MOHAMED “Mo” Ibrahim is a celebrated Sudanese African whose standing as a role model parallels Mandela and Obama in my books. The only difference is, he is a serial entrepreneur, a billionaire who made his fortune through his Celtel mobile telephone empire, spanning 15 countries in Africa servicing 25 million of its citizens.
He sold Celtel to MTC Kuwait for US$3.4 billion. Mo appears semi-retired, running his much-vaunted Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which seeks to enhance democracy in Africa by rewarding past Presidents who voluntarily give up power through democratic elections.
The prize money is a once-off US$5 million and an extra US$200,000 a year for the rest of their lives for the winner to do so-called charity work. Previous recipients are Joachim Chissano of Mozambique (2007) and Festus Mogae of Botswana (2008).
For this, Mo has been lauded with the philanthropist sound-bite from the usual pundits in the West who do no have a clue what Africa needs. According to him, the prize is a process of re-branding Africa, a concept which may find resonance with Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara of Zimbabwe. The latter was roundly reprimanded by African leaders for suggesting the same.
I have to hand it to him, Mo has pushed boundaries, which is why he is the billionaire that he is. I applaud him for the vision of pioneering mobile telephony not just in Africa but in Europe.
On October 19, 2009, the Prize Committee which is independent of the board announced there were no worthy winners for 2009 when bookmakers were tipping South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Ghana’s John Kufuor. Before this announcement, Mo appeared on BBC World Service lamenting lack of investment in Africa by Western corporates because of tyrants and corruption.
That Africa is plagued by bad politics is not in dispute. However, Mo’s current effort to stem this tide is at cross-purposes with what he hopes to achieve. Calling for the re-branding of Africa is one thing; executing this process is quite another and I don’t think the Mo Ibrahim Foundation is the best model for that.
I find it fundamentally wrong that in spite of his earlier vision which culminated in improving Africa’s telephony, Mo now sees it fit to invest in the past rather than the future by dolling out freebies to an already privileged African elite so they can spend the rest of the lives globe-trotting from one five star hotel to another whilst rubbing their under-bellies.
Africa is bursting at the seams with intellectual capital and potential entrepreneurs who are stuck in dead-end-go-nowhere jobs in Western capitals curtailed by lack of access to cheap capital to monetise their ideas but are prepared to skip if someone like Mo can see past his current quagmire to actually invest in young talent.
By his own admission, he was frustrated when he left BT Cellnet, now O2 in 1988. Providing for a few token scholarships does not quite pass for meaningful investment in light of the gigantic Mo Ibrahim Prize money. Does he really think Madiba spent 27 years in prison so he could win a Nobel Prize? True public service is an inclination, not an inducement.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has been thumbing his nose at everyone refusing to give up power. Hypothetically, let’s assume he gets tempted and magnanimous Mo decided to reward him. What is he going to need the money for, privileged already as he is?
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is never going to need that money too should he retire. It’s loose change to him. But he will gladly snatch it, if offered.
Granted, these two examples are cheap shots from me. Lieutenant General Seretse Ian Khama, from the so-called African model democracy isn’t going to need this money either.
I challenge Mo to set up an investment vehicle to which he can commit similar amounts of funds or more, ear-marked for up-coming African entrepreneurs based in Africa and abroad, who can pitch their ideas to him and his able panel without having to go through banks which require collateral. Not only would this improve Mo’s own portfolio, but has the potential to spawn several business people of the same calibre as him to help Africa’s future.
African needs to value-add and create jobs so people can stop fighting for resources. This is re-branding Africa and it’s not rocket science. With a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Mo should not find this difficult to take in.
Sequoia Capital venture capitalists responsible for realising start-ups such as Apple Inc, Cisco, Google, PayPal, Yahoo and YouTube among others, recommend that entrepreneurs should start with only a little money, which fosters discipline and focus. Imagine what US$200,000 clean capital to be accounted for, from Mo (and similar entrepreneurs) would do to a young brain with a bankable business idea?
According to Mo, the greedy bankers largely blamed for the credit crunch, couldn’t lend him money to grow his business even when Celtel was making US$300 million a year and growing at 50 % annually, because Africa was considered risky, and the scandalous bankers were only interested in the “toxic” mortgage market.
