*TO LEAD IS TO FORFEIT THE RIGHT TO MAKE EXCUSES*

*TO LEAD IS TO FORFEIT THE RIGHT TO MAKE EXCUSES*
By Oumar Farouk Sesay

“To lead is to forfeit the right to make excuses”A Quote attributed to young George Washington.
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There comes a point in every administration when yesterday ceases to be a sufficient explanation for today.

For Sierra Leone, that point should have arrived long ago.

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Eight years after President Julius Maada Bio assumed office, the Ernest Bai Koroma administration continues to occupy an extraordinary amount of space in explanations for the country’s present difficulties. When manifesto promises remain unfulfilled, when institutions underperform, when the economy falters or public expectations collide with disappointing outcomes, the rear-view mirror is frequently reached for. The previous government, we are told, left behind a difficult inheritance.

There may well be truth in that argument. Every government inherits something from its predecessor: debts, unfinished projects, dysfunctional institutions, entrenched interests, bad laws, good policies, bureaucratic habits and sometimes outright crises. No serious analysis of governance should pretend that a new president begins with an empty ledger.

But inheritance explains the starting point. It cannot indefinitely explain the destination.

That distinction is fundamental to leadership.

The quotation attributed to a young George Washington—“To lead is to forfeit the right to make excuses”—captures a principle larger than Washington himself. Leadership is ultimately an acceptance of responsibility for circumstances one did not necessarily create. Indeed, if circumstances were already perfect, leadership would hardly be required.

Governments are elected precisely because they claim to possess better answers to inherited problems. An opposition party campaigns by identifying what the incumbent has done wrong and persuading the electorate that it can do better. Victory therefore transforms accusation into obligation. The manifesto becomes more than campaign literature; it becomes a contract against which power must eventually be measured.

The moment you inherit the keys, you also inherit the problems.

This does not mean a president becomes responsible for creating every national difficulty. It means he becomes responsible for confronting it.

There is an important difference.

A doctor did not cause the patient’s illness, but once the patient enters his care, endlessly describing who caused the illness is no substitute for treatment. A captain may not have created the storm, but once he takes command of the vessel, passengers judge him by how he navigates it. Leadership begins where explanation ends and responsibility starts.

This is why eight years matter.

In the first months of an administration, the failures of a predecessor may legitimately constrain policy. In the first year, inherited debt, institutional weakness and unfinished programmes may remain powerful explanatory factors. Even several years later, structural problems can persist.

But time progressively transfers ownership.

After eight years, the question can no longer principally be: *What did Ernest Bai Koroma leave behind?*

It must increasingly become: *What has Julius Maada Bio done with what he inherited?*

That is not partisan hostility. It is the elementary arithmetic of democratic accountability.

Yet the habit of kicking the can backwards has become so embedded in our political culture that responsibility sometimes appears to travel everywhere except towards the person or institution currently exercising authority.

More troublingly, this culture is not confined to the government.

Within the opposition, failures, divisions and lost opportunities are similarly attributed to former leaders and chairmen. Defeat becomes somebody else’s inheritance. Internal weakness becomes somebody else’s conspiracy. Strategic mistakes are excavated from the past rather than confronted in the present.

Government blames the government before it.

The opposition blames the leadership before it.

Institutions blame the officials before them.

And gradually the country becomes a republic of inherited excuses.

This is dangerous because blame can become a substitute for management.

A government preoccupied with proving how badly its predecessor governed risks spending political energy explaining the past rather than changing the future. An opposition obsessed with identifying who surrendered power yesterday may fail to develop the organisation, policies and leadership required to regain public confidence tomorrow.

In both cases, the past becomes politically useful precisely because it cannot answer back.

Dead administrations cannot repair roads. Former ministers cannot manage today’s ministries. Retired party executives cannot organise tomorrow’s campaign. Previous presidents cannot sign today’s policies or supervise today’s officials.

Those powers belong to the people occupying those positions now.

And power without corresponding responsibility is one of the most dangerous distortions of leadership.

This culture of displaced responsibility can also travel downwards through institutions. A minister blames inherited systems. A department blames the ministry. An agency blames Parliament. Parliament blames constitutional ambiguities. Political parties blame their predecessors. Eventually everyone possesses an explanation and nobody possesses responsibility.

The result is institutional stagnation disguised as historical analysis.

History certainly matters. Ernest Bai Koroma’s government should be judged on its record, just as Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s should be judged on his, and Julius Maada Bio’s administration will ultimately be judged on its own. No government should be protected from scrutiny simply because another government came after it.

But accountability must have an address.

The purpose of studying yesterday’s failures should be to prevent their repetition, not to manufacture permanent alibis for today’s failures.

This is where progressive theories of leadership depart fundamentally from the politics of excuse. Transformational leadership asks what can be changed. Adaptive leadership asks how institutions respond to difficult realities. Servant leadership emphasises responsibility to those being led. Democratic leadership demands accountability for the exercise of entrusted power.

None rests comfortably on the proposition: *We failed because those before us failed first.*

The great leaders of history are rarely remembered because they inherited favourable circumstances. Many are remembered precisely because they did not.

Nelson Mandela inherited a country poisoned by apartheid. Franklin Roosevelt inherited the catastrophe of the Great Depression. Post-war leaders inherited ruined economies and shattered institutions. African independence leaders inherited states distorted by colonial rule. Their historical reputations ultimately rest not merely upon what they inherited, but upon what they attempted to make of that inheritance.

That is the burden—and privilege—of leadership.

Sierra Leone desperately needs to recover this ethic of responsibility across its political divide.

The government must accept that after eight years it owns not the origins of every national problem, but responsibility for its stewardship of them. The opposition must similarly accept responsibility for its present organisation, strategy and effectiveness rather than endlessly litigating the decisions of former leaders.

The same standard should descend through Parliament, ministries, councils, political parties and public institutions.

Leadership must once again mean: *the problem may not have begun with me, but responsibility for addressing it now rests with me.*

That single shift in political psychology would profoundly alter governance.

It would move national debate from *Who caused this*? to *Who will fix it?*

From *What did we inherit?*to *What will we leave behind?*
From accusation to accountability.

From explanation to action.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with looking backwards. A nation without memory repeatedly walks into the same traps. But the rear-view mirror was designed to help the driver navigate; it was never intended to become the windscreen.

Sierra Leone cannot be driven indefinitely while its leaders stare backwards.

Every government inherits yesterday.

Every opposition inherits its defeats.

Every leader inherits circumstances he did not create.

But leadership begins at precisely the moment when inheritance ceases to be an excuse.

Eight years into an administration, the central question is no longer simply what was inherited from Ernest Bai Koroma. It is what has been repaired, what has been transformed, what remains undone—and why.

And for those aspiring to replace the government, the question is no longer merely who lost power in the past, but what they are doing today to deserve it again.

That is the unforgiving bargain of leadership.

You may inherit the problem.

You may explain the problem.

You may even identify, correctly, who created the problem.

But once you accept the authority to solve it, you also accept responsibility for what happens next.

*To lead is to forfeit the right to make excuses.*