23 Oct 2009 |
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Mo Ibrahim Prize: No worthy recipient? By Reuben Abati THE refusal of the committee for the Mo Ibrahim Achievement in Africa Leadership Prize to award the 2009 prize to any of its three shortlisted candidates: Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Ghana's John Kufuor further underscores the crisis of leadership and democratisation in Africa. The Prize is meant to measure progress in leadership in Africa, encourage responsible, corruption-free leadership and change the "single-story" perspective of Africa in the Western world. The verdict this year, rather than offer a picture of progress, confirms the existing stereotype and the spectre of Afro-pessimism. It also makes nonsense of the NEPAD African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) which was established in 2003, championed by two of the leaders who have now been dismissed as not good enough (Obasanjo and Mbeki). The prize is only three years old, and it is already running into troubled waters: the scarcity of worthy trophy winners. One obvious constraint is that the prize does not go to serving Presidents and Heads of state, it is reserved for those who have left office in the preceding three years. But how many African leaders retire within three years? Africa's democratisation process faces a challenge that could hobble Mr. Ibrahim's initiative. The kind of leaders that are being sought are in very short supply. In Niger, Chad, Uganda, and Cameroun, the country's constitutions have been amended to allow for an extension of tenure by the incumbent rulers. In Guinea, Mauritania and Madagascar, there have been military interventions. In other African countries, there are reports of grand corruption, particularly the rigging of elections to suit parochial interests. In some of these countries, certain former rulers have been succeeded by their sons in what looks like the gradual emergence of a dynastic order in African politics (Gabon, Togo and Democratic Republic of Congo -former Zaire). In Egypt and Libya, the sons of the incumbents are also waiting in the wings. The voter's right to choose is generally discounted and there is so much poor governance and violation of the Constitution. It is not only this year therefore that the prize may not be awarded. Only two African leaders ( in Tanzania and Liberia) may be preparing to leave office in the next three years: Jakaya Kikwete's five-year tenure ends in 2010. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's six-year tenure ends in 2012. She will be 74 years then and may not be seeking a second term. Across the continent, most of the leaders are either preparing for a second term (Yar'çdua for example) or hoping to stay permanently or are just not interested in such post-retirement windfalls which Mr. Ibrahim promises as a way of providing for good leaders. The Ibrahim prize is worth $5 million and an annual salary of $200, 000, plus a further grant of $200,000 per year for 10 years to support any good cause that is chosen by the winner. Mo Ibrahim, the cell-phone billionaire founder of the prize means well. He falls in the category of those we call in Nigeria, "too much money." He wants to promote good governance. He wants to encourage good and responsible leadership by supporting such leaders after office. He says it does not matter if the prize is not awarded in a particular year or for years. Even without a winner this year, the prize ceremony and a debate on leadership in Africa will still be held in November. What recommends the Mo Ibrahim initiative is that it is home-grown. This is not a Soros Foundation, or an Open Society Institute or the USAID-Governance programme laying benchmarks for Africa but an African-led process from within. The focus is well chosen. Bad leadership is the bane of the development process in the continent, the source of the failure of African states. Encouraging, supporting and ensuring good governance in Africa will result in progress, or a shift towards Afro-optimism, and also reduce dependency on Western aid. But does awarding trophies to retired Heads of State alone serve this purpose? The non-award of a Mo Ibrahim Prize this year may cast the leadership crisis in the continent in a fresh mould but there are also questions to be raised about the prize itself and Mr. Ibrahim's approach to the governance challenge. Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland, and one of the judges of the prize, had said that it may be difficult to find a worthy winner for the prize in Europe as well. But sorry, no; that is too facile. The African challenge is different, its circumstances are peculiar. The shortage of candidates for the prize should compel a re-thinking of approach to guarantee sustainability, possibly an expansion of scope to include leadership in other areas of African life. Those who deserve to be celebrated are not the retired leaders (who of course enjoy state-provided privileges for life) but the ordinary people of the continent who in the face of all odds, are making a difference or seeking to do so in various leadership situations in civil society. Mr. Ibrahim's money would probably serve a better purpose if it is used to support education programmes or leadership training in African states. How about a Mo Ibrahim Scholarship Fund for indigent students or Ph.D research? For that, there cannot be a shortage of worthy recipients. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation publishes an African Governance Index to promote accountability, but the findings are lost in a maze of attendant controversy. Instead of giving too much money to retired Heads of State, the bigger challenge is in the area of infrastructural development for democratic governance, capacity building and human resource development. Bad African leaders do the damage that they can and they leave, but to build democracy, more attention needs to be paid to leadership creation/transformation processes; that is - the institutions that can produce good leaders on a sustainable basis and make banditry difficult if not impossible. The Mo Ibrahim Prize Committee has refused to give reasons why it does not consider any of the three shortlisted candidates good enough. We have been asked to come up with our own explanations. Fine. One possible explanation is that Mr. Ibrahim is broke. Could he possibly be one of those super-rich who lost their money to the global financial meltdown and is not man enough to eat the humble pie and scrap his money-guzzling leadership prize project? Two, we are talking about Mr. Mo Ibrahim's money here and his right to spend or not spend it. So why does he owe us an explanation? More seriously, however, for a body that seeks to promote good governance and democracy, its position fails the tests of transparency and accountability. It is not enough to tell us that "this year, the prize committee has considered some eligible candidates. However, after in-depth review the committee could not select a winner." Mo Ibrahim adds that "no disrespect is intended" towards the spurned candidates. Still, the Kofi-Annan led committee owes us an explanation - to enlighten us, to convince us that some rigour went into the decision-making process, to allay fears of ulterior motives and to encourage changes in the behaviour of sitting African leaders. It is also not in the interest of the committee to allow speculations over what has ended up as a naming and shaming process. What the panel has said is that Obasanjo, Mbeki and Kufuor are bad leaders who do not deserve public honour. Even they need to be told where they went wrong. And why was the name of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, former President of Sierra Leone, 1996-97, 1998 -2007 not mentioned at all. We would like to know why he is considered so bad the committee would rather not mention his name even though his exit from office falls within the required three-year range. In 2007, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique who left office in 2005 was awarded the prize for "leading Mozambique from conflict to peace and democracy." In 2008, Festus Mogae of Botswana was honoured for "Botswana's continued stability and prosperity in the face of an HIV/AIDS pandemic which threatened the future of his country and people." So what is wrong with Obasanjo, Mbeki, and Kufuor? Former President Obasanjo is an obvious no-candidate. His inclusion in the short-list is shocking. Before returning to power in 1999, long before the emergence of the likes of Mo Ibrahim in the African power game, Obasanjo had made his mark across the world as a role model for African leadership. He also founded a body known as Africa Leadership Forum which for more than 20 years has done great quality work in the leadership creation and nurturing process across Africa. The naming and shaming of Obasanjo by the Kofi Annan panel further demystifies this leader who used to be an inspirational figure across Africa and the Commonwealth, but who is now classed along with Mbeki and Kufuor and rubbished. Obasanjo's humiliation is self-inflicted. As Nigeria's President between 1999 and 2007, he had every chance in the world to build on his well-earned pedigree and prove that he is real. But he blew it all into a balloon and the balloon went burst with reports of massive corruption, insincerity, despotism and electoral fraud which marked his Presidency. His worst crime was his attempt to seek a third term in office in violation of the Constitution. More than two years after Obasanjo's exit, Nigeria is yet to recover from the direct and collateral damage of the misgovernance that was inflicted on the people by his administration. Thabo Mbeki is not as bad. As President of South Africa (1999-2008), his government ensured consistent economic growth and the creation of opportunities for an emerging post-apartheid black middle class. The poor, dominated by the black majority, were grossly dissatisfied because the train of economic progress didn't have as much space yet for the blacks, but real progress could be measured after Nelson Mandela's largely inspirational leadership which provided the moral force for a new South Africa. Mbeki was also a redoubtable figure on the African continent: he was the architect of the idea of African Renaissance, he was one of the architects of the NEPAD-APRM initiative, and he was most active in brokering peace deals in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Ivory Coast and the DRC. He was an ideas man, an admirable figure. But he blew his chances on three grounds: his support of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe ("there is no crisis in Zimbabwe"), his denial of AIDS which led to his banning the use of anti-retroviral drugs and his unceremonious resignation on September 20, 2008 following a court indictment and the loss of his party's support in parliament. John Kufuor of Ghana should have been given the prize. He deserves it. I hope he is not a victim of Kofi Annan's personal fears (not wanting to be accused of nepotism). Kufuor, Ghana's President from 2001-2008 proved his mettle as a good leader. Under his watch, gross domestic product, school enrolment and employment rates increased. He introduced free medical care for the poor and free meals in schools. He turned Ghana into a success story. He reduced poverty. In December 2008, he handed over power to the opposition candidate John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress in accordance with the Constitution and electoral rules. Today, the elections which were conducted under his watch, a fact that was indirectly acknowledged by President Barack Obama, are cited as symbols of Ghanaian progress. The opposition accused him of nepotism and corruption but these have not been proven. John Kufuor of Ghana is in my view, the undeclared winner of the 2009 Mo Ibrahim Prize for African Leadership.
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