Farooq Kperogi  : Why Moghalu’s exit from ASG matters for Africa

When former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) deputy governor Professor Kingsley Moghalu was appointed last year as the inaugural President and Vice Chancellor of the Kigali-based African School of Governance (ASG), I celebrated the news with effusive optimism.

I thought it was a great opportunity for Africa to nurture a new generation of leaders under the guidance of a thinker and practitioner whose career had consistently combined intellectual rigor with pragmatic vision.

In the October 21, 2024, article I wrote to celebrate his appointment, I wrote: “With Kingsley at the vanguard, I believe ASG is poised to be more than just a school. It will become a beacon for all of Africa that will cultivate the next generation of leaders who will redefine governance and public policy across the continent.”

I was not alone in this hopeful expectation. Many of us saw ASG as a chance to replicate, in Africa, the success of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, incidentally ASG’s strategic partner.

But scarcely a year into his five-year tenure, Moghalu abruptly announced his resignation. “After several months of toiling in the vineyard of a historic assignment, I will be departing from my role as President & Vice-Chancellor of African School of Governance – ASG,” he wrote on July 29, 2025, in a social media statement.

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The announcement stunned observers. Why would a man who had invested his reputation and intellectual energy in a promising institution walk away so quickly?

The official explanation was disappointingly evasive. In a statement signed by Hailemariam Desalegn, former Ethiopian Prime Minister and Chairman of the ASG Governing Board, the school only offered sadly familiar platitudes: “The African School of Governance (ASG) was founded to provide a platform… to train a new African generation of ethical leaders grounded in the values of humility, servant leadership, integrity, and inclusivity. We thank Professor Moghalu for his service and wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Noticeably absent was any substantive reason for his departure.

When I hosted Moghalu on our monthly “Diaspora Dialogues” podcast last Saturday, I asked him directly why he resigned, but he declined to go beyond what he had already shared on social media, pointing instead to his public statement and that of ASG.

Yet, even in silence, words speak. His statement delicately referenced “challenges regarding corporate governance and institutional and academic autonomy.” Paired with ASG’s coldly impersonal farewell, the implication that jumped out at me is that Moghalu’s departure was not voluntary whim but the culmination of principled disagreements.

Two things, however, are beyond dispute. First, Moghalu’s impact on ASG in less than a year was undeniable. Testimonials have poured in from participants in the school’s inaugural “Transforming Countries” program and from leaders across the continent.

Former Nigerian Information Minister Frank Nweke, African Union Ambassador to Washington Hilda Suka Mafudze, Liberian parliamentarian Taa Wongbe, and many others attested to his transformative leadership. He gave the fledgling institution credibility, direction, and gravitas.

Second, the divergence between his statement and ASG’s carefully sanitized one suggests deep fault lines. Moghalu alluded to structural issues (corporate governance, institutional autonomy, academic independence) that strike at the very core of what such an institution must embody. This contrast evokes an old truth: in Africa, visionary ideas often stumble on the hard rocks of vested interests.

And management theorist Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If ASG indeed undermined its own governance culture, then Moghalu’s exit is less about one man and more about a structural failure.

Was he brought in as a respected face to lend legitimacy to an enterprise whose true agenda diverged from its lofty mission? Did he refuse to play along with backroom interests that sought to subordinate academic autonomy to political or personal whims? We may never know the answers to these questions, but they demand rumination.

If an institution founded to champion integrity, inclusivity, and servant leadership cannot embody these very values in its governance, what hope does it have of producing the ethical leaders Africa so desperately needs?

The irony is hard to miss. ASG’s governing board is stacked with some of the most distinguished African and global figures: Donald Kaberuka, former President of the African Development Bank; Makhtar Diop, current Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation; Professor Hajer Gueldich, former Legal Counsel of the African Union; Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School; and Francis Gatare, Senior Advisor in Rwanda’s Presidency.

With such luminaries at the helm, one would expect robust governance and independence, not disputes over “corporate governance and academic autonomy.”

So, what went wrong? Scholars of governance point to three common pitfalls: phantom boards that exist only in name, rubber-stamping decisions without real oversight; boards dominated by their chairs, turning colleagues into mere ornaments; and boards handpicked by CEOs, rendering them unable to check excesses.

The third pitfall is unlikely here. Moghalu was a recruit, not the founder, and had no power to select or shape the board. That leaves the possibility of either a nominal board or one suffocated by its chair.

Interestingly, Moghalu himself was once central to restoring corporate governance in Nigeria’s banking sector after the 2008–2009 financial crisis. As CBN deputy governor, he helped clean up reckless practices that had nearly collapsed the industry. That a man with such pedigree would resign over governance failures at ASG underscores how dire the problem must have been.

Whatever the exact details, Moghalu’s departure should jolt us into confronting a recurring African tragedy: the chasm between vision and execution, between the rhetoric of reform and the reality of power politics. Institutions designed to embody excellence are too often hamstrung by fragile egos, compulsive control, and short-term interests.

This is not merely about Moghalu. It is about what kind of institutions we are capable of building. If ASG, endowed with international partnerships, global visibility, and an A-list board, cannot protect its independence, what hope exists for less celebrated African initiatives?

As we reflected on this issue with my friend Professor Moses Ochonu, who teaches African History at Vanderbilt University, we agreed that we need a bold alternative: a truly independent, private-sector-driven, pan-African institute for leadership training.

Unlike ASG, such a body would not be beholden to governments, political patrons, or a single foreign donor. It would draw from the intellectual reservoirs of Africans at home and in the diaspora, free from the suffocating influence of political egos.

Imagine an institute located in a neutral hub such as Arusha, Tanzania, a place with symbolic resonance as the site of the Arusha Accords and the East African Community headquarters. Such an institution could embed shared governance, institutional autonomy, and academic independence into its DNA. It could model, not just teach, the principles it seeks to impart.

Who better to spearhead such an initiative than Kingsley Moghalu himself? His experience at ASG, though brief, has given him unique insight into both the promise and the pitfalls of such projects. Freed from constraints, he could help build an institution that truly embodies the ideals Africa needs.

Skeptics might shrug and say this is an internal squabble at an obscure school. They would be wrong. The battle over ASG’s soul is emblematic of a larger struggle: whether Africa will build institutions strong enough to outlive individuals and insulated enough to resist political capture.

If Africa is to rise beyond rhetoric, it must confront the uncomfortable truth that too many of our organizations collapse under the pressure of vested interests. Visionary leaders are often co-opted, silenced, or discarded when they resist.

Moghalu’s exit dramatizes this reality. But it also offers a chance for reinvention. If the continent can learn from this moment and commit to creating leadership institutes immune to political interference, we may yet cultivate a generation of leaders who will not only speak integrity but live it.

Kingsley Moghalu’s sudden departure from ASG is a disappointment, but it should not be the death knell of the dream that gave birth to the school. Instead, it should be a wake-up call. The values of corporate governance, institutional autonomy, and academic independence are not luxuries; they are the very foundations of credible leadership training.

The next step is to build institutions that embody these values without compromise. Moghalu may have lost ASG, but Africa has not lost Moghalu. If anything, his principled exit makes him an even more compelling candidate to lead a new, independent effort to shape the continent’s leaders.

Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism