Challenges and prospects for traditional leadership in Africa : towards innovative ideas to enhance African values among the youth in South Africa : Centre for Indigenous Law

• Author: Philip Iya
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC-797811983
• Published date: 01 January 2014
• Date: 01 January 2014
• Record Number: sapr1_v29_n2_a2
• Pages: 260-281

This Article is the result of a paper presented at the Conference on African Customary Law:

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Contemporary Issues held from 11 – 12 July 2013 at the College of Law of the University of South

Africa in Pretoria, South Africa. The author remains grateful to the organisers of the Conference for

the kind invitation to participate and present the paper; to NWU for the sponsorship to attend the

Conference and to Ms LN Mboh, a PhD student of IKS, for assisting with the research.

BA (East Africa); LLB (Makerere); LLM (Yale); PhD (Warwick); Advocate (Supreme Court of

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Uganda); Professor of African and Comparative Law; and Professor at the Indigenous Knowledge

System (IKS) Centre of North West University (NWU), Mafikeng Campus.

Challenges and prospects for traditional

leadership in Africa: Towards innovative

ideas to enhance African values among

the youth in South Africa*

Philip Iya**

Abstract

The highly contested public law issue of the recognition of African values

in South Africa with emphasis on the youth is addressed in this article.

The a rgum ents moo ted rev olve aro und the hypoth esis th at th e youth in

Africa gene rally, but p articu larly in South A frica, a re seld om in volved in

debates relating to African values, with the instance of African traditional

leadership as a case in point. In expanding on this hypothesis two

different approaches/schools of thought relating to the recognition of

traditional leadership are highlighted. On the one end we find the

‘traditionalists’ with their emphasis on the ‘continued existence of

traditional leaders’ for various reasons. On the other end, we find the

‘modernists’ who campaign for the total abolition of the institution of

traditio nal leader ship. How ever, the adoption o f a more pragma tic midd le

course (an ‘inter-entrenched’ goalpost) is advocated. Nevertheless, the

central question remains ‘how the South A frican society should move

between the two goalposts (between traditionalism and modernism)?’ The

answer to this question is th e challenge.

Challenges and prospects for traditional leadership in Africa 261

See eg the following different authors on various topics and their comments:

1

Mtimkulu ‘Traditional leaders and the Constitution’, available

athttp://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=11615 (accessed 2013-01-

03);

Logan ‘Traditional leaders in modern Africa: Can democracy and the chief co-exist?’, available at:

http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3153 (accessed 2013-03-15); Le Fleur and

Jara ‘Traditional leadership in South Africa – Facing the contradictions and embracing the realities’,

Unpublished Paper presented at a Goedgedacht Forum held from 09-12 February 2012

Johannesburg, South Africa; Meer and Campbell ‘Traditional leadership in South Africa’ A transcript

of a meeting between President Thabo Mbeki President of South Africa (as he was then) and the

Amakhosi of KwaZulu-Natal held on 24 January 2000; Ashton ‘Traditional leaders in South Africa:

Custom and tradition in a modern state?” (2010) publication of The South African Civil Society

Information Service; Cele ‘Discussion Paper on the role of traditional leaders in democratic South

Africa’ A Paper presented to the Conference on Traditional Leadership hosted the Department of

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) held in 2011 in Durban, South Africa –

to mention but a few.

1 Introduction

The subject of traditional leadership in Africa is neither new nor wanting in critical

analysis as evidenced by the abundance of literature on this subject. That

traditional leadership is a contentious subject is illustrated by a number of facts:

to some writers the topic is a sensitive one, a tangle of such complex issues as

politics, gender, human rights, age and other relat ed matters; to others it is

thought provoking and has task ed the minds of different categories of individuals

and organizations, some of whom have written passionately on the subject ; and

1

to the writer, the present discussion brings to the fore, as distinct from other

discourse on the topic, issues relating to the youth in Africa whose voices are

hardly, if at all, heard in the disc ussion and yet these ar e the leaders of tomo rrow.

In arriving at this point of departure distinguished from other discussions, the

present writer was provoked by his personal experience with many of his students

with whom he over the years, shared discussions during lectures on

cCustomary/indigenous law and, more recently, in classes discussing indigenous

knowledge systems. The strong message that emerged clearly from these

interactions is that these university students, like many of their young

counterparts in different institutions, societies and/or communities, are ignorant

and in need of knowledge about African values generally and the values,

challenges and prospects, relating to traditional leadership in particular. This point

was recently emphasised by one writer who had this comment to make:

Today, nearly half of the world population is under the age of 25. These 3 billion

people – the largest-ever generation of young people – are our future and our

present. Each has an indisputable role to play in achieving international

development goals, driving economic and social development, and shaping the

course o f history. Yet aroun d the world, young peo ple are all-too-ofte n unable to

make critical choices that impact their future. We hear it straight from the young