Telling our own story: Africa’s truth, leadership, and the edge of Ubuntu

Key topics:

• Storytelling as a tool of resistance and self-definition

• Ubuntu and ethical leadership in business and governance

• Africa’s shift from exploitation to regeneration and justice

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By Jay Naidoo*

The Power of Storytelling

At Constitution Hill yesterday, during the launch of Professor Bonang Mohale’s Coming in from the Cold, I was reminded that storytelling is not entertainment it is resistance. Bonang spoke with his trademark clarity, humour, and moral courage: As a successful businessman, a father, an author and a true patriot whose ethics and leadership should find its way into the heart of business and every corner of South Africa.

“There is nothing more powerful than a truth developed by evidence.”

In that simple phrase lies the ethic that could transform our continent. He reminded us that if we do not tell our own story, someone else will edit it for us. For centuries, Africa’s narrative has been miswritten our maps drawn smaller, our history reduced to suffering and dependency.

Yet Africa is not a tale of deficiency. It is a story of abundance of people whose resilience has survived conquest, corruption, and despair. The edge we feel when we write our own story comes from centuries of erasure. We are fighting for memory, dignity, and authorship.

A Place of Significance

Professor Mohale’s choice to launch his book at Constitution Hill was no accident. It was an act of courage and meaning. This sacred site, once a prison and now a beacon of democracy, reminds us that freedom is never static.

He called it “a place that talks to you” a chamber of conscience where the words We the People echo across generations. Our Constitution, he said, is not simply 128 clauses of law, but a living instrument of liberation. It affirms three truths: that we chose democracy, that we stand for social justice, and that we are bound by fundamental human rights — especially the freedom from hunger.

Those words struck me deeply. They speak to the soul of Ubuntu. They remind us that peace is not the silence of guns; it is the presence of dignity, nourishment, and fairness.

Bonang’s decision to root his book in this space of remembrance and rebirth is a declaration: our leadership must be accountable to the people; our progress must serve humanity; and our moral compass must be anchored in justice.

From Extraction to Regeneration

Africa stands at a moral crossroads. We are rich in minerals but poor in justice. The Democratic Republic of Congo, home to 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, holds enough natural wealth to power the planet, yet its people still walk barefoot upon that treasure.

This contradiction is not destiny it is design: a system that measures progress by profit and ignores the suffering it leaves behind. Professor Mohale’s warning is clear:

“When values collide with profits, values must triumph every single time.”

If we allow the market to be our only compass, we will continue to consume the continent’s future for short-term gain. But if we root our entrepreneurship in Ubuntu: I am because we are then business becomes a sacred act of service: regenerating land, creating livelihoods, and building communities that endure.

Evidence, Ethics, and the G20 Moment

As the G20 convenes on African soil for the first time, the world’s leaders must hear a different story, not one of charity or crisis, but of moral innovation.

We need a global economy built on evidence and ethics, on the living proof that when communities rise together, the planet heals. We must witness this truth daily: soil restored through care, youth empowered through education, and communities strengthened through cooperation.

Africa’s greatest export should not be raw materials; it should be moral imagination. We hold the wisdom traditions, the ecological knowledge, and the social spirit to lead a planetary renewal. The world speaks of sustainability; Ubuntu has lived it for millennia.

The Soul of Leadership and Fatherhood

Before the event closed, Bonang spoke not as a chancellor or corporate leader, but as a father. He shared how he listens for the voice of his own children three times a day, a ritual of remembrance that keeps him anchored in love.

He spoke of his daughters and nephews, of teaching by example, and of how children learn not from what you say but from what you do. He laughed that his students at Wits may call him “Chancellor,” but at home he’s reminded to “put the milk in the fridge.”

It was a disarming truth: leadership begins at home. In being fully present with our children, we teach them the discipline of care, the courage of authenticity, and the beauty of belonging.

When he said, “Imagine if we can raise our children to know who they are,” the room fell silent. That, after all, is the essence of Ubuntu, knowing that our identity is rooted in one another.

The Courage to Write Our Own Story

Listening to him, I was reminded of my own longing to feel what I once felt when I first discovered love, and when I first understood that telling our story is an act of liberation.

He spoke of stoking the curiosity mirrors the spirit of our continent’s youth. I wanted them to feel that their stories matter, that they are not defined by poverty, geography, or the labels others impose.

I come from a small village, from the dust of our past, and I have learned that the greatest freedom is not political but personal, to be able to say, My story matters, and I will tell it myself.

That is the power we must give our children: the courage to speak, to question, to imagine, and to rise. Because if we do not write our stories, others will  and they will diminish us.

But when we tell our truth - in love, in dignity, in faith - we set ourselves free.

*Jay Naidoo
Elder | Sacred Activist
Founding General Secretary of COSATU | Minister in President Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet
He writes on leadership, Ubuntu, and the moral architecture of a living economy.