No Ibby For Africa This Year

Llewellyn Kriel Editor at Large — TopEditor International Snubbing recent African ex-presidents such as South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and in a loud wake-up call to current heads of state such as Jacob Zuma, the multimillion-dollar prestigious Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership has been withheld this year. The momentous decision is also a resounding indictment of sub-Saharan Africa’s pitiful progress towards the elusive mirage of true democracy – despite isolated voices who think that if the award isn’t made year in and year out, it risks losing credibility. In Africa, the culture of entitlement under all circumstances, like water beneath the dust of dry river beds, runs deep and pervasive.

Remember, this is a continent where all things, including emergencies, move at a quasi-geological pace. It is also a continent accustomed to getting what it wants either via the begging bowl or the gun barrel. Ballot boxes are rare and largely unsuccessful innovations foisted on Africa by the “colonialists” (spit, spit, hiss, hiss). To those in the know, the concept of Africa solving its own problems is as plausible as jungles in the Kalahari – not impossible, but more pulp fiction than palpable fact. The African Union and the Southern African Development Community are largely cultural caricatures, tribal talkshops akin to Victorian tea parties.

Thus the Mo Ibrahim Foundation marks milestone, not only in that fact that it is indeed born of African soil, but that it concerns itself more pointedly with the quality of leadership and governance – where national “diseases” have their origins – than with building schools or inoculating children – the symptoms of perennial continental disease.

Created in 2007 by Sudan-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim, the prize awards $5-million over 10 years and $200,000 annually for life (say, R37.5-million plus R1.5-million) to encourage leadership that improves the prospects of people in the continent. Only “democratically” elected heads of state who have left office in the past three years are eligible.

The committee considered “some credible candidates”, but could not select a winner, said former Botswana president Ketumile Masire, a member of the awards committee. Candidates included Mbeki, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and ex-Ghanaian president John Kufuor.

Masire wouldn’t expand on the committee’s reasons, though he said it had “noted the progress made with governance in some African countries, while noting with concern recent setbacks in other countries”.

Some Africa watchers, perennially seeking a positive spin on negative developments on the continent, feel the award should be more inspirational carrot than rewarding cookie for a job well done. Siphamandla Zondi, of SA’s Institute for Global Dialogue, says, “The way I see it is, it is like the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Obama. It’s not so much a statement about accomplishments. It should encourage positive tendencies.” Obviously, the committee didn’t see too many “positive tendencies” nor do they and the Nobel Prize committee sing from the same hymn-sheet.

But on a continent seemingly unable to shed its image as nesting site for tyrants and megalomaniacs, finding the perfect recipient means the award would rarely be handed out at all. The awards committee members “are thinking about raising the bar and having raised the bar have found no one could get over it,” says Stephen Chan, a professor of international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “No one expects African governance to be perfect at this time.”

Following a year in which Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi seems keen to pass his 40-year-old steel grip on power to his inexperienced son and unpopular coups in Guinea, Madagascar and Mauritania, Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch summed the situation up aptly: “It hasn’t been a great year for democracy in Africa. Maybe that’s what the committee was trying to say.”

Mbeki was forced to step down last year and his overt support for his friend, Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, have only helped cement his image as SA’s “ineffectual intellectual”. Furthermore, his infamous Aids denialism (that killed more than 300 000 South Africans during his tenure) has forever tarnished his status globally – despite having been handed the reins by the world’s favourite African icon, Nelson Mandela. The current apparent collapse of Zimbabwe’s “government of national unity”, that Mbeki helped broker, is arguably the final nail in his coffin as far as memorable African heads of state go.

This week, AP noted, “After serving two terms, John Kufuor stepped aside without a fuss, marking Ghana’s second successful hand-over – a milestone not just for the country but also for Africa as whole. However, the opposition at the time accused his administration of corruption.

“Another favourite for the award was Olegun Obasanjo. Under him, Nigeria had eight tumultuous years of democracy, the longest period since independence from Britain in 1960. But corruption was rife and most of the country’s people have remained desperately poor despite the nation’s oil wealth.”

The prize’s past recipients have been former presidents Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Festus Mogae of Botswana.

In addition to Masire, this year’s prize committee was chaired by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and included Nobel peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El Baradei, and former Irish president Mary Robinson.

It’s scant consolation that Robinson said if it had been a prize for excellence among European leaders this year “we wouldn’t necessarily have so many getting a big prize. That’s all I have to say”.

Then again, Africa is so starved of cause for popping the bubbly, the lure of the nettle-rash rejoinder “but-what-about …” will probably prove too sweetly a seductive alibi for the status quo. And, as usual, the sun will set in fiery splendour on the same landmass on which it will rise tomorrow. Unchanging and uncaring.