Sunday Bassey: French President Macron, sit-tight African Presidents: Lessons for Nigeria

It is becoming increasingly bothersome for one to reconcile oneself with the hypes within some media circles about Mr. Emmanuel Macron’s relatively young age as President of France. Could this have been caused by the fact that African leadership particularly is annoyingly replete with frail looking septuagenarians, octogenarians and nonagenarians, who just lumber, or limp, rather than walk around as Presidents?
What’s the issue? Macron is 39 going to 40! A quadragenarian cannot be said to be too young to handle any responsibility in life, including the leadership of a country. Let no one forget that Macron has been one young man born under the influence of a serendipitous star, and endowed to see, handle, climb and conquer any intimidating mountain that his age mates would be too trepidatious to even dream of moving close to. In a sense, Macron was a child prodigy in his own unique way.
Naturally ingrained conquistador’s psyche, if found in sufficient quantums in an individual, has the rare automotive force to drive the individual through extraordinary challenges that people, without it, can never wade through. And Macron seems to have a generous dose of it in his genes, although, many have argued that the conqueror stuff is rather in Madame Brigitte Trogneux, another man’s wife, and his former drama teacher, who would become his all-purpose coach and wife. Read more