By Ing Professor Douglas Boateng
Chartered Director | Governance and Industrialisation Advocate | Pan Africanist | Generationalist
There is a familiar ritual that plays out across Africa. When roads collapse, hospitals decay, schools underperform, corruption festers, power fails, or public institutions lose credibility, the public response is swift and predictable. We blame the government. It is emotionally satisfying. It is politically convenient. And it is dangerously incomplete.
Because while governments must absolutely be held accountable, a society that refuses to interrogate its own civic behaviour is not practising democracy. It is outsourcing the responsibility.
Governments do not hover above society like distant rulers. They are recruited from citizens, sustained by citizens, and survive largely because citizens permit certain behaviours to continue. A simple NyansaKasa (words of wisdom) truth captures this reality well. A nation that fears questioning power eventually inherits its failures.
So the harder and more honest question is not only what is wrong with the government. It is also what is wrong with us.
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The Accountability Illusion
Across much of Africa, accountability is treated as a ritual that happens every four or five years. Vote. Celebrate. Complain. Wait. Repeat.
But accountability is not an election. It is a culture. And cultures are sustained daily, not episodically.
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We demand transparency yet refuse to attend town hall meetings. We complain about corruption yet celebrate sudden wealth without asking questions. We criticise inefficiency yet pay bribes to bypass queues. We condemn poor leadership yet excuse mediocrity when it benefits us personally.
This is not hypocrisy by accident. It is hypocrisy by habit. When corruption becomes normal, outrage becomes theatre.
Governments understand this dynamic very well. They learn quickly that loud anger without follow-through is not oversight. Social media outrage that fades after forty-eight hours becomes background noise. Institutions hollow out quietly while citizens remain angry but ineffective.
In Ghana, the Auditor General has consistently reported financial irregularities running into billions of cedis annually. Yet public engagement with audit reports remains minimal. Very few citizens read them. Fewer still follow parliamentary hearings on their findings. Accountability is demanded loudly, but practised weakly.
Citizenship Is Not a Spectator Sport
One of the most corrosive myths in African civic life is that citizenship is passive. That once taxes are paid and votes cast, responsibility ends and power takes over. It does not.
Strong democracies are not built by perfect leaders. They are built by demanding citizens. Citizens who read budgets. Citizens who attend public hearings. Citizens who ask inconvenient questions. Citizens who understand that patriotism is not praise but participation.
Power grows reckless when citizens grow quiet.
Where citizens retreat into silence between elections, power concentrates. Where citizens fear being labelled anti-government, impunity grows. Where citizens trade long-term accountability for short-term favours, institutions weaken.
Governments do not suddenly become arrogant. They become unchallenged.
Nigeria offers a powerful illustration. For years, fuel subsidy abuse drained billions of dollars annually. It was only after sustained citizen pressure, investigative journalism, court actions, and organised civil society campaigns that subsidy fraud became a mainstream political issue, forcing policy reform. Change came not because the government suddenly discovered integrity, but because citizens refused to remain spectators.
The Comfort of Blame
Blaming the government offers emotional relief. It externalises failure and protects self-image. It allows citizens to feel morally clean while benefiting from systems they privately undermine.
But blame without self-reflection is civic laziness.
It is common for contractors to abandon roads in Sierra Leone. But who stopped asking questions when the asphalt peeled within months? When hospitals in Malawi lack equipment, procurement failed. But who monitored delivery schedules and contracts? When public funds disappear in Zambia, who follows the audit trail beyond the headlines?
A society cannot outsource conscience.
In Kenya, citizen-led budget tracking initiatives have demonstrated the power of civic vigilance. Community groups monitoring Constituency Development Fund projects exposed ghost projects and forced corrective action. Delivery improved not because the government became kinder, but because citizens became vigilant.
A NyansaKasa reminder applies here. A nation that waits for heroes forgets its own duty.
We Reward the Behaviours We Condemn
Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is this. Many Africans privately reward the very behaviours they publicly condemn.
We complain about corruption but ask for small favours. We criticise nepotism but leverage personal connections. We attack incompetence but tolerate it when it wears our political colours, ethnic identity, or social affiliation.
