The Mo Ibrahim Prize and the impending implosion in Sudan

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

January 07, 2011

My heart bleeds for Sudan as I read an impassioned piece in the Financial Times of January 6, 2011, (Sudan is a warning to all of Africa), written by one of her noble and most able sons, Mo Ibrahim, founder, and chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Africa Leadership Prize Award.

His piece sets up the dilemma of Sudan, as she moves towards a referendum this Sunday on whether the South will secede fully as a separate independent state or not.

Mr. Ibrahim, in a painful way, seems to appeal for unity.  His appeal is that of a progressive North Sudanese, pleading for his fellow Khartoum citizens to allow common sense that promotes progress and “brotherhood and unity among all Sudanese” to prevail.

The point of Mr. Ibrahim, the Northerner’s appeal, comes through when a young “Southern man stood up and brought the audience back to earth” and brought up the Sudanese dilemma.

“That is all fine, sir,” the young man said to the speaker. “But will you allow me to marry your sister?”

With that question, the predicament was made obvious.  And in this manner also, ethnic prejudices in the rest of Africa were exposed.

Sad it was, I feel like asking Mr. Ibrahim a similar cheeky question now.  Why has the promised Mo Ibrahim Prize Award for former African presidents been withheld for the past three years?

There is a link between this leadership award and Sudan, but this is missing in Mo’s lament.

The last award was in 2007.  It should be assumed then that for three years, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation hasn’t found since an African president who is worthy of the democratic credentials required for the prize.

This being the case, then it is a very sad time for governance in Africa.  Therefore, it must be a sad time for Sudan too.

But before the rush to judgment, we must ask Mo if the Foundation is looking for a real African leader or an imaginary ideal?  The ideal type will be difficult to reach.

To start with, I am not in a position to tell whether President Bashir has been assessed yet.  But it will be a good place to start since both MO and Bashir are from Sudan.  Ahmed Bashir, Mr. Ibrahim’s president, has been in power for over 20 years, covering much of the conflict era in Sudan now. 

 Assessing President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir’s efforts as president and the latter’s chance as a potential candidate for the Mo Ibrahim Prize award will be a good place to start – the inflection point for the award.

Mr. Bashir’s efforts, alongside the raging conflict in Sudan and the coming referendum that Mo seems to lament, will be the ideal starting point for the leadership assessment.  Mo could then work his way back to the rest of the leaders in Africa.  He could accept Bashir as the standard to attain or top for the award.

That Mo has not been able to do this simple task shows either the enormity of the task or the hypocrisy in the exercise to select the leadership awardee.

The coming referendum for new statehood in Sudan will be the result of choice for the people of the Southern part of Sudan; just like it has for Mo’s foundation withholding the prize for three years.

Separation may not be ideal for all in Sudan and this is the reason for Mo’s lament. But faced with waiting indefinitely for the unknown and the uncertainties of the impasse caused by the conflict, the people of Southern Sudan may choose to go it alone. 

Going it alone may be the best practical option left for survival for the people.  They will not wait for the abstract or for their people to perish under the dictatorial thumb of Bashir.

At least, the people of Southern Sudan are doing something that can be described as rational.

The Mo Foundation for three years, instead of giving the award to the most legible president in the present, is waiting for one yet to be born.

No offense to Mr. Ibrahim intended, but I thought the 2009 award could have gone to the best in the bunch for that year. 

As I wrote in a previous article, choosing from what was available each year could grow the competition among the leaders and thus help create ultimately the ideal candidates for winning the prize in the future.

In 2009, the award could have easily gone to President Kufuor of Ghana. He was the best in the bunch. He was brought into office by a democratic process that the entire world applauded in 2001. 

After the 2008 election that brought Ghana close to the brink of disaster, Kufuor unlike other leaders elsewhere, steered his nation through a smooth transition to the next government.

There was no attempt by Kufuor to resist handing over power to the opposition.  A prize for Kufuor on this basis alone could have been useful for Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast in 2010.

Perhaps, the same trait of Kufuor could have influenced President al-Bashir of Sudan too.  He has been in power since 1989.  If he had left like Kufuor, a successor, perhaps, could have managed to bring peace to Sudan and there would not have been this need for a referendum.

The leadership award could be a practical way of influencing the behavior of leaders on the continent.  And Mr. Ibrahim’s warning of a dire future for Sudan would not have been needed.

He says, “Sudan has been an experiment that resonated across Africa: if we, the largest country on the continent, reaching from the Sahara to the Congo, bridging religions, cultures, and a multitude of ethnicities, were able to construct a prosperous and peaceful state from our diverse citizenry, so too could the rest of Africa.”

At his foundation’s annual forum in Mauritius, he said, some 300 African opinion leaders “came together to discuss the economic integration of the continent.

The debate at the forum, he said, was not about whether we need integration.” but rather “why we are moving towards closer political and economic cooperation so slowly.”

After the day’s event, as Mr. Ibrahim tells it, “Everyone danced joyfully. ….. there was a cloud hanging over the Sudanese guests among us. ….. While other Africans were celebrating their coming together, we knew that in a few weeks our country would start to break apart.”

Mr. Ibrahim continues: “That we have failed should sound a warning to all Africans. Sudan, at one million square miles, is the continent’s largest country, sharing borders with nine other states. The fault lines that have divided us as a people extend from Eritrea to Nigeria. If Sudan starts to crumble, the shock waves will spread.”

The warning must be accepted on the strength of its truth. 

We do understand Sudan’s plight and, therefore, do not want the breakups foretold by Mr. Ibrahim to happen.  But could his Mo Ibrahim Prize go back to do what it was set up to do?

For three years, the Mo Ibrahim prize has been dormant, thus some of its sheens are gone.  Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize has been given to President Obama and The Gusi Peace Prize (the Asian Nobel) has gone to Dr. Mary Chinnery-Hesse.   

Perhaps, the Mo Ibrahim Prize, if given to somebody in Africa too, could have sparked some civility in some of our leaders.  Bashir may not be the one who receives it ultimately.  But he could have been put in the mix for consideration. 

And Bashir’s nomination might have given the people of Southern Sudan the hope to think that there could be a future for them in a United Sudan.

So, all eyes must be on Mo and Bashir.  It is not too late.   

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, January 07, 2011

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