Asher's Blog

There are some very interesting presidents and prime ministers in the world today. I am speaking particularly about developments in Western countries, and I will deliberately avoid turning this into a discussion about individual personalities.

What interests me is not merely what a leader wants to do. It is what the institutions around that leader permit, restrain, question or reverse.

A president may be powerful, but a court can still examine an executive action. A prime minister may command a parliamentary majority, but legislators, auditors, civil servants, journalists and independent bodies can still expose a decision to scrutiny. A wealthy business leader may possess enormous influence, but a court can still decide a dispute involving that person according to law.

These systems do not always work perfectly. Institutions can be captured, judges can be partisan, legislatures can become weak and powerful people can receive advantages ordinary citizens do not. But when a society has made a long-term decision to strengthen its institutions, no single person’s character determines the entire fate of the country.

The rule becomes more important than the ruler. That is one of the central differences between a fragile society and a resilient one. A fragile society waits for a good leader; a resilient society prepares for a bad one.

Africa needs good leaders, but it needs something even more durable: institutions strong enough to make good leadership effective and bad leadership containable.

Institutions are society’s memory

Human beings stand behind every institution. Courts do not interpret themselves. Legislatures do not debate without legislators. Regulators, electoral bodies, police forces, audit institutions and civil services all depend on people making decisions.

Yet an institution is more than the people presently occupying it. A serious institution carries memory. It preserves rules, precedents, records, professional standards and procedures that existed before the current officeholder and should remain after that person leaves.

That continuity is a form of national intelligence. In a weak institution, a new leader begins again. Policies change without evidence. Experienced professionals are removed and replaced by loyalists. Records disappear. Contracts are reinterpreted. Citizens must form a new personal relationship with whoever is now in power.

In a strong institution, leadership can change without forcing society to relearn the meaning of every rule. The new leader can set legitimate priorities, but cannot casually erase the institution’s purpose. Employees are loyal to the law and public mission, not merely to the person who appointed them.

This is one of the ideas behind Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail: inclusive political and economic institutions distribute power more broadly, protect participation and make prosperity more sustainable, while extractive institutions concentrate benefits among a narrow group. The personality of the ruler matters, but the structure of incentives and constraints determines how far that personality can travel.

The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators examine government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, voice and accountability, and political stability. These dimensions interact. A brilliant policy means little if the civil service cannot implement it. A good law means little if courts cannot enforce it. An election means less if institutions cannot protect participation or constrain the winner. Institutions are how a society converts ideals into predictable behaviour.

The purpose of checks and balances is not obstruction

People sometimes become impatient with institutional restraint. They say the judiciary is delaying progress, the legislature is asking too many questions, the auditor is creating problems or the regulator is preventing innovation.

Sometimes that criticism is justified. Institutions can become slow, incompetent and bureaucratic. Procedure can be weaponised against reform. Independence without accountability can also produce abuse.

But the answer to a badly functioning check is not to eliminate checks. It is to make them competent, transparent and timely.

Checks and balances exist because human beings are volatile. A leader may begin with good intentions and later become defensive, fearful or consumed by power. A businessperson may be honest in ordinary circumstances and compromise when survival is threatened. A political party may support institutional independence while in opposition and resent the same independence after gaining power.

We should design government around what human beings can become, not only around what a preferred leader promises to be.

James Madison famously argued in The Federalist Papers that government is necessary because human beings are not angels, and internal controls are necessary because those who govern are not angels either. The insight is larger than one country’s constitutional design. Power needs power capable of questioning it.

A court should not control the budget, prosecute crimes and write legislation. A president should not personally decide guilt, select every contractor and determine which media criticism is permitted. A legislature should not interfere in individual judicial outcomes. Independence means that each institution can perform its proper function without requiring permission from the person it may need to restrain. The aim is not permanent conflict; it is balanced authority.

Strong institutions protect us from leaders we did not expect

It is easy to appreciate constraints when somebody we dislike is in office. The true test is whether we support the same rules when they constrain somebody we admire.

This is where institutional culture is built. If every political group weakens the rules while it holds power and demands strong rules after it loses, the institution becomes a weapon rather than a public trust.

