The Five.

The god like leadership quality in my eyes, one I wish to emulate & admire the most is the spirit of serving. Offering your life to be succor for the masses. These African doyens are an embodiment of that spirit for me. The core of their creed was that as Africans we should not be apologetic about who we are & have the right to lead ourselves. "You cannot kill an idea." Their ideologies were & are a light for emancipation & forever bright they shine & shall not wane. History remembers them as martyrs, their names & ideologies will echo throughout eternity. Their minds & intellect scared their oppressors. They were vehement advocates for human rights, spoke up against oppressive regimes & many if not all of them paid the ultimate price for their beliefs. What makes a man have a heart that bits in impetus, to insolently say truth in the face of death?

Eons after abolishment of slavery & colonialism yet here we are still, thick in the fray & their phantoms like sentinels of sort guide & march with us. Steve Biko.

Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist, advocate for the emancipation of mental slavery that was inculcated through segregation & human rights violations. He believed that black people needed to rid themselves of any sense of racial inferiority, an idea he expressed by popularizing the slogan "black is beautiful". He was the "Father of the Black Consciousness" movement. Following his arrest in August 1977, Biko was severely beaten by state security officers, resulting in his death. Biko became one of the earliest icons of the movement against apartheid, and is regarded as a political martyr. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

A South African Pan Africanist, political dissident & human rights advocate. He led a demonstration against pass laws of the apartheid regime on March 21, 1960 that later spread across South Africa; the egregious Sharpeville massacre, where 69 people were killed (29 of them children), now commemorated on the 21 March as Human Rights day in South Africa. During his lifetime, Sobukwe was considered to be so dangerous by the National Party government that its parliament enacted the "Sobukwe clause", a statute which on its face seemed to grant broadly applicable powers, but was specifically intended to authorize the arbitrary extension of Sobukwe's imprisonment. Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement but permitted certain privileges including books, newspapers, civilian clothes, bread, etc. His only contacts with other prisoners was through his secret hand signals while outside for exercise.

Mbuya Nehanda aka Nehanda Charwe Nayakasikana.

Charwe Nyasikana was born in 1862, in what is today called the Chishawasha District located in Central Mashonaland. As medium of the spirit Nehanda, Nyakasikana made oracular pronouncements and performed traditional ceremonies that were thought to ensure rain and good crops. Even King Lobengula recognized her as a powerful spiritual medium in the land. She is the only recorded woman in Zimbabwe known to have held such a significant position during the 19th century. She played an important role in welcoming the pioneers & telling the masses not to be afraid of them. She was also influential in the rebellion when they started imposing taxes such as the hut tax. The Ndebele and Shona people revolted in June 1896, in what became known as the First Chimurenga or Second Matabele War. The rebellion, in Mashonaland at least, was encouraged by traditional religious leaders including Nyakasikana.

Patrice Hemery Lumumba.

Lumumba was an independent political leader who served as the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of Congo. An African nationalist & Pan Africanist, he was the first Congolese to articulate a narrative of the Congo that contradicted traditional Belgian views of colonization, and he highlighted the suffering of the indigenous population under European rule. Lumumba was alone among his contemporaries in encompassing all Congolese people in his narrative (the others confined their discussions to their respective ethnicities or regions), he offered a basis for national identity that was predicated upon having survived colonial victimization, as well as the people's innate dignity, humanity, strength, and unity. Shortly after Congolese independence in 1960, a mutiny broke out in the army, marking the beginning of the Congo Crisis. Lumumba appealed to the United States and the United Nations for help to suppress the Belgian-supported Katangan secessionists & they both refused. It is believed that he was executed on 17 January 1961, between 21:40 and 21:43 (according to the Belgian report) along with his contemporaries. Following his assassination, he was widely seen as a martyr for the wider Pan-African movement. In 2002, Belgium formally apologised for its role overseeing the assassination of Lumumba. Jairos Jiri.

Jairos Jiri was a Zimbabwean philanthropist. In the early days of his childhood he had a dream of helping the disabled people. He started creating facilities in the 1940s for disadvantaged and disabled people in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, using Christian principles of charity, patience and non-judgmental tolerance. At one stage he carried a disabled young man on his bicycle to Old Memorial Hospital and persuaded authorities there to perform a corrective surgery on him and when asked if he could be responsible for payment he agreed. Greatly encouraged by the help he had received at the hospital he started to take ex-blind beggars to his house and putting into practice all he knew about rehabilitation at that stage Jairos Jiri Association was founded in Bulawayo in 1950. The art center outlet for the association quickly achieved prominence and by the 1960s was a prime source of curios for tourists. These items were made by disabled people and included tiles and tiled tables and wall plaques, carvings, pottery, painted artworks and sculptures. His rehabilitation center in Bulawayo also fostered music and dance. By 1974 the centers had expanded and diversified to include homes for the disabled, and legal representation was gained locally and in the United Kingdom. Jairos Jiri centers and his philosophy are still a major resource for community action and charity in Zimbabwe.

A caliber of such leaders seems to have evanesced from among us, now we stand naked as mere mortals.

Photocredits: Google

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