Can Africa tame its growing Strong Man problem?

AFRICA must abandon the polite fiction that liberal democracy is the universal engine of development.

The last 50 years have made one truth uncomfortably clear: the most spectacular transformations in infrastructure, urban modernity, and economic ascendancy have emerged not from electoral volatility, but from centralised, long-tenured governance.

From Beijing, Dubai to Doha, Singapore to Hanoi, visionary autocracy, not procedural democracy, has delivered results.

This is not a celebration of repression; instead, it is a confrontation with reality. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has ruled Dubai since 2006, building a global city through dynastic continuity and strategic urban planning.

Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, following his father’s 18-year reign, has steered Qatar’s infrastructural renaissance with monarchical precision.

Singapore’s People’s Action Party has governed uninterrupted since 1959, producing a technocratic miracle under Lee Kuan Yew and his successors. Vietnam’s Communist Party, in power since 1976, has engineered economic modernisation through disciplined, party-led planning.

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These are not accidents; instead, they are the fruits of political dominance, whether dynastic, ideological, or institutional. Xi Jinping’s China exemplifies this model at scale that a technocratic autocracy fused with long-term vision, ideological coherence and infrastructural ambition.

Since 2012, Xi has dismantled term limits, consolidated party control and launched the most expansive infrastructure agenda in modern history. High-speed rail, megacities, digital governance and the Belt and Road Initiative are not the outcomes of electoral churn; They are the dividends of continuity.

Africa must confront this uncomfortable paradox that the very models it is taught to reject are the ones building the future. The question is no longer whether strongmen are dangerous, but it is whether short-term electoralism is developmentally suicidal.

If political dominance, when fused with vision, discipline and strategic planning, can deliver transformative outcomes, then perhaps Africa’s obsession with procedural legitimacy must be rethought. Not discarded, but recalibrated.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema (46 years), Paul Biya (43 years), Yoweri Museveni (39 years) and Isaias Afwerki (32 years) have perfected the choreography of survival. They have manipulated constitutions, neutralised opposition and entrenched patronage networks.

Yet, unlike Xi Jinping’s China or the technocratic monarchies of the Gulf, their extended rule has not birthed megacities, high-speed rail or globally competitive economies.

It has produced stagnation, elite capture and the slow suffocation of state institutions.

This is not a failure of time, but it is simply a failure of vision. The contrast with Asia and the Middle East is not chronological but structural. Xi’s China is governed by a disciplined party-state that aligns leadership with national purpose. Dubai and Doha are ruled by dynasties that invest in infrastructure, innovation, and global relevance.

Africa’s strongmen, by contrast, weaponise liberation credentials while presiding over decaying roads, collapsing hospitals and disillusioned youth. Their governance is not strategic; it is extractive and their longevity is not developmental; it is parasitic.

This is not new because the post-independence era gave us a generation of ideological strongmen, who promised unity through one-party states and delivered little more than bureaucratic sclerosis and economic ruin.

Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa collapsed under the weight of idealism unmoored from productivity. Daniel Arap Moi’s Kenya became a case study in kleptocratic inertia. Robert Mugabe turned Zimbabwe’s liberation dream into a nightmare of hyperinflation and repression.

José Eduardo dos Santos hollowed out Angola’s oil wealth to enrich a ruling clique while the masses languished.

Today’s crop is no better. They cling to power with the desperation of men who know they have nothing else to offer. They hollow out institutions, co-opt electoral commissions and surround themselves with sycophants and bootlickers whose only qualification is loyalty to the throne and rent-seeking behaviour.

They do not govern; instead, they hoard, they do not lead, they extract, and they do so while invoking Pan-Africanism, sovereignty and anti-imperialism as shields against accountability.

This is the African paradox where the leaders stay forever but build nothing that lasts, giving us longevity without legacy and power without progress. Unless we confront this pathology with intellectual honesty and political courage, we will remain trapped in a cycle of strongmen who are anything but strong, and states that are anything but sovereign.

From the shimmering skylines of Dubai to the hyper-efficient corridors of Singapore, the Middle East and Southeast Asia have perfected a model of governance that defies liberal orthodoxy yet delivers developmental miracles.

These are not democracies in the Western sense; they are centralised regimes, often led by strongmen or dominant parties, which fuse political stability with technocratic precision and global ambition, and the results speak louder than any ballot box.

Dubai, under the visionary rule of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum since 2006, has evolved from a desert outpost into a global metropolis. Its transformation is not the product of electoral cycles; instead, it is the outcome of dynastic continuity, strategic urban planning, and state-led investment.

The city’s rise as a financial, tourism, and logistics hub is a testament to what long-term leadership can achieve when fused with infrastructural obsession and global positioning.

Doha, under Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, continues a legacy of monarchical stability that has enabled Qatar to execute its 2030 National Vision with precision. From hosting the FIFA World Cup to building Lusail, a futuristic city designed from scratch, Qatar exemplifies how centralised control can drive rapid urban expansion, economic diversification, and geopolitical relevance.

