An opinion piece by a citizen who is tired of being governed by people who no longer believe in governing
There is a particular kind of political courage our leaders like to perform whenever they announce the privatisation of a state institution. They stand before cameras with the confidence of men and women who believe they are making history. They speak of reform. They speak of efficiency. They speak of investment, modernization, and “unlocking value.” Advisers surround them with charts. Economists quote theories. Consultants produce presentations filled with impressive language and complicated projections.
And somewhere outside that air-conditioned room stands the ordinary citizen, holding a question nobody in power seems willing to answer.
A painfully simple question.
If you, with all the authority of the state behind you, with ministers, laws, budgets, regulators, taxes, security services, policy experts, and the full machinery of government at your disposal, could not manage this institution, what exactly makes you believe that a private individual suddenly can?
That is the question.
And the fact that it is almost never asked seriously is one of the great silent scandals of modern governance.
Because privatisation, in many cases, is presented as vision when it is often confession. A confession of failure dressed in the language of reform.
Before we even discuss selling state assets, we must first remember why governments built them in the first place. States did not establish public enterprises merely out of ideology or political pride. They created them because certain services are too essential to be abandoned entirely to profit and market logic.
Water is not a luxury. Electricity is not a fashion accessory. Railways, healthcare, postal systems, energy, and telecommunications are not optional conveniences for the rich. They are the foundation of social and economic life. A child in a poor village deserves electricity no less than a businessman in an expensive neighbourhood. A remote community deserves clean water even if serving that community generates little profit.
That was the logic behind state enterprises.
The state stepped in because private business follows profit, and profit rarely follows the poor.
A private company will naturally prioritize areas that guarantee returns. That is not wickedness. That is business. Investors are not charities. Their responsibility is to shareholders, not necessarily to national equity or social justice. Government, however, is supposed to think differently. Government exists precisely to bridge the gap between profit and public need.
The state enterprise was therefore more than a company. It was a social promise.
A declaration that citizenship carried value even when wealth did not.
Which is why privatisation raises uncomfortable questions that go far beyond economics.
Because when government decides to privatise a struggling institution, what it is quietly admitting is not simply that the enterprise failed. It is admitting that governance failed.
Who supervised the institution all these years?
Who appointed incompetent boards?
Who filled technical positions with political loyalists?
Who tolerated corruption, waste, inflated contracts, ghost workers, and procurement abuse?
Who looked away while systems collapsed?
Government.
Always government.
And now, after overseeing years of decline, the same leadership returns to the public and says, in effect, “We cannot manage this. Let us hand it over to private interests.”
What exactly are citizens supposed to conclude from that?
Because if the state cannot govern institutions it created for the public good, then what remains of governance itself? What is government for if, every time something becomes difficult, the answer is to surrender it?
That is the deeper fear many ordinary people carry.
Privatisation increasingly feels less like reform and more like retreat.
A retreat from responsibility.
In some cases, governments behave almost like exhausted landlords abandoning buildings they neglected for decades. They underfund institutions, politicize management, weaken oversight, and allow inefficiency to grow unchecked. Then, when collapse becomes unavoidable, they suddenly rediscover the virtues of private-sector discipline.
It is a remarkable cycle.
Destroy.
Declare failure.
Sell.
And often, sell cheaply.
This is where suspicion enters the conversation. Because many privatisation exercises across Africa have not inspired confidence. Citizens have watched valuable state assets transferred into private hands under questionable terms. Sometimes the buyers are politically connected individuals. Sometimes foreign interests acquire strategic national infrastructure while citizens are assured that “competition” and “efficiency” will improve services.
Yet what often follows is familiar.
Prices increase.
Workers lose jobs.
Poor communities become less attractive to serve.
Accountability becomes harder because profit, not public welfare, becomes the primary language.
And the ordinary citizen is told this is progress.
But perhaps the greatest irony is this: governments rarely privatise their own comforts.
The fleets of luxury vehicles remain public.
The endless convoys remain public.
Political appointments continue expanding.
Government travel remains generous.
Ministerial privileges remain intact.
It is usually the institutions that serve ordinary people that are suddenly considered “unsustainable.”
One must ask whether the issue is truly inefficiency or simply misplaced priorities.
None of this is to suggest that state enterprises should remain inefficient forever. Reform is necessary. Waste cannot be defended. Corruption must be confronted. Institutions should be accountable and professionally managed. Some partnerships with private actors may indeed be useful and necessary.
But reform should begin with governance itself.
A government serious about public service should first ask harder questions of itself before rushing to privatise. Why did the institution fail under state supervision? Why were warning signs ignored? Why were professionals sidelined for political loyalists? Why was corruption tolerated until collapse became convenient?
Because if those questions remain unanswered, privatisation risks becoming nothing more than an elegant escape route for failed leadership.
And perhaps this is the real tragedy.
Modern governments increasingly want the authority of the state without the burden of governing. They want the prestige of power without the discipline of stewardship. They campaign as problem-solvers, but govern as managers of decline. Every difficult responsibility is outsourced. Every failing institution is handed over. Every collapse becomes an opportunity for another “bold reform.”
At some point, citizens must ask a deeper question.
If government no longer believes it can manage public institutions, then why should citizens continue believing in government itself?
Because leadership is not tested when things are easy. Leadership is tested precisely in the difficult work of fixing what is broken.
And if every challenge ends in surrender, then perhaps the problem was never the institutions.
Perhaps the problem was the leadership entrusted to protect them.