In doing so, we send a clear signal to those in power. Principles are negotiable.
Power, like water, flows where resistance is weakest. Governments read society well. When leaders see loyalty rewarded over competence, silence preferred over scrutiny, and access valued more than accountability, they adjust accordingly.
South Africa’s experience with state capture revealed this painfully. The Zondo Commission showed how prolonged civic silence and political loyalty enabled systemic abuse. Reform only accelerated when citizens mobilised through courts, media, and civil society to demand accountability.
When citizens trade standards for access, they mortgage the future.
Accountability Requires Courage, Not Just Anger
Holding government accountable is not about volume. It is about consistency.
It requires patience, documentation, civic education, and personal discomfort. It means asking questions even when answers are delayed. Staying engaged even when outcomes are slow. Understanding laws, institutions, and rights. Resisting the temptation to personalise institutional failures.
Above all, it means accepting that accountability begins at home.
In how citizens treat public property. Whether shortcuts are tolerated. Whether standards are enforced socially before they are enforced legally.
Botswana provides an instructive example. Its relative institutional stability has less to do with perfect leadership and more to do with strong civic norms. Citizens expect processes to work and challenge deviations early. That expectation has disciplined governance over decades.
Institutions survive where citizens defend them daily.
African Success Stories We Ignore
Africa is not short of positive examples. We simply talk less about them.
In Rwanda, community performance contracts known as Imihigo have improved service delivery partly because citizens monitor outcomes at local levels. In Mauritius, strong civic participation and institutional respect have supported policy continuity and investor confidence. In Senegal, youth-led civic movements such as Y’en a Marre transformed political participation and voter accountability.
In Ghana, civil society pressure around sanitation, road safety, and electoral reforms has led to measurable improvements. According to Afrobarometer surveys, countries with higher civic engagement show stronger trust in institutions and better service delivery outcomes.
These changes did not happen because governments woke up enlightened. They happened because citizens organised, persisted, and demanded delivery.
The Myth of the Messiah Leader
Many African societies are still waiting for a saviour leader to fix everything. This mindset is dangerous.
It infantilises citizens and overburdens leaders. No leader, however competent, can compensate for a disengaged citizenry.
Even the best policies fail where civic discipline is absent. Even strong institutions collapse when citizens refuse to defend them.
Nations do not rise because leaders are flawless. They rise because citizens are informed, demanding, and vigilant.
A Hard But Hopeful Truth
The good news is this. Citizens can change faster than governments. Civic habits can evolve. Expectations can be reset. Accountability cultures can be built.
But only if we stop pretending that democracy is something done to us rather than something done by us.
We must move from complaint to commitment. From outrage to organisation. From slogans to systems.
The government must be accountable. Absolutely.
But citizens must first be accountable to citizenship itself.
Until then, blaming the government alone will remain a convenient distraction from the deeper and harder work of national self-examination.
And perhaps that is the most honest answer to the question.
What is wrong with us?
It is not that we do not see the problem. It is that we have not yet accepted our share of responsibility for fixing it.
Truth does not need a raised voice. Only a steady footing.
ING. PROFESSOR DOUGLAS BOATENG
Ing. Professor Douglas Boateng is a globally recognised governance and industrialisation strategist, known for advancing long-term, institution-focused leadership across Africa. A chartered engineer and boardroom governance authority, he works at the intersection of policy, board leadership, and economic transformation.
He is the Convenor of the Boardroom Governance Summit, one of Africa’s leading platforms for chairs, CEOs, regulators, and policymakers to shape governance practice for generational impact. His work champions governance as national infrastructure—arguing that strong institutions, not strong personalities, drive sustainable development.
Professor Boateng is a leading voice on industrialisation, supply-chain strategy, board effectiveness, and generational leadership, with advisory roles across public and private sectors. He is also the creator of NyansaKasa, a widely followed series of reflective governance and life proverbs circulating across Africa and the diaspora.
His writing blends insight, satire, and moral clarity to challenge comfortable thinking, urging leaders to govern for the unborn and to measure success not by applause, but by the strength of the institutions they leave behind.
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