Dr. Mo Ibrahim adressing the forum at the University of Ghana on March12, 2010
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday March 15, 2010
Dr. Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born British business laureate and founder of Mo Ibrahim Foundation, has launched a blistering attack on past and present African leaders, describing them as “lousy and catastrophic leaders who have no policy direction.”
“African leaders love western culture and taste. When it comes to expensive wines, cars and other luxurious lifestyles they hurriedly go for it, but when it comes to human rights issues they say it is a western concept,” he said.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim was at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon in Accra on Friday to deliver a lecture entitled, “Taking Responsibility – How to fix a broken economy.”
Top aid campaigners, including Irish musician Paul David Hewson, who is popularly known as Bono, accompanied him.
Bono has been campaigning for debt relief for third-world countries and raising awareness of the plight of Africa including HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim said, “There are too many dictators, megalomaniacs and thieves and we have lousy leaders. Whenever you complain, they will say they have their African conscience.
“We have a very rich continent yet we are the poorest people on earth. After 50 years, I do not think we can blame the colonists for our woes. We are responsible for the mess that we found ourselves and cannot blame anybody.”
“Countries such as Egypt, Ghana and Sudan, among others had higher GDP than many countries in Asia, but 50 years after self rule these countries have more than 50 times our income.”
“There is nothing wrong with our people, but it is our leaders who have made us poor. What the people bother about is the deliverables. We do not care about the politics.”
Dr. Mo Ibrahim mentioned that even though there is a leadership failure on the continent, there were some new African leaders “who are really trying to do good job and they need our support.”
“There are great leaders on the continent but nobody talks about them. All they know about are the Mugabes, Mobutus and the Amins for the wrong reasons.”
He said the practice whereby African leaders hang on to power until death must stop, adding “Look at Former President Clinton and former Prime Minister Tony Blair; they are having wonderful financial life after office.”
Dr. Mo Ibrahim said Africa must pursue governance and leadership without any compromise, noting, “Our leaders are not our masters; they are our servants.”
On African economic integration, he said, “If we do not take steps to integrate our economies we will continue to wallow in poverty. Economic integration is a must. The Europeans did not like one another yet they were able to form a very successful European Union (EU).”
He cited Germany’s level of development as an example worthy of emulation by Africans, stating that “after doing away with wars, the Germans have been able to raise an economy which is bigger than the economies of all 53 African countries put together.”
“Economic integration is essential. We need to have free movement of goods and services on the continent. We must focus and build infrastructure and a robust energy sector and we must give priority to cross-country projects”.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim said the lack of data on the continent is impeding accelerated development.
On agriculture, Dr. Mo Ibrahim noted, “Statistics show that about 70 percent of the people are working in the agricultural sector yet we are still hungry.”
“After seven years of the African Peer Review Mechanism, only seven presidents have been able to live up to the promise of allocating 10 percent of their budgets to support the sector.
On climate change, he added, “Africans are the most threatened people on earth and we did not put the carbon out there, but we are suffering for the carelessness of other people.”
He urged African governments to come together to negotiate climate change issues as one entity.
He revealed that various governments on the continent should invest heavily in the education of the youth so that they would not repeat the mistakes of the present generation.
Also see: www.dailyguideghana.com
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