Again, Mo Ibrahim Fails to Find a Worthy African Leader

The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership has once again announced there was no winner for the world’s biggest prize in leadership for the 5th year.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation set up by Sudanese telecom mogul, Mohammed Ibrahim offers $5 million prize to democratically elected African leaders who excelled while in office and voluntarily stepped down at the expiration of their tenure.

Salim Ahmed Salim, former secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), said in at a press conference in London Monday that the Committee didn’t find any former president worthy of the 2013 prize.

He noted that the Committee searched “for excellence in governance but in leadership also.” He stated that the prize is awarded to leaders who showed “exceptional leadership, served their mandated term(s) and left office in the last three years.”

The prize has only been won by three former leaders in its seven-year lifespan. Previous winners of the prize are: Pedro Verona Pires, former Cape Verde President won in 2011, Festus Mogae of Botswana won in 2008, and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique won in 2007. No award was given in 2009, 2010 and 2012.

It has also awarded ‘special prizes’ to the revered former South Africa president, Nelson Mandela and Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The $5 million prize is paid over 10 years and $200,000 annually for life from then on, with a further $200,000 per year available for 10 years for good causes backed by the winner.

Notable former African leaders like Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), John Kuffour (Ghana) and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa failed to win the award despite leaving office at the end of their tenure.