Building the Good Society in West Africa

Okechukwu Enelamah (Nigeria), Amina Oyagbola (Nigeria), Angela Lamensdorf Ofori-Atta (Ghana), Roland Akosah (Ghana), Omobola Johnson (Nigeria) perform African naming ceremony.

ALI/WA Class graduation photo

During The Promise of Leadership Seminar, the fourth and final seminar of the inaugural Africa Leadership Initiative (ALI)/West Africa class, 20 Ghanaian and Nigerian leaders met and discussed their personal legacies and their individual leadership projects, a key component of their 18-month Fellowships.

At the four-day seminar, the Fellows reported on the progress and success of their leadership projects. Among those benefiting Nigeria were a mid-career women’s mentoring program, a rape crisis center, and a mass financial literacy program to help the poorer majority. In Ghana, projects included a women’s business-skills development program, a youth leadership program, and a national identity campaign focused on Ghanaian values and citizenship.

Fellows also met in working groups to discuss personal leadership challenges and came up with recommendations for developing moral courage, helping their children to become effective enlightened leaders, focusing and decision making, and leveraging others to become more effective.

In a florid commencement celebration involving song, poetry, and an African naming ceremony, Fellows pledged to continue their efforts toward creating the good society and renamed their class the Totum Bonum class after Mortimer Adler’s The Time of our Lives, the Ethics of Common Sense.

“LEAP Africa is proud to have been part of this initiative and we look forward to celebrating the Fellows’ individual successes and collective impact in West Africa,” said Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, founding partner of ALI/West Africa and Founder of LEAP Africa.

In graduating from the formal proram, the ALI/West Africa Fellows join 600 other Fellows from 35 countries, all of whom together comprise the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN). AGLN Fellows have all completed either the Henry Crown Fellowship Program or a similar fellowship program that encourages Fellows to move from “success to significance” and put their creative ideas into action toward tackling the foremost challenges of our times.

ALI/West Africa was made possible through support from the Ford Foundation, UniCredit Bank of Italy, an anonymous donor, and through the partnership between Databank, LEAP Africa, and the Aspen Institute.