Singapore, governed uninterruptedly by the People’s Action Party since 1959, offers the most intellectually compelling case. Under Lee Kuan Yew’s foundational leadership, followed by Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore transitioned from a colonial port to a global financial powerhouse.

Its success lies in meritocratic governance, disciplined bureaucracy and long-term policy horizons. The city-state’s infrastructural efficiency, educational excellence and economic resilience are not accidents; they are the dividends of technocratic continuity.

Hanoi, under the Communist Party of Vietnam, has quietly engineered one of the most impressive economic recalibrations in Southeast Asia. Since the Doi Moi reforms of 1986, Vietnam has embraced market-oriented socialism while retaining centralised political control.

The result has been rapid industrialisation, urban modernisation and a globally integrated economy, all under the watchful eye of a party apparatus that plans in decades, not election cycles.

These states do not change leadership every five years. They build legacies over generations. Their success is not incidental; It is structural and it is the product of governance models that prioritise continuity, discipline and strategic ambition over populism, volatility, and short-termism.

In an era where cities are the engines of global power, these regimes have demonstrated that authoritarian modernity, when fused with vision and competence, can produce outcomes that liberal democracies often struggle to replicate.

Africa must take note, not to mimic repression, but to interrogate the developmental logic behind these successes. The question is not whether these models are democratic; it is whether they deliver and in the realm of infrastructure, urban planning, and economic recalibration, they undeniably do.

Meanwhile, outside the executive sphere, opposition figures like Julius Malema of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters and Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance offer a contrasting model of sustained leadership within party structures.

Despite their ideological divergence, both have demonstrated how long-term presence in political movements can cultivate institutional memory, strategic coherence and relevance beyond electoral cycles.

Their extended tenures, though not without controversy, have provided a form of stability and ideological clarity often absent in Africa’s executive politics, where leadership is frequently transactional and short-sighted.

History does not equivocate: The most dramatic developmental breakthroughs of the last half-century have occurred under strong, centralised leadership. From China’s infrastructural revolution to the Gulf’s urban metamorphosis, the pattern is clear.

This is not an endorsement of autocracy; it is recognition of its developmental utility when fused with vision, discipline, and strategic ambition. The seduction lies in the results: megacities, ports, railways, and GDP surges, but the danger is equally potent: Repression, exclusion and the erosion of democratic norms.

Africa’s challenge is not to mimic authoritarianism, but to interrogate its mechanics. By asking critical questions about the transferable logic behind China’s planning discipline, Singapore’s technocratic continuity, or Qatar’s infrastructural ambition? Exploring the African synthesis of stability, vision, and accountability that can deliver results without sacrificing rights.

The developmental states of Asia and the Middle East are not just politically disciplined; they are financially strategic. China’s state-guided capitalism mobilises domestic capital, state-owned enterprises, and global infrastructure diplomacy.

The Gulf monarchies deploy oil-backed sovereign wealth funds to finance futuristic cities and diversify economies. Vietnam leverages export-driven industrialisation under party stewardship.

Africa, by contrast, remains ensnared in debt cycles, donor dependency and extractive fiscal regimes. Its financing models are reactive, fragmented and often dictated by external actors. Until political vision is aligned with financial strategy, until leadership is fused with economic coherence, longevity will remain ornamental. Power will persist without progress.

Africa does not need more strongmen; it needs strong institutions animated by reformers who understand that leadership is not a five-year performance review, but a generational covenant. The continent’s future will not be secured by the theatrics of despotic rulers, nor by the shallow rituals of electoral cycles that reset every half-decade without continuity of vision. What Africa requires is a new doctrine, one that fuses legitimacy with longevity, participation with planning, and ambition with accountability.

The youth must now interrogate the very architecture of leadership terms and electoral cycles. Why our future should be shackled to short-term political calendars when the challenges we face, urbanisation, climate resilience, industrialisation, and digital transformation, demand decades of consistent planning?

We are not glorifying the failed cult of African strongmen; we are calling for the emulation of successful governance models that have delivered visible, progressive results. Models where leadership is measured not by the length of tenure alone, but by the depth of transformation achieved.

The sterile debate of democracy versus autocracy has exhausted its usefulness. The real question, the one that is urgent, practical, and unforgiving, is this: Who is building? Who is planning? Who is delivering?

Africa’s youth must demand leaders who think beyond the ballot box, who treat power not as a trophy but as a trust, and who understand that the true legitimacy of leadership lies in the tangible progress felt by citizens across generations.

This is the doctrine we must write into the future, leadership that is generational, not transactional; visionary, not opportunistic; accountable, yet unafraid of longevity when longevity serves the people. The youth must be bold enough to rethink the cycles, rewrite the terms, and reclaim the future.

Muzengeza is a political risk analyst and urban strategist offering incisive insight on urban planning, infrastructure, leadership succession, and governance reform across Africa’s evolving post-liberation urban landscapes.