Kagame seems like a godsend.” (Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa bureau chief,

The New York Times, September 4, 2013)

Kagame abhors corruption, and public officials who are tainted by even the spectre of corruption are quickly dismissed. The 2015/16 Global Competitiveness Index ranks Rwanda’s institutions among the best in the world.

“The World Bank has ranked Kigali [Rwanda’s capital] among the six top cities in the world that demonstrate global competitiveness. The ranking, contained in a report that sought to examine the key dimensions of globally competitive cities, saw the bank put together a collection of detailed economic data for 750 cities in the world, which it used to distill the factors that drive economic competitiveness.” (

The New York Times, December 22, 2015)

Liberia

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, nicknamed the “Iron Lady of Liberia”, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2011 and the Indira Gandhi Prize in 2012, has transformed war-torn Liberia from the ashes. Before she took power in 2006 Liberia was a pariah State known for the destruction of lives and property. Today, it is one of the most peaceful countries in Africa. Ethnic divisions that have caused numerous wars have been silenced by strong leadership. Two million Liberians now receive 24-hour potable water in the capital of Monrovia and suburbs. Major electricity and infrastructure projects are in progress. “In 2010 Liberia received US$16 billion [agriculture, forestry and hydrocarbon sectors] in foreign investments. Sirleaf is globally known for her clean image, hatred of corruption, and support for freedom of speech.” (World Bank, September 2015)

Nigeria

Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria achieved a historic victory on March 28, 2015, becoming the first Opposition candidate to defeat an incumbent. This is his second bite of the political cherry. “He ruled Nigeria from January 1984 until August [deposed in a coup, my insert] 1985, taking charge after a military coup in December 1983. It is a period remembered for a strict campaign against indiscipline and corruption, and for its human rights abuses.” (

BBC News, March 31, 2015)

Civil servants late for work had to do frog jumps. People who littered the streets and kept their homes in a nasty state were often publicly flogged by soldiers. Buhari says he is now a changed man.

“Leadership from the front is key,” Buhari said in his inaugural speech. President Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo have voluntarily cut their salaries by 50 per cent. Since taking office, he has commenced a crusade against corruption which he says is Nigeria’s number one problem. “Twenty former military chiefs and officers are being investigated for alleged arms procurement fraud.” (

BBC News, January 15, 2016) Many foreign governments are cooperating with Buhari to prosecute those who stole billions from the Nigerian people. Members of his Cabinet had to pass rigorous background checks and have been told by Buhari publicly that they must, at all times, be able to pass the ‘new-car smell test’.

Argentina

Mauricio Macri, of Argentina, was sworn in on December 10, 2015. His inaugural speech was a tonic: “This Government is going to fight corruption. Public property belongs to the citizens. It is unacceptable for public officials to use it for his or her own benefit. In our Government, there will not be ‘Macrista’ judges. Justice does not exist, nor democracy, without judicial independence, but the justice system must be accompanied by a process clean of political vices. There cannot be militant judges from any party. And I want to say from the bottom of my heart that I am convinced that if we as Argentines can come together we will be unstoppable.” (

The New York Times, December 10, 2015)

His speech lasted a minute and 30 seconds. Macri is about business unusual.

“Argentina’s new president Mauricio Macri, a business-friendly conservative from a wealthy family, will donate his salary to a Buenos Aires soup kitchen, a local newspaper reported Friday. The 56-year-old Macri has implemented a series of free-market reforms aimed at reviving Argentina’s flagging economy.” (

Agence France-Presse, January 15, 2016)

Guatemala

“Former television comedian and political newcomer Jimmy Morales became Guatemala’s president Thursday, promising to transform a country awash in poverty, violence and corruption through a ‘dawn of transparency’.” (

Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2016)

Morales’ manifesto was two pages. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle is a winner in politics if you say things of substance. The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863 is one of the most quoted speeches. It was two minutes long. Morales’ manifesto focused on dwarfing corruption, violence and unemployment.

Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew led Singapore (a country slightly larger than St James in terms of area, but now with a population in excess of four million) for 31 years. He is credited with turning a “resource-poor, malarial island into a First-World country in 35 years”. Today Singapore has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Jamaican is not condemned to penury and mediocrity. It’s time for new wines in new wineskins. In less than five months over 1,250 sugar workers have lost their jobs. The banner headline in this newspaper last Wedneday must concern all.

“Three hundred and eighty-five sugar workers from the Pan-Caribbean-run Monymusk and Frome sugar estates will be sent home today after the company advised them yesterday that their positions are to be made redundant. Monymusk in Clarendon will lose 279 mainly field workers, while the 106 workers from the Frome estate to go is an almost even split between factory and field workers.” (

Jamaica Observer, January 20, 2016)

Does this Administration understand the Spanish Proverb, “The busy man is troubled with but one devil; the idle man by a thousand”?

More Jamaicans — 26 per cent more — are homeless, according to statistics by the Board of Supervsion in the Poor Relief Department. Government member of Parliament Fitz Jackson says the “figures of increased homeless should not be overemphasised, and the data should be thoroughly massaged before jumping to conclusions” (

Jamaica Observer, January 14, 2016)

World oil prices are at a 14-year low, yet our economy continues to play hide-and-seek with meaningful growth. Exports are down by seven per cent, according the Inter-American Development Bank. Co-chair of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee Richard Byles says, “Devaluation? No problem.” Our dollar, last time I checked was $121.01 to US$1. The Jamaican dollar has been devalued by 40 per cent in four years.

After 23 of the last 27 years in power, the PNP needs to explain why it cannot meaningfully grow the economy so that the majority of ordinary folks feel it in their pockets and see it on their dinner tables.

PS: This was sent to the e-mail address below last Sunday from lennielittle.white@gmail.com “It is clear that your hobby horse is NHT and Outameni. Since it is obvious that you are in love with my name, the least you can do is give the correct spelling. You can check it on Google, Facebook, etc. But then again, what are you trying to prove?”

I note the correction that your name is spelt “Lennie” not “Lenny”. I hope that ‘prophecy’ of yours is obliterated: “Neither history nor the taxpayers of Jamaica will ever forgive us.”

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. — Martin Luther King, Jr

Garfield Higgins in an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Observer or to higgins160@yahoo.com