One reason stable societies can survive unusual, incompetent or self-interested leaders is that authority is distributed. Courts can review. Legislatures can investigate. Auditors can document. Elections can remove. Journalists can expose. Professional civil servants can warn. Local governments, businesses and civil society retain their own centres of competence.

There are examples in established democracies of governors, former presidents, prime ministers and major business figures being investigated, convicted or subjected to judgments they strongly opposed. In the American state of Illinois, multiple former governors have served prison sentences. In France, senior former political leaders have faced conviction and imprisonment. These examples do not prove that those countries are free from corruption or political influence. They demonstrate a more limited but important point: public status does not always place a person beyond institutional reach.

That possibility changes behaviour. An official who knows that records can be examined after leaving office faces a different incentive from one who expects permanent immunity. An investor who believes a contract can receive a fair hearing is more willing to commit long-term capital. A citizen who can challenge the state without needing a personal connection experiences the law as an institution rather than a favour. Trust grows when outcomes are not perfectly predictable but processes are.

Capital goes where rules can be believed

Investors take risk. They do not require a world in which nothing can go wrong. They require a world in which the rules of loss, ownership, taxation, competition and dispute are sufficiently clear to price the risk.

If a business can lose its licence because it offended a powerful person, property rights are uncertain. If a contract is enforceable only when the opposing party has less influence, the contract is not a dependable asset. If tax rules change retrospectively or regulators apply them selectively, every investment must include a political-risk premium.

That premium appears in higher interest rates, shorter investment horizons, capital flight and smaller ambitions. Entrepreneurs structure their businesses around protection rather than productivity. Foreign investors demand unusually high returns or avoid the market. Local wealth moves abroad because its owners trust another country’s institutions more than their own.

This is one of Africa’s most expensive hidden costs. We often say the continent lacks capital, but African capital itself frequently seeks institutional safety elsewhere. The question is not only how to attract money. It is how to create a society in which people believe that money, property, contracts and personal rights will receive fair treatment.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance treats security and rule of law, participation and rights, economic opportunity, and human development as connected parts of governance. That is important. Investors do not live only inside financial models; they and their employees live in communities. Safety, justice, public services and political stability all shape whether capital can remain productive.

Strong institutions therefore do not merely punish corruption; they create economic value by reducing uncertainty.

Wealth and faith are not substitutes for safeguards

I believe successful businesspeople and faith-driven Africans should enter government and public institutions. People who have built serious organisations understand capital allocation, execution, talent and the cost of institutional failure. People with genuine spiritual conviction may bring courage, discipline and a sense of accountability beyond personal advantage.

Africa needs that calibre of person in public life. But we must avoid another version of the hero problem. A wealthy person is not automatically incorruptible because they no longer need money. Human beings seek more than money. They may seek power, recognition, protection, influence for their businesses or advantage for their families. Wealth can reduce one temptation while increasing access to others.

Likewise, public expressions of faith do not prove public integrity. A person may speak passionately about God and still resist transparency, favour friends or treat criticism as rebellion. Conviction should be visible in conduct: truthfulness, justice, stewardship, humility and willingness to be accountable.

The solution is not to search for people too rich or too religious to be corrupted. It is to welcome capable people while subjecting them to strong rules.

Business owners entering government should disclose assets and beneficial interests. Conflicts should be identified and managed. Certain holdings may need to be placed beyond their direct control. Procurement involving connected parties should receive independent scrutiny. Decisions and recusals should be documented. Gifts, lobbying and political finance should be transparent.

A person of integrity should not be offended by these safeguards. They protect the public, the institution and the person’s own reputation.

The strongest evidence of good character is often the willingness to accept a system that does not depend on one’s character.

How do we start building?

The phrase “build strong institutions” can become so broad that it produces no action. We need to make it practical.

First, protect appointment quality. Institutions cannot be independent when every senior role is primarily a reward for loyalty. Appointments should have published qualifications, transparent selection, legislative scrutiny where appropriate and fixed terms that cannot be casually terminated.

Second, protect professional staff. Political leaders should set policy, but career civil servants need a credible path based on competence. Technical knowledge should not disappear after every election. Recruitment, promotion and discipline must become merit-based and auditable.

Third, secure institutional budgets without removing accountability. An anti-corruption body, court or auditor cannot investigate power if its funding can be withheld in retaliation. Yet financial independence must be accompanied by transparent accounts, performance standards and external audit.

