Put your money...

The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is awarded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to African heads of state or government who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents, and who democratically transfer power to their successor. It was sponsored by Mo Ibrahim, a businessman born in Sudan. According to Ibrahim, "Good governance is crucial." With a US$5 million initial payment, plus $200,000 a year for life, the prize is believed to be the world's largest, exceeding the $1.3m Nobel Peace Prize. Former South African President Nelson Mandela, former United States President Bill Clinton, and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan are among those who have welcomed the initiative.

And now for the less charitable assessment of the Prize. In the words of an acerbic Ahmednasir Abdullahi, the Prize is one of the most expensive self-aggrandizement and promotions (sic) in history. That it is and much more. But it is not unique in the world of self-aggrandizing and self-promoting robber barons, tech tycoons and billionaire philanthropic do-gooders. What is unique about the Mo Ibrahim Prize, and the Trust that awards the Prize, is that it is the first in Africa to bequeath staggering amounts of money to award winners.

The less charitable among us, in addition to the penis-envy that afflicts us over the determined Mo Ibrahim brand of dick-measuring, are mad that Mr Ibrahim intends, year after year, to highlight for the rest of the world, especially all Africans, the depths our heads of state or government have fallen. Every year the Prize is not awarded is a year in which an African billionaire shouts from the rooftops that his continent produces charlatans, thieves, snake-oil salesmen, murderers, sex-pests...the scum of the universe. However harsh the light might be from the Mo Ibrahim Trust, it is time that we accepted, even with massive dollops of sodium chloride, that Africa has some of the worst leaders that walked on the Earth.

At the end of the Second World War, when the victors pulled the wool over the "third world" regarding the end of colonialism, many new African states declared a war against poverty, ignorance and disease. West Africa, especially, was easily blessed with abundant natural resources. Some sixty odd years later, West Africa is the armpit of Africa: it record of military coups and general civil strife is unrivalled in Africa, even taking into account the festering Somalia civil war, the twenty-year Mozambican one (that seems set to reignite), the Sudan one, or the Ethiopia/Eritrea enmity that seems set to persist until the end of time. West Africa, which was the intellectual leader of Africa, surely must have set a record for the number of presidential assassinations and military take-overs. Mo Ibrahim's implacable gaze is one that refuses to gloss over the records of recent Big Men.

Take Mwai Kibaki for instance. He surely qualifies to be considered for the Prize. And Mr Abdullahi is surely right that Mr Kibaki does not need the pitiful $200,000 per year the trust promises for the rest of his life. But, hypothetically, if Mr Kibaki were to be assessed by the Trust, the chances of winning the Prize would be lower than those of a camel passing through the eye of the needle, as the Good Book says. Mr Kibaki no doubt presided over one of the greatest expansions of civil and political liberties Kenya has seen in its brief half-century. he expanded the economy and repaired crucial infrastructure. He oversaw the professionalisation of the public service and attempted to tackle the same problems that had been identified at independence with a sense of urgency. He aspired to great things. He failed.

When Mr Kibaki left office, the poverty rates had marginally improved, infant and maternal mortality were rising after e period of decline, the quality (if not the quantity) of education was in the toilet, crime was rife and the nation was more Balkanised than during the reigns of Kenyatta I and Moi. How would Mr Kibaki qualify if thousands died from non-natural causes on his watch, hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes, billions in property was destroyed, and more citizens hated their fellow-citizens than ever before?

It is easy to look at the hubris of a man trying to right the wrongs of an entire continent and scoff at the effrontery. But when we have given up the fight and allowed events to determine our destinies, rather than pushing back, it is us who demonstrate effrontery. Mr Abdullahi is partial to witticisms. This is one he might appreciate: put your money where your poison pen is.