For the fourth time in five years, the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership – the world’s biggest individual prize – was not awarded, because “after careful consideration” the prize committee announced Monday, that there was no worthy recipient; hence there would be no 2013 laureate. Coming just when the African Union (AU) is berating the International Criminal Court (ICC), over alleged victimization and selective justice against some African leaders, this embarrassment underscores the crisis of leadership and democratization in Africa. What this means is that there was no former African president, who while in office, demonstrated exemplary leadership, improved the welfare of his people and consolidated the foundations for sustainable economic and human development. This is a disgrace for which all past and present African leaders should be ashamed.
In specific terms, the award centers on issues of leadership, transparency in governance, empowerment of civil society, promotion of democracy and human rights, as well, the rule of law and security. For doing these simple things, the winner is paid a retirement package of over $ 5 million; $500,000 per year for 10 years, and then $200,000 per year after that for life, and another $200,000 per year to any cause he or she chooses! In a continent where the supply of good governance is notoriously scarce and crises of governance aplenty, the prize challenges African leaders to govern properly, and then leave power at the end of their term after a democratic transition. It is meant to encourage responsible leadership and ultimately fight the three-some malaise plaguing Africa: hunger, poverty and corruption.
For the record, $700,000 a year is more than many top-notch executives earn in the US and Europe; and almost double the salary of a sitting US President. In this regard, the prize tackles the fear of hardship after office which, in some cases, propels African leaders into looting the public treasury or subverting their constitutions such that they can cling onto power for life. The prize is therefore meant to provide for such former leaders a measure of the comfort they had been used to while in office. No doubt, it is the destructive, rather than the beneficent use of political power in Africa that compelled Mo Ibrahim to institute the prize. Against this pathetic background, it is hope that the prize will galvanize African leaders to do better and encourage transparency and good governance.
But the prize is only seven years old, and it is already running into troubled waters: the scarcity of worthy trophy winners. Since it was established in 2006, the annual prize has been awarded only three times. The inaugural prize in 2007 went to former president Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Botswana’s ex-president Festus Mogae won in 2008. Former Cape Verde president Pedro Pires won the 2011 prize. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has also given two special awards to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and South African former archbishop Desmond Tutu.
It was a sign of things to come, when in 2009, the Kofi Annan led panel refused to award the prize to any of its three shortlisted candidates: Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Ghana’s John Kufuor. The verdict that year was that Obasanjo, Mbeki and Kufuor were bad leaders who deserved no public honor. Mbeki the AIDS denier blew his chances with his controversial support of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Obasanjo was an obvious no-candidate. His inclusion in the short-list was shocking. Kufuor was the undeclared winner of the prize. It was widely believed that he was a victim of Kofi Annan’s personal fears (not wanting to be accused of nepotism).
The prize, although created out of goodwill, seems doomed. Africa’s democratization process faces a challenge that could hobble Mr. Ibrahim’s initiative. One obvious constraint is that the prize does not go to serving Presidents; it is reserved for those who have left office in the preceding three years. But how many African leaders retire within three years? The kind of leaders that are being sought are in very short supply. In Niger, Chad, Uganda, and Cameroon, the country’s constitutions have been amended to allow for tenure elongation by the incumbents. In Guinea, Mauritania, Madagascar and the Central African Republic (CAR), there have been military interventions. In other African countries, pervasive corruption, particularly the rigging of elections reigns supreme. In Gabon, Togo and Democratic Republic of Congo, former rulers have been succeeded by their sons in what looks like the gradual emergence of a dynastic order in African politics. In Egypt and Libya, but for the Arab Spring that toppled Hosni Mubarak and led to the death of Muhammad Gadhafi, their sons were already waiting in the wings. African voters have been politically emasculated and discounted.
Although the prize seeks to encourage responsible leadership by supporting such leaders after office, it is not only in 2013 that it may not be awarded, because no African president is preparing to leave office in the next three years. Many are either preparing for a second term (Jonathan for example) or hoping to stay permanently and are just not interested in such post-retirement windfalls which Mr. Ibrahim promises as a way of providing for good leaders. This good governance prize is not a western or American government program setting benchmarks for Africa but an African-led process from within. It is a classic case of “African solutions for African problems. 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, and also reduce dependency on Western aid. But does awarding trophies to retired Heads of State alone serve this purpose? Granted there is need to reward honesty, but to reward an African leader to do his job is like pouring milk on a fire when you can use water!
The non-award of a Mo Ibrahim Prize this year may cast the leadership crisis in the continent in a fresh mold but there are also questions to be raised about the prize itself and Mr. Ibrahim’s approach to the governance challenge. 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. Those who deserve to be celebrated are not retired leaders (who enjoy state-provided privileges for life) but ordinary Africans 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 leadership training programs in Africa. For that, there cannot be a shortage of worthy recipients. Instead of giving so 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 eventually leave power, when as reluctant mortals, they die. But building democracy requires leadership institutions that can produce good leaders on a sustainable basis.
As in previous years, the prize committee refused to give reasons for its decision. We have therefore been asked to come up with our own explanations. Fine! One possible explanation is that Mr. Ibrahim is broke. Could he possibly have lost money in the global financial meltdown and is not humble enough to scrap his money-guzzling leadership prize project? Two, we are talking about Mr. Ibrahim’s money and his right to spend or not spend it. So, does he owe us an explanation? Well; 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 say “after careful consideration,” the prize committee could not select a winner. The selection committee owes Africans an explanation; to enlighten and convince the public that some rigor went into the decision-making process; to allay fears of ulterior motives and to encourage changes in the behavior of sitting African leaders. It is also not in the interest of the committee to allow speculations over what has now become a naming and shaming process.
