| Dikembe Mutombo Tasks African Leaders: Speak Up in Time! |
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| Tuesday, 22 August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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LAOLU AKANDE NEW YORK August 21, 2006 photo credit:Oyiza Adaba At 7.2 feet tall, US-based African basketball star, Dikembe Mutombo, may have a unique vision and perspective and from that seeming Olympian height, he takes a hard look at the African continent. His verdict is that African leaders need to become the true spokesmen of the continent. He added that Nigerian leadership in Africa is important because many Africans are looking up to Nigeria.  Mutombo, 40-year old Congolese-born basketball star here in the United States, spoke to this reporter last week in New York as he made final preparations to open next month a $29m Hospital and medical research center that he has built in Kinshasa. He put down $15m of his own money to build the hospital and got donors including other US basketball stars and the US Congress to make up the balance. Mutombo is currently playing for Houston Rockets, the same team where Nigerian-born Hakeem Olajuwon rose to sports stardom in the US. In fact Mutombo refers to Olajuwon during the chat disclosing that Nigeria's national basketball team recently arrived in Houston recently with Olajuwon in town. In the US Mutombo is seen as a different kind of sports star because he is known to give back to the community and to his home country. He is the first United Nations Development Programme-UNDP- Youth Emissary and was honored by the only national newspaper in the US, USA Today Weekend Magazine as the "Most Caring Athlete Award. In 2003, Mutombo signed a $30m deal with New Jersey Nets. Mutombo expanding on the need for African leaders to speak to the issues that concern African said: "I hope African leaders will not live in silence, they need to speak up. It took African leaders more than 10 years to speak on AIDS, not until 1994. I was at the AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, no one wanted to talk about AIDS, leaders refused to talk." However things have changed now as he observed that the leaders are reaching out although late. Asked if he maintained contacts with African political leaders since he is such an inspiration to black people and Africans especially in the US, "Mutombo said, "yes I talk to many of them." Asked if he had ever spoken to Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, he said not as yet but he looked forward to the opportunity. He then observed that Nigeria's place in Africa is that of an example for the whole continent. He stated that "our leaders in the continent need to become the spokesman for our issues." He said "I wish to God that he can give me more hands to touch more people, Mutombo is only one person." The sports star added that he believes that Africa's future is bright, "but we have things we have to solve." According to him, this included HIV/AIDS which is destroying the African society, and families, young people living in the streets, many left alone with their parents struck by one disease or the other. He noted that since several parents have been killed by diaereses like AIDS, grandparents are now left to look after little children The bright future of Africa, that he envisions, he warns "will not happen overnight." He said "we have more than 30 million people with the AIDS virus, what are we doing with them, we have to start from somewhere." On his part he said he has resolved to be part of the solution. He urged African governments to do more especially because many young people in the continent are becoming desperate and are now being recruited by African governments to join the army. Because many such young people are desperate with no future, he said there is a rise in child soldiers on the continent. In his view, another diaereses that is very devesting in the continent is Malaria. Said he Malaria is more fatal that AIDS. Malaria will kill in 2 days, AIDS will kill in a year or two. And then he poses a rhetorical question? "What are we doing to solve it? He said it is not enough to just provide drugs for the HIV/AIDS disease but for Africans to be taught aright and given help with other social problems. For instance he said he chose to construct a new hospital in Congo because he found out that new hospitals were not being built in Africa. "How many new hospitals are being built in Africa in the last 5 years or decade?" He proceeded to provide the answers himself. "I did my research one was built in Yaounde by a French company, the Saudi Prince facilitated the building of one in Nigeria, a huge one was built in Egypt by a Belgium company and a teaching hospital in Senegal." The state of the art hospital named after his mother-Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center would open September 2 in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was founded through the basketballer's foundation, "dedicated to improving the health, education and quality of life for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Mutombo who speaks 7 languages and is a graduate of Linguistics and Diplomacy from Georgetown University in Washington D.C including 5 African languages. According to a press release Dikembe Mutombo Foundation "is attempting to eradicate many childhood diseases that have virtually disappeared in developed countries while those diseases are still life threatening to children in the Congo everyday." "Having played basketball in the NBA for the better part of a decade, Mutombo spends the off-season traveling throughout Africa on behalf of the NBA, performing at free basketball clinics for as many as 2,000 children per day." The foundation had also dedicated refurbished dormitories at Ithuteng Trust, a school for troubled and underprivileged youth in Soweto, in South Africa that Mutombo first visited during the summer of 2003. The US sports star was born in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, as the seventh of ten children born to Samuel and the late Biamba Marie Mutombo. On arrival in the US in 1987 with an academic scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and study pre-medicine degree major, all he wanted to do was become a medical doctor and return to the Congo to practice medicine.
But in his second year at the school, his Coach invited the 7’2” Mutombo to try out for the university's renowned basketball team. Mutombo is a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and ranks 1st in NBA rebounds per game. He was recently nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, is the winner of the Wilt Chamberlain Award – Operation Smile and honored with the honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from the State University of New York College at Cortland. His other awards includes the NAACP Phoenix Award, The Henry Iba Citizen Athlete Award, The President’s Service Award (2000), the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, the Ernie Davis Humanitarian Award, The Samuel J. Halsey Award and the Constituency for Africa’s Trailblazer Award. He has been named by the second largest US television network ABC as the Person of the Week, Essence Magazine’s 2001 Achiever, and Sporting News’ No. 1 Good Guy. He has been featured in Europe’s TIME magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Houston Chronicle. He is married to a Congolese woman and together have 7 children, including 4 adopted nieces and nephews. Pictures from the Press Conference
Mutombo & NBA's Kathleen Behrens
Mutombo & NBA's Kathleen Behrens
Mutombo & Oyiza Adaba
Mutombo & Laolu Akande
Mutombo & Laolu Akande
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Posted by Robot| 22.08.2006 00:54