Fourth, reduce discretionary darkness. Publish budgets, procurement records, beneficial ownership, regulatory decisions and reasons for important appointments. Digitise workflows where doing so creates traceable evidence. Transparency does not eliminate corruption, but it increases the number of people capable of detecting it.

Fifth, make justice timely. A fair judgment delivered after a business has collapsed or a person’s life has been destroyed is incomplete justice. Courts need modern case management, sufficient judges, enforceable timelines and responsible use of technology. Delay can be a form of institutional failure even when the final reasoning is sound.

Sixth, protect dissent and reporting. Whistle-blowers, journalists, professional associations and civil-society organisations help institutions see what internal hierarchies may conceal. Protection should be legal and practical, with secure reporting channels and consequences for retaliation.

Seventh, measure outcomes. Independence should never mean that an institution cannot be questioned. How long do cases take? How many audit findings are resolved? How consistently are procurement rules applied? How many citizens can access the service without personal connections? Publish performance and permit independent review.

Eighth, build at every level. National reform is important, but a state, local government, court division, regulator, university or public hospital can begin improving systems within its own jurisdiction. Successful institutional models can create evidence for wider reform.

Institutions are built through repeated restraint

Strong institutions are not created when a constitution is written. They are created when powerful people repeatedly accept limits they have the ability to resist.

A president obeys a court order; a legislature investigates its own members. A judge discloses a conflict. A minister permits an audit to publish an embarrassing finding. A civil servant refuses an unlawful instruction; a ruling party accepts an electoral loss. A businessperson pays a judgment rather than using political access to reverse it.

Each act establishes precedent. Each precedent tells the next officeholder what the institution expects.

The opposite is also true. Every “small” exception made for a powerful person teaches the institution that rules are negotiable. Over time, employees stop asking what the law requires and start asking what the leader wants.

This is why building institutions requires conviction as well as technical skill. The immediate incentive will often favour interference. A leader may genuinely believe that a court, regulator or civil servant is wrong. Restraint means using the lawful process rather than destroying the institution to obtain the desired answer. We cannot demand independent institutions only when they agree with us.

We need builders, not occupants

Many people enter public office wanting to be the person who finally gets things done. Africa also needs people who want to build an office that continues getting things done when they are gone.

That is a different ambition; an occupant uses the institution’s authority. A builder improves its capacity; an occupant wants loyal people. A builder develops professional people who can disagree; an occupant measures success by personal visibility. A builder measures whether citizens receive better service and whether the institution survives succession.

Successful African entrepreneurs can contribute enormously here. They know how to recruit, set objectives, allocate resources and build operational systems. But public institutions are not private companies. Citizens are not customers who can simply choose another provider, and public power must answer to law, rights and democratic accountability. Business efficiency must be adapted to public legitimacy.

Faith-driven leaders can also contribute a long horizon and a moral reason to serve. But public institutions must protect citizens of every faith and none. Personal conviction should deepen impartiality, not turn government into an instrument of religious preference. We need builders capable of combining competence, conviction and constitutional restraint.

The society strong enough to trust

The goal is not to create a country in which leaders do not matter. Leadership always matters. A good leader can strengthen norms, appoint capable people and accelerate reform. A bad leader can test even an old institution severely.

The goal is to ensure that no leader matters so much that the country becomes an extension of one personality.

A strong society allows people to make plans without knowing the president personally. A citizen can seek justice without calling a powerful friend. A business can invest without joining the ruling party. A public servant can tell the truth without ending a career. A judge can decide against the government and remain secure. An election can change leaders without collapsing the state.

That is the kind of Africa into which people will confidently pour their talent and capital.

We already know that institutions matter. The unfinished question is whether enough capable people are willing to spend years doing the patient, often invisible work of building them. The work is slower than winning an election and less glamorous than launching a project. It involves rules, records, appointments, budgets, appeals, enforcement and repeated resistance to convenient exceptions.

But that is how a country becomes stronger than the person temporarily leading it.

Africa does not need to wait for perfect rulers. It needs leaders courageous enough to create institutions that can question them, correct them and eventually continue without them. The ruler will leave; the rule must remain.