THE president died laughing. Even as the angry young soldier broke from the parade shouting profanities and pumping bullets into his heart, he warned: "Don't do anything silly my son!"

And then he was dead. A pile of broken bones and a porridge of bloody flesh. Bleeding evidence of a vengeful assassination.

Until that morning in October 1981 when he was killed, Anwar Sadat, the third president of Egypt, believed what his loyal supporters told him, that he was "The last Pharaoh".

As the last of the Pharaohs, he believed he was "a brother to the moon and a cousin to the sun".

He dismissed warnings of his impending kamikaze-type killing by Al-Jihadist militants with the words: "Egyptians are my children; they will not harm their father."

So blind to danger and common wisdom was Sadat, he believed he was above humanity.

Sadat's tragic story might sound like Egyptian folklore, but it is a tale of how in Africa we elevate our political leaders to the status of saints, living legends and gods.

With sycophantic flattery and hyperbolic praises, we transform otherwise promising leaders into human deities that they forget that they are fallible beings who have to account to the electorate and their fellow citizens.

No wonder Idi Amin the late Ugandan despot believed he was "the last king of Scotland" when in reality he was just busy at work, dragging a promising African country down, dancing and laughing as he did so.

Among Amin's flatterers were university professors and journalists.

Nelson Mandela has been so effectively godified and saintified that his very role in letting apartheid criminals against humanity go scot-free and allowing only political apartheid to go while economic apartheid remained intact has remained unspoken of in public discourse.

In publishing a revealing book, The Young Mandela, in which Mandela the womaniser and wife beater who did not only work with political legends like Lillian Ngoyi, but also frequently bedded them, stands up.

Brave journalist David Smith had to justify his courageous narrative as an attempt "to rescue Mandela from the dry pages of history" and present him as flesh and blood.

It is largely because of the saintification of Mandela that the ANC is embarrassed by Julius Malema's proposal for the nationalisation of mines and redistribution of wealth.

Malema's screams about economic apartheid indirectly point out Mandela's unfinished assignment of liberating blacks from apartheid.

South African political debate suffers a severe collapse in that the subject of Mandela having done a poor job remains an area where even the brave among thought leaders fear to venture.

For all his crimes against humanity and dark record in Zimbabwe, minister Tony Gara once publicly declared that "Mugabe is a true son of God". Several other ministers and supporters have called Mugabe many biblical titles, from Jesus Christ himself to Moses.

Sadly, Mugabe himself seems to believe the exaggerations.

An enterprising sangoma, Rotina Mavhunga, in 2009 took advantage of Mugabe's superstitious beliefs by claiming the ancestors were sending him pure diesel from under the mountains of Chimanimani.

She mounted a tank full of the liquid on top of the mountain and connected some tubing which simulated a gush of diesel from under the soil.

Before the trick was exposed, Mugabe showered her with cars and farming land. While she rots in Mugabe's jail, she exposed to the world just how deluded Mugabe has become.

For a man with seven university degrees to be that removed from reality is tragic. Pity the poor Zimbabweans are being led by such a man.

Other commentators have called this habit of Africans to turn their leaders into gods "the dear leader mentality" or "dear father syndrome". It has led to many political tragedies and disasters.

Free from any criticism or censure, Joshua Nkomo of Zimbabwe, believing the title of "Father Zimbabwe" that he was given, exposed his supporters to genocide.

Nkomo effectively disarmed and disbanded his Zipra armed wing in the name of Zimbabwean unity and nationalism.

At the same time Mugabe was training an ethnic militia which massacred defenceless civilians in one of Africa's still unresolved genocides.

So blinded was Nkomo by his high-sounding name that he could not see Mugabe plotting ethnic cleansing right under his nose.

Even as his Ujamaa economic and social policies were stripping Tanzania down to poverty from 1976 to 1986 and Julius Nyerere was preaching his infamous thinking that "democracy is a luxury that we cannot afford", the Tanzanians called him Mwalimu, meaning a wise teacher.

While it is true that Nyerere was teaching something, it is false that there was any wisdom in it.

Up to now Tanzania has still not recovered fully from Nyerere's toxic teachings.

Clearly, in Africa we mould our leaders into gods through hyperbolic praise singing and sycophantic flattery.

The weak-minded among them tend to believe the exaggerated praises and turn into impossible tyrants answerable only to themselves.

The truth dies every time a leader's mistakes and weaknesses are not criticised.

We need to invest our support in strong institutions and constitutions that will protect us from the excesses of politicians.

• An opinion piece written by William Mpofu is a media, journalism and public relations consultant.