Tenga's "Lesson" and Its Implications...

Recently, THIS DAY newspaper ran a story under the headline "Tenga "wiser" after German stint" [ Read the article here]. In brief, the story was giving an account of what Leodegar Tenga, the TFF boss, learned from his experience at the World Cup tournament, currently hosted by Germany.

What drew my attention to the story, which I thought was worth musing on, was the fact that the "lessons" that Mr. Tenga learned were just basic ideas, proving my previous cry that we truly lack quality leadership in almost all "public" institutions.

In his own words, this is what Mr. Tenga learned from Germany: "...I learned that staging a big event is not a one-man show. To make it a success, you need to form several committees with strick instructions to follow".

Well, I do have respect for Tenga, for under his leadership TFF has done well in comparison to what Ndolanga's leadership was all about. Nonetheless, the above observation makes me wonder : Does Mr. Tenga really know what he is doing at TFF? Is he capable of leading that organization to achieve its objectives? How does Mr. Tenga run things at TFF?

See, the reason I am asking those questions is due to the fact that the organization of the World Cup tournament didn't bring anything new to the principles of leadership. Just like any event, I am convinced the organisers just applied the principles that we already have. Those principles should be known to anyone who calls himself or herself a leader, especially a leader of an organization such as TFF.

The application of those principles, whether formally or informally, is done in all walks of life, even in Bongo. As such, Mr. Tenga didn't have to go all the way to Germany to learn those principles. For instance, just observe how ulaji is organized during weddings in Bongo. Committees are formed and specific assignments are delegated to committee members. There are folks assigned to make sure that unywaji will be adequate and the DJ will show up, for instance. So if the highlight of what Mr. Tenga learned in Germany is how to organize events, then I wonder if he has adequate leadership qualities to run TFF. It just depicts how pathetic our leadership condition is in Tanzania.

I don't like to dwell my blog too much on quality leadership, but I believe that lack of it has been one of the MAIN reasons Bongoland is still lagging behind other African nations. Angola's population is roughly 14 million, while that of Togo is around 5 million (compare that to a whopping 38 million "thinking" heads in Bongoland), but those folks managed to participate in the World Cup finals. The main reason for their success, I believe, is because they have nailed down some basic scientific leadership principles, not Bagamoyo "principles".

If Mr. Tenga didn't learn anything new in Germany other than fundamental principles, then mark this reality - Bongoland will never participate in the World Cup finals, ever.