AWARD LEFT VACANT

by MONITOR
THE inability of the judges of the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership to find anyone worthy of being awarded the prize this year is not surprising. In the first place the prize -- worth $5 million and a substantial pension -- can go only to a leader who was elected democratically and has stood down in the past three years. That narrowed the field to three men: John Kufuour of Ghana, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegan Obasanjo of Nigeria. Of these only Kufuour was thought by outside observers to have shown the qualities of good governance that is one of the key requirements, but the judges apparently thought that even he fell short of the necessary standard. Since the chairman of the judges is Kofi Annan, Nobel Laureate and former Secretary-General of the United Nations. and there are two other Nobel Peace Prize winners on the committee, it is hard to second-guess their realistic decision. But it is also very depressing to think that in a continent the size of Africa not one former leader has stood out as being worthy of the Ibrahim Prize. Indeed, of the three awards made since the prize was inaugurated, only one name can be said to be incontestably worthy of it -- Nelson Mandela, who was made an honorary laureate for his “extraordinary leadership qualities.”