George Ayittey is a professor of economics at the American University in Washington D.C. He is from Ghana and champions the idea that since independence, Africa’s leaders have been deterrents of change whose main goal has been to maintain the status quo of the colonized countries handed to them as a way to keep money in their pockets. He calls them the hippo generation. Ayittey contrasts this group with the rising crop of young leaders today in Africa – the Cheetah generation – they are tired of the ineptitude of the hippos and are racing to transform the continent one initiative at a time.

I agree with you that our governments are a joke. What do people like you and I who may have very little by way of social or political capital do in the meantime? Read the full story