In assessing the 2, you ought to look at the environments they operated in

Mandela in the post cold war democracy era and Mwalimu in the cold war era when you could be an autocrat and be protected by your East/West powers you bowed down to

Nyerere's neighbours were land grabber Kenyatta and infamous dictator Amin

Both were good, well-intentioned men. Not devoid of serious mistakes though.

- Nyerere failed on the economic front. And about the claims of Tanzania being a stable society due to ujamaa, I disagree. Its been a one party country for the last 50+ years. Tanzania's unity is untested just like Kenya was before the beginning of Kanu's collapse. The day the country will overcome socio-econ-political disagreements that threaten to split the country almost in half is the day I'll be convinced. Tanzania is just like Rwanda - a procrastinated problem. Members of opposition are routinely beaten and detained. Its not as rosy as many think and could explode in future as CCM's clout reduces.

- Mandela failed to address the enormous land dispossession of his people. To this day, 70% of South African land is still in the hands of White South Africans despite Whites comprising less than 10% of the population. And this is not likely to be corrected anytime soon. To make matters worse, 90% of key companies are white-owned. And South Africa being a relatively mature market means there is little opportunity for small black-owned companies to compete. BEE wont do much. That's why I predict a major socio-politial implosion in the not too distant future. And Mandela will have to shoulder a huge part of the responsibility for that. In fact, 30 years from now, Zimbabwe will be by far the more stable country. And I wouldn't take the Nobel Prize too seriously as a barometer of achievement especially outside the sciences. The peace prize is a joke most of the time.

herdsboy, Mandela was at the helm for 5yrs only. Was his govt opening brothels or giving thugs guns? Doesn't sound fair to blame him for HIV rates

The question was about the better between the 2(comparative) not the best in Africa(superlative).

The best in Africa should be Sankara. The west would rather we forget him

Good points!!

Dear Wazuans,

Thank you very much for your comments. I have learned a lot from this. I especially want to comment on @Lolest's take that sometimes people are a beneficiary/victim of the environment that surrounds them. Thus Nyerere could not do but shine when his neighbors were dictator Amin and autocrat old Jomo. I had not thought about this. But this still misses something, I think. See next post for my final spin on this.

As for those who insist that Sankara was a greater man than either Julias or Nelson, I disagree. Sankara, like Lumumba, and Jesus before them, was a beneficiary of conflated time. Simply, he did not live long enough to make the mistakes that would have revealed him as human.

Sankara also fell in the typification of the romantic revolutionary/hero worship, largely driven by women and impressionable young men, a la Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez et al.

My last on this (promise).

I like the point that Mandela was a media created hero, like Mugabe and partly Nyerere were medial created villains. That could be so. But I think it is only part of the story. The media often latches on to something only when there is a groundswell of mass alignment, and that often only for a time. Otherwise old Jomo, Kimathi and the young Mandela would have died as villains.

There is a saying that 'Language is merely a dialect with an army.' Similarly effective media is a Newspaper or TV station with a powerful economy behind it. The media writes history but only from the perspective of those who win.

Tycho. Wow! This makes a lot of sense and a pretty strong case for Nyerere too. Are you in political science?

But, you know what, in the bigger scheme of things it odes not really matter who is greater.

Africa today has a poverty of heros and this has been doing serious harm to the growth aspirations of our young. We need as many heros as we can get. Otherwise basing our generational aspirations on the worship of gangster rapers and crooked politicians as role models will not take us very far.

As for leadership, while I fully subscribe to your definition above, I have another take (of course).

Many years ago I remember reading a book (I forget the title) that every society calls from among itself the kind of leader they need to overcome a particular challenge. Thus there will never be another Mandela, Nyerere, Lumumba, Sankara etc, largely because the challenges they were called upon to help us through are gone or radically changed.

Based on this then I would define leadership simply as the capacity to step forward and respond positively to the call of an age.

What is the most pressing call of our age today?

The coining of the FAKE term "African Socialism" the misunderstanding of language and political dispositions and the pursuant effort by African leaders including Jaramogi Odinga, Kwame Nkurumah, Nyerere, Obote to re-institute this non-existent "African Socialism" has been one of the biggest problems to bedevil Africa, i dare say the single most obstacle to African development, because it unknowingly lured them to communism/socialist tendencies, a simple failure in understanding English. There was nothing like African Socialism but there existed highly "socially integrated" African communities, note the difference, because such a small difference in understanding has led to several problems for Africa today. The communities swing from non-democratic/hereditary chiefdom's, kingdoms e.t.c, to democratic councils in other cases. My community for example were socially integrated (by choice), but CAPITALISTIC, and DEMOCRATIC with overwhelming respect for private property and individual freedom having escaped several times from slavery, their philosophy directed them to these ideas of freedom which rule the world today. The fact that they harvested and tilled land together does not mean that they did not separate each Murimis harvest/planting, there was no communal ironsmith, but barter trade with the "Murimi" (planter) and "Muturi" (ironsmith) saw him earn his keep, you chose where to take your apprenticeship at an early age, when the young were circumcised the saying "if you can't slaughter a goat you will slaughter a rat" pointed to individual capabilities of the parents, talk of the Kiamas (occupational groups) of hunters (athis) and Gitongas (rich folk) and their leaders, talk of the entertainers (kiama ki nkoma/ group of the nutcases) and the competitive democtratic appointment of the best from childhood to old age (mwongera of Moi age) into these groups. Yes the African system needs to be rebuilt, but not through uninformed/fake conceptions of "African Socialism". Talking of African socialism is calling Africans politically stupid in a certain sense.

Kibaki will be remembered as a weak leader who failed his country during periods of crisis. Post election violence and anglo leasing is his legacy.

Maybe Mandela falls under the same time context. At the helm for 5 years only during transition.