Until Africa confronts this reality and demand for generational change, leadership renewal, and a radical break from these recycled strongmen—Africa’s “rise” will remain a slogan, not a reality. Africa doesn’t need more elder statesmen.
LensAfrik
Meet Uganda’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Moses is 86 years old and can’t even walk on his own.
It is painful to admit, but Africa is being held hostage—not by foreign powers, but by its own aging elite who refuse to release their grip on power. Uganda’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Moses, is 86 years old. Eighty-six.
This is not a symbol of wisdom—it is a symptom of a continent too afraid to confront its past and too unwilling to embrace its future.
Ali Moses has been a lawmaker for 24 years. Before that, he was a general. Before that, he held just about every key ministerial position: Finance, Interior, Sports—you name it. This is not leadership. This is a monopoly on state power. How can a continent with the youngest population in the world be ruled by men old enough to be great-grandfathers of the next generation of change-makers?
This obsession with gerontocracy is a colonial hangover. The old guard views the state as a personal fiefdom, where loyalty trumps competence and age is mistaken for legitimacy. These men do not serve—they reign.
They entrench themselves in power while young, educated, visionary Africans are reduced to clapping in parliament galleries or fleeing to the Diaspora in frustration.
Let’s be clear: this is not about ageism. It’s about stagnation. It’s about the deliberate suffocation of new ideas by men who measure their success by how long they’ve lasted, not by what they’ve changed. While Africa faces a tech revolution, climate crisis, and an economic restructuring, we are being led by people who still romanticize Cold War politics and war medals.
Until Africa confronts this reality—until we demand generational change, leadership renewal, and a radical break from these recycled strongmen—our “rise” will remain a slogan, not a reality.
Africa doesn’t need more elder statesmen. It needs elder advisors and youthful transformers.
