The study provides the empirical evidence which supports the argument that bad governance and corruption are symptoms of leadership and institutional failure in African countries. We find that leadership changes are either frequent or infrequent, and in both cases, these leaders prefer to govern where institutions are very weak or do not exist, so that they will not be accountable for their corrupt behavior and abuse of office. With the absence of effective checks and balances, corruption continues unabated over the past four or more decades. From visual inspection of corruption data for the continent, we observe that many countries transitioned into highly-corrupt nation-states in recent years. Our empirical results confirm not only the weaknesses of these institutions in controlling corruption but also the lingering effects of institutionalized corruption in many African countries.
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