Across much of Africa, it's a familiar story: yesterday's reformer becomes today's ruler—and tomorrow's problem. From Nigeria to Zimbabwe, Kenya to South Africa, many of the continent's current leaders built their political identities as critics of authoritarian regimes, colonial legacies, or military dictatorships.

But once in power, they reproduce—often intensify—the very dynamics they once opposed.

This is not merely hypocrisy. It's a systemic phenomenon with measurable patterns. And psychology offers a useful lens: the Solomon Paradox.

Understanding the Solomon Paradox

Coined by researchers at the University of Waterloo, the Solomon Paradox refers to the tendency for individuals to reason more wisely about other people's problems than their own. The name comes from the biblical Solomon—renowned for his wisdom in judging others, but fatally blind in managing his own household and kingdom.

Applied to politics, the paradox helps explain why activists, once clear-eyed about systemic injustice, lose that clarity when the system becomes their own. The cognitive distance that enabled sharp critique collapses once they're inside the machinery of power.

From Anti-System to System Maintenance

Many African political actors gain legitimacy by critiquing entrenched elites or failed governments. Their moral authority rests on their distance from power. But once they cross the threshold into office, they encounter a political machine structured for survival, not transformation.

In Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and elsewhere, the postcolonial state still bears the architecture of control—hierarchical, ceremonial, and heavily dependent on patronage. The British, French, and Portuguese colonial powers designed these states to extract resources and maintain order, not to serve citizens or foster development.

"The colonial state was never designed to develop—it was designed to control. When we inherited these structures at independence, we changed the faces but not the fundamentals." — Research from the African Centre for Strategic Studies

When incoming reformers inherit these institutions, they rarely dismantle them. Instead, they adapt—sometimes reluctantly, sometimes eagerly. They learn to trade appointments for loyalty, expand bureaucracies to secure votes, and suppress dissent in the name of national unity.

Governance as Performance

One persistent legacy of colonial rule is the performance of governance without its substance. In much of Anglophone Africa, the language of government remains grandiose—"His Excellency," "Distinguished Senator," "Permanent Secretary." The ceremonies remain; the state becomes theatre.

Meanwhile, substantive reforms stall. Consider Nigeria's Oronsaye Report—a comprehensive 2012 recommendation to streamline ministries, eliminate duplicate agencies, and reduce administrative waste. Despite promises from three successive administrations, it has remained "under review" for over a decade, even as the number of federal agencies more than doubled.

Why do these reforms consistently fail? Because enacting structural change means shrinking the very system that sustains political survival. The civil service isn't just a workforce—it's a constituency. In countries where formal private sector employment is limited, government jobs represent economic lifelines for millions of families.

The Structural Trap

This reveals the deeper challenge facing African reformers: the political incentive structure actively rewards expansion over efficiency. Electoral mathematics often favor leaders who can distribute the most jobs, contracts, and access—not those who deliver the best services.

Research by the Centre for Democratic Development shows that in Ghana's 2020 elections, swing constituencies with higher public employment rates were more likely to vote for the incumbent party. Similar patterns emerge across the continent, where political survival depends on maintaining complex patronage networks.

The Limits of Moral Leadership

This is the deeper lesson of the Solomon Paradox: wisdom is situational. The clarity of the outsider is not easily retained once inside. The same activist who once demanded transparency must now navigate opaque networks to stay in office. The dissident who once decried state violence now inherits a security apparatus designed for suppression, not service.

And this is precisely where many analyses of African leadership fall short: by assuming that the problem is purely one of character—bad people in good offices—rather than examining how institutional design shapes behavior.

Beyond Reform: Toward Political Leapfrogging

If we accept that many state systems on the continent were designed for control rather than development, then incremental reform within existing structures may not be sufficient. We may need to leapfrog outdated models entirely.

Just as Africa skipped landlines and adopted mobile phones at scale, it can bypass some stages of Western bureaucratic evolution. This isn't techno-utopianism—it's strategic pragmatism based on what's already working.

These innovations offer parallel pathways—ways to shift accountability and service delivery outside traditional bureaucratic channels. They don't eliminate politics, but they can reduce opportunities for capture and create new forms of transparency.

Building Systems That Outlast Personalities

The tragedy of African politics is not just that good people become corrupted by bad systems. It's that good systems were never properly built in the first place. Most African constitutions focus heavily on limiting executive power but provide few mechanisms for continuous citizen engagement between elections.

The Solomon Paradox reminds us that intentions alone are insufficient. We need structural designs that outlast personalities—and engagement models that equip citizens, not just leaders, with meaningful decision-making power.

A Practical Path Forward

The choice facing Africa in the coming decade is stark: continue patching colonial-era institutions that were never designed for development, or build new tools altogether. The technology exists. The successful models are emerging. What's needed now is the political will to implement them at scale.

This doesn't mean abandoning democracy—it means building better democratic infrastructure. Systems that make transparency automatic, that distribute power more widely, and that create real accountability between elections, not just during them.

The activists-turned-leaders who disappoint us aren't necessarily bad people. They're often good people trapped in bad systems. Our job is to build better systems—ones that channel good intentions toward better outcomes.

Because in the end, the goal isn't to find perfect leaders. It's to create institutions that help imperfect leaders govern well.