Public debates about municipal governance always focus on what is wrong.
For example, poor performance, governance and service delivery failures, instead of what is working or existing strengths.
Recent community protests over the coronation of a Nigerian king in KuGompo City, bring governance questions about leadership, authority and accountability to the fore.
What if these moments of tension are not only showing us signs of a breakdown but also signal untapped capacity and active citizenry?
My master’s research examined corporate governance at Buffalo City Metro (BCM), through asset-based, stakeholder-centric and systems thinking perspectives.
While these theoretical concepts come from academic literature, they offer practical ways of interpreting what we are currently seeing.
An asset-based perspective encourages municipalities to look beyond deficits and recognise existing strengths.
In this instance, public protests can be understood differently, as organised, motivated and conscientised communities, people who care enough to voice their concerns and demand accountability.
This is not a weakness but a form of civic pride and social capital that, if properly engaged, can contribute to more participatory and responsive governance in the municipality.
A stakeholder-oriented perspective highlights the importance of relationships.
Municipalities do not govern alone. They operate alongside communities, civil society, businesses and, importantly, traditional leaders.
The confusion around who should have taken the lead in addressing the coronation issue beforehand points to a gap not just in authority, but in co-ordination and mutual recognition.
Where these relationships are clear and functional, they can help mediate tensions, improve communication and ensure that cultural and governance issues are handled effectively.
When communities resort to protest, it often signals that existing channels of stakeholder engagement are not working.
Strengthening those channels through meaningful consultation, transparency and feedback can transform confrontation into collaboration.
Finally, systems thinking reminds us that these challenges are interconnected.
For example, the recent protests cannot be reduced to a single cause.
They were driven by various underlying factors, such as perceived cultural disrespect, weak enforcement of immigration laws, socioeconomic insecurity and competition over limited opportunities.
Protesters themselves have pointed out governance concerns regarding weak or slow government response to their concerns about crime and illegal migration.
From a systems perspective, this suggests that such tensions are not isolated events, but symptoms of deeper governance and co-ordination challenges.
Addressing them effectively requires co-ordinated responses across government spheres.
It calls for a clearer alignment between community concerns, law enforcement, local leadership and governance processes.
Taken together, these three perspectives suggest that improving municipal governance is not only about fixing what is broken.
It is also about recognising existing strengths, building solid relationships with communities and understanding how the system as a whole operates.
It is also fair to acknowledge the strength displayed by BCM in playing a co-ordination role by connecting different actors across “the system” — the residents, community and traditional leaders, provincial and national government — which helped in reducing the escalation and channelled tensions into more structured forms of engagement.
However, from a systems perspectives, the underlying reasons for tensions do not appear to have been fully addressed.
Therefore, a paradigm shift is needed from reactive engagement to continuous, community-based governance practices.
This could include strengthening local dialogue platforms (such as, ward committees, intercultural forums and civic organisations) as standing spaces for ongoing dialogue, building on local activism by investing in training “activists” as community facilitators and mediators who can translate across cultural and political divides.
These platforms could help in building strong community voices in municipal governance and provide feedback loops, ensuring that concerns raised by residents actively influence municipal decisions to rebuild trust over time.
Finally, addressing root causes requires co-ordinated action beyond BCM alone, linking local governance with provincial and national actors on issues such as migration, economic inclusion and social cohesion, so that tensions are not merely managed in moments of crisis but worked through as part of an ongoing governance system.
Otherwise, underlying tensions will simply resurface.
Sometimes, the most useful insight is not just how to resolve a crisis, but what that crisis reveals about the system itself.
If the system only listens when it is under pressure, it is not governance but damage control.
When governance becomes damage control, the system drifts from one crisis to another, eroding trust and deepening divisions.
Communities are an important asset in governance.
Recognising and acting on their voices makes the ideals of “Abantu baya kulawula” a reality and not just a slogan.
Phumeza Skoti is a governance and economic development scholar and a strong advocate for asset-based community development and systems thinking approaches. She writes in her personal capacity.
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