Certainly, most of those sentenced to death by the kings of this empire over time, were the subjects driven by moral truth to raise objection on the immorality of monarchical rule both in its conceptual form and in its practices. In the official history books written under the royal commission or warrant of these kings by loyal opportunist authors, such men and women of conscience were portrayed as traitors to the crown and to the fatherland. We can deduce that if we recall these history books and have them reviewed by impartial editors, we might not be surprised to discover that those hitherto branded, maligned and persecuted as enemies of the people, were indeed the true leaders of our world.

Is it therefore right from the abridged historical facts to say that since the coming into being of kingdoms and empires on planet earth, the class of people who have been holding leadership positions in all societies are the heinous, despicable and detestable characters? Like many other perverted virtues and values of our world, it is obvious that the perversion of the concept of leadership that started with the warring hoodlums and that transformed hooligans and hired killers into royalties and noblemen, has stretched far and wide to corrupt the entire human race. The seed of this deadly virus has grown and like a deadly cancer, it has spread its tentacles into every cranny of our lives to corrupt every moral and spiritual value in human existence.

In our case study of the empire of Britain, we have found that those who emerged as political leaders were the military warlords of the king while the economic leaders were those drawn from the loyal group who got the royal warrant of approval from the king to sell and to buy in the kingdom. Understandably, it should be noted that only the trusted subjects in the good books of the crown courtiers could get recommendations to receive royal warrants to trade in the realm of the King. Similarly, the civic leaders were those subjects drawn from the turncoats or spies willing to betray the trusts of family and friends in return for royal titles and patronages. This is the history of contemporary leadership styles and practices in the world.

Therefore, we can infer that whatever we have in place on planet earth under any name - democracy or socialism or communism - is a mere disguise of the most unnatural, unethical and immoral practices ever created by the evil class of humankinds. Hence, we can recognise that the fundamental philosophy of leadership among all the civilized political ideologies of the world is one that came forth from a single evil vine. Simply, it is one cooked in the philosophy that believes in the ideology of 'might is right' and it is only under this barbaric belief that the scoundrels of the world can wield political, economic and religious powers.

The Age of Reformation

The above leadership arrangement was the commonly acceptable practice in Europe until the spirit of renaissance inspired creativity in science, architecture, poetry, sculpture, painting and political theory in the 14th century Italy. This epochal development paved the way for the thinkers of that period to challenge the status quo of power relationships firmly and ingenuously established between the 'spiritual' church and the political state. The awareness created and nurtured by the renaissance spirit that sought alternative ideas on the meaning of life took the cover off the age-long dogmas propagated by the church. This new awareness exposed the people of Europe to the fact that the realm of knowledge was deeper and wider than the propaganda of 'slavedom' the church was dishing out. The burst of renaissance enlightenment contributed immensely to the ensuing reformation of civic and political institutions of governance across Europe.

Most importantly, the creative processes in artistic and intellectual engagements that ush

ered in the renaissance era led to the invention of the printing press in Germany in the 1450s. The invention of the press further succeeded in exposing and eventually dissolving the exploitative symbiotic relationship between the Church and the sovereign crowns of Europe. Before the renaissance, the crown used the Church of Rome as cover to claim a divine political right to rule while the church used the crowns as its subordinate partners in crime as she also claimed a divine right to spiritual leadership and political power of the world.

The gain made from the invention of the printing press was the long overdue proliferation of the hitherto jealously concealed sacred holy books of the church into many reading hands in Europe. This was the first successful battle against the holy lies of the Church and her lying priests. The simple access that the thinkers of the society had to see and read the contents of the 'holy book' instantly cured them of their blindness. For the first time the enlightened ones saw the holy lies of the church for what they were - a park of evil exploitative mechanisms instituted by the priests for the oppressive manipulation of the simple-hearted, the gullible and the ignorant people of the world.

However, according to recorded history the result of the above development was a mild revolution that successfully eroded and took away a sizeable chunk of the political power held by the Roman Catholic Church. The mushrooming protesters of the Christian world gained a breath of fresh air of freedom; particularly, the freedom to interpret the Holy Scripture and to worship their God as the spirit moved them. In those regions of Europe where the Crowns were clever, the reigning kings quickly sided with the protesters to usurp the leadership of the protesting local Christians against Rome. The Church of England and other Crown-owned churches of Europe were the fall-out of the schism that followed the renaissance experience. The history of the establishment of the Church of England, a very prominent missionary in the civilizing business of Africa, is a fascinating story. It will not attract our attention in this dialogue but it is worthy of a review by all seekers of the truth of life.

Although, the printing press tarnished the claim of the Church to a universal divine right and power to rule, it inadvertently transferred these same rights and powers to the various Crowns of Europe. It took another one hundred years of vigorous agitation by all kinds of enlightened people of Europe before the fundamental rights of the people to liberty, equality and justice became popular agenda issues. It was the popularity of this new evolving philosophy developed, nurtured and promoted by thinkers and pamphleteers all across Europe on the moral and ethical concepts of fundamental rights of man that informed the British Civil War (1642-1649), the American War of Independence (1775-1781) and the French Revolution (1789-1794). These separate but intertwined upheavals on the moral question of leadership were the principal political events that fashioned the present civilization of the world.

The above is the genesis of how and where the moral and ethical values that informed the institutions of leadership in the world evolved. The role of hoodlums turned monarchs and their cohorts turned noblemen in the standardisation of societal values and cultures cannot be over emphasised. It therefore follows naturally that the standards defined and set by these believers in the faith of 'might is right' could not be different from their own innate murderous and avaricious natures. Consequently and in actual sense, from time immemorial the hoodlums in every society hijacked and captured the leadership positions of our world. Historical records showed that the colonialists brought this unnatural and heinous leadership practice to Africa. The colonial managers, schooled in the perversions established by their rulers, had no difficulty in transferring wholesale this kind of values and morality of leadership to Africa. We shall now attempt to focus attention on Africa as we trace the contribution of the colonial overlords to the emergence of modern leadership practices in Africa.

(To be continued)