Could Do Better… 2009 Mo Ibrahim Prize not awarded

The message is clear. African leaders have to clean up their act.
It is remarkable and disappointing that in the year a new kid came to the block and snagged the Nobel Peace Prize without apparently even trying, not one among the multitude of Africa’s tired old relics came within a whiff of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for good governance. To be fair, the terms of reference of the Nobel Prize are somewhat more relaxed. According to the old man’s will, the prize may be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” So anyone or indeed, anything for that matter can get it just by going through the right motions. But even so, there were some years when the prize could not be awarded, especially during the periodic episodes of madness that overtook European leaders, plunging humanity into world wars. But in peace time, the committee had always found someone or some organization that could pass muster. Africans have even been awardees, for chrissakes.

But this year, the Mo Ibrahim Prize Committee found no one fit enough to merit the African Leadership Prize. Mind you, conditions for award are rather tighter than for the Nobel; I paraphrase here: “Eligible candidates must be former executive heads of state or government in any sub-Saharan African state who have taken office through democratic elections and who have left office in the previous three years, having served the constitutional term as stipulated when taking office. They must also have governed well enough for their country to have a decent standing in the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance.”

So, for the year 2008, not one of the retiring leaders fulfilled the criteria as laid down by the committee. Neither John Kuffor nor Thabo Mbeki was apparently up to scratch. Both of these gentlemen had been deemed the front runners, but not even one of the 10 or so of the other leaders who stepped down between 2006 and 2008 got off the blocks.

We need not need to despair, however. This is a chance to encourage our leaders to do better. They just have to try harder.

Tell Fren Tru

Dirty Dancing -Glossy fluff

I went to see “Dirty Dancing,” the musical, at London’s Aldwych the other day. As usual, London theatre tickets are over-priced. But because it was my wife’s birthday, I thought “What the heck,” and paid the £38 ticket price plus the premium Ticket Master’s online booking premium. Our seats were box seats (so-called) which, I would have thought, should have given us an unobstructed view of the stage. Well, they didn’t. Although the dancing was good (not much dirt in it), the singing was indifferent. And the electronically enhanced music was far too loud. All of these would have been tolerable except that the storyline was excessively thin. I must have missed something though, since the thing has been running for three solid years. By the way, if you go, don’t buy the souvenir programme. It would cost you more than £6 for nothing more than glossy fluff.

Tell Fren Tru

Heed The Signs

London, 3 October, 2009

I went for a walk this autumn morning, and was greeted by a great show orchestrated by gusts of seasonal wind stirring up the abundance of leaves topping the Elgin Avenue maples. And on the ground, brown ones chased each other around, under the command of capricious squalls darting in several directions all at once. As clouds raced high up in azure skies, I couldn’t help thinking that it was great to be alive in this fantastic world of ours. What an organism! A one that goes through cycles of autumnal decay followed by regeneration, millennia after millennia, and in yet more to come. Unless we go and spoil it all.  But can we really? The stuff that are the cause of our present anxieties are themselves of the earth. The generation-regeneration cycle had dealt with all that CO₂ and methane that had once made the air too poisonous to breathe, were mopped up by trees like these maples and then locked up in subterranean vaults.  We too are part of this regenerative process in a world that is just too smart to allow any of its inhabitants to do it irreversible injury. All we have to do is heed its signals. Otherwise, it will deal with us.

Tell Fren Tru