Ibrahim, that is. He’s the Sudanese business mogul who is known just as well for his predicting the mobile communications boom in Africa with his pioneer company, Celtel (which he sold in 2005), as he is for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Ibrahim Prize for Good Governance (for previous African Heads of State). He’s been getting a bit of flak in recent weeks because, for the second year in a row, no leader has won the illustrious $5 million Ibrahim Prize. But, come on… are we really surprised?
He was recently interviewed by Initiative Africa and I wanted to point out some of the parts that I found most interesting.
First he talks about the money, which some opponents say is far too much for said prize:
You give the largest prize in the world, $5 million to a worthy African leader, $500,000 over ten years and then $200,000 for life. That’s a lot of money for a former head of state.
Mo Ibrahim: Really, if you compare the income of an African head of state with the CEO of any medium-sized company it would not appear that big at all. The role of leaders in changing their countries is very important. If a leader comes to power and manages to take millions of people out of poverty or stop a civil war, that is a wonderful act that really needs to be recognised and honoured. What we are doing is to honour those people who offered exceptional leadership in their countries and to do this really is very small by comparison. Don’t forget that the Nobel Prize is $1.5 million and while I have full respect for the prize, why is writing a novel or writing a nice poem is more important than saving millions of lives ?
He’s preaching truth here. If we take a look at some of the more crooked African leaders, they are making SOME SERIOUS BANK. It’s actually pretty scary. It makes sense, to me, that those who forgo the opportunity to use corruption and greed to take from their people should be rewarded. Some may think that we shouldn’t reward leaders for good behavior – being honest and putting their people first - that’s a given, it’s what they should do. Unfortunately, in many countries (Africa and elsewhere) such behaviour is NOT the norm, and it takes a lot of work and bravery to go against already corrupt systems to do what they should.
And do you think African presidents hope to win this prize for the prestige or for the money they can get?
Mo Ibrahim: I think both. Prestige of course is more important and it will increase by the time because a prize gains credibility over time. The Nobel Prize was not that prestigious five years after it started it took some years to achieve its credibility and we hope to do it much faster. The money really just helps free a president who left office. An African president who left office really have no life after office unlike Western leaders. Western leaders end up in the boards of major banks and major companies earning millions of dollars a year; they write books and memoirs which earn them millions of dollars; on the speech circuits they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech. What can (former) African leaders do, they don’t have these facilities. We would like to offer a dignified way for a hero of the African people to be able to continue to work for the civil society without worrying about earning a living. That would be something very good. When you look at what our laureates are doing in Africa … so far we have three laureates – we have President Mandela, President Chissano and President Mogae. The work they have been doing … well I really don’t need to go over it.
This I found interesting. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it sounds like Ibrahim is suggesting that the money allows them to live comfortably enough that they will be less inclined to get involved in shady business or political ventures due to interest in their financial rewards. Is that just me?
Let’s talk about the youth of Africa. President Obama invited more than 100 young African leaders to Washington to talk about good governance. Wasn’t it an issue he should have raised with African leaders, African presidents?
Mo Ibrahim: I’m very delighted, I’m very delighted for this initiative really because he put his finger on it: it’s the issue of governance. If we had been governed well we would have been in a different place and that’s what we need to tell young people. Whenever I tour Africa the first place I go to is to universities to speak to our young people and to tell them: ‘We have failed you. We, the past generation which came after independence, we failed our people.’ Now it’s up to them to produce clean, proper governance for Africa. That will change really the whole situation.
I found the above piece particularly poignant. There is way too much of the blame game going on. Ask any actor involved in the development of an African country and it’s likely that they will blame everyone else for setbacks. It’s colonialism, it’s the West, it’s the World Bank, it’s the UN, it’s IMF, it’s neo-colonialism, it’s capitalism, it’s too much AID, it’s not enough AID, it’s this, that, and the third. Now, I’m not saying that each of these institutions and practices haven’t played a role. They most certainly have. But Mo Ibrahim is shouldering the blame, as a representative of his entire generation, and doing what he can to move things forward. Even if I have my reservations about the accuracy of his data, I find this move admirable.
And to end this post I think we should look at Mo’s very apt response to questions about why there hasn’t been a winner of his Prize in the past two years. It made me smile.
This is the second year in a row that the Ibrahim Prize for good governance hasn’t been given to an African leader. I have one simple question: Why?
Mo Ibrahim: Let me start by saying that I don’t sit on the prize committee. I’m not a member of the prize committee. The prize committee is very prestigious and is completely independent from the board of the foundation. It runs its business in a confidential manner. That committee is one of the most prestigious committees in the world today: it has three Nobel laureates, it has two or three past presidents – wonderful people – and it is their decision which we have to respect. But if the prize is for exceptional leadership why should we expect to find an exceptional leader every year? The same question was asked by the BBC in London after our announcement. So I said to the journalist: ‘Ok, I’m willing to offer this prize for a European leader who left office in the past three years, who did exceptional work and who transformed his or her country. Can you suggest someone for me?’
And what was his answer?
Mo Ibrahim: He was silent. He smiled and he was silent. It’s three months now and he is still silent.
Via
They set up and followed through with an extremely risky sci-fi storyline that completely rewrites everything the audience has learned and come to love about Fringe in the past 3 years. The shared history, the barriers-overcome, the character defining moments – all gone, wiped away within less than a second during a season finale with little explanation.
Sometimes you just want to yell “I DON’T CARE! GET BACK TO POLIVIA!” But in reality, the B storylines are more than just filler – they keep us grounded in the premise of the show – a crew of FBI agents and consultants who investigate a series of seemingly connected scientific anomalies known as “fringe events” in order to discover a larger mystery. Plus, these side stories allow us to explore every science fiction theory known to man with the help of a host of talented guest stars.