Using the same logic, where does he think a young African woman equipped with nothing but innovative ideas will get the money from when he himself seems hell-bent on throwing money into a bottomless pit?
With all due respect to Dr. Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim, if he doesn’t see the need to meaningfully invest in Africa’s young at this stage, then it’s obvious to me he is past his prime. He has had his time.
I would be tempted to say Mo should keep quiet and drift into the sunset along with his peers whom he strives to please. History will judge him accordingly.
Young African entrepreneurs will find their way on their own, the same way Mo did when he was young. His Mo Ibrahim Foundation will remain nothing but dead money; a disingenuous and sanctimonious ego-trip scoffed at by some of its intended beneficiaries — and they are certainly not Africa’s poor.
Well written, I think
Your contribution on promotion of good governance and democracy in Africa is encouraging. The problem with that is for us in Africa to follow the northern model of democracy and its weaknesses when we have a better governance system. I will go into the inadequacies of the northern model of democracy first.
1) Elections can be rigged smart and clean and the wrong guy will lead.
2) A candidate can win through vote buying, intimidation or any other unorthodox way of getting a win.
3) Any incompetent person can win an election regardless of whether he can rule or not so long he has a budget to run for an election.
4) Most competent leaders or professionals find the current global political system too base or dirty to engage and so able leader will not have a chance to rule under the northern model of democracy. We saw how Al Gore – the professional, the leader retreated against Bush the Great!!!!
Matonjeni Democracy:
The motivation of Matonjeni Democracy is that in the full application of northern democracy model, there is a remarkable global rise in insincerity, mistrust, greed and poverty (esp on voters) and non-convetional governance system is now the answer. The minister would work with a contract and expectations, failure to abide by those expectations means automatic resignation and a smarter guy would be appointed.
There is a constitutional draft proposal to enact Matonjeni Democracy for Zimbabwe.
a) Only the president would be selectable from any Zimbabwean over 40 yrs by the Council of Priests sitting in as an Electoral College.
b) All public offices from councillor, mayor, permanent secretary, ambassador and minister would be appointed by application letter and CV. The best candidate would be selected by International Job Placement agents, the successful candidate would be given expectations, benchmarks, a budget and contract, failure to meet the expectations would be automatic resignation.
c) Parliament would be made up of traditional chiefs – top 50 would form the senate and remaining 150 would form house of assembly. Money saved from decommissioning the Electoral commission, printing ballot paper, administration of elections, salaries and benefits of elected members of parliamement would be ploughed into the people in building dams, irrigation schemes and giving small loans to the people to start their businesses, then you will see real change on the people, bright faces and less conflicts on the former poor voters. Poverty will diminish in real terms among the people. People would be given the right to lead and not the right to vote others into power or into prados, iwe uchishupika!
Political parties would not be banned but they would be institutions of no consequence and they would die a natural death. Zimbabwe would have one of the most qualified governments.
(mtafara@ymail.com – For request of Draft Constitution)
Mo has already started an investment fund for exactly that purpose.
Hey Good Going Zac
However I would like to challenge your thoughts on why Mo Ibrahim sees it fit to invest in the past. Africa is continent of stark contrusts living side by side. Stark contrusts that are complex matrices of social and economic disparities both whose levels also vary to a considerable degree. This is to such an extent that Africa’s song of needs essentially sounds like noise except for its descernable shrill of desparation. Remember in physics the particle nature alone nor the wave nature alone fails to explain the world we live in. But a duality of all forces in harmony is what we are all searching for to find peace. A lot of Africans seeking and finding economic prosperity, thinking of it as the single priority that will bring them this peace, follow a path riddled with single mindedness focussed and a self centered goals. The world we live in has structured that as the only way to succed. In addition Africa’s past struggles over traumatic experiences such as slavery, land disposession, and other forms of exploitation and subjugation have nurtured within Africa’s consciousness a grown wounded child, who has never found healing. There is no single recorded intiative to comprehensively provide for national healings for these traumers that I know of that would pass “fit to operate international standards”. All I know are efforts to rid the memories in the young by denying them an truthful representation of what really happened in the past and seeking to disconnect them from their infected elders. It doesnt work. The African consciousnes records everything and chooses another media to display history to remind us of the source of the lack of balance. So once that ambitious African has reached his target of economic prosperity he still finds an emptyness that he cannot explain. Thats when he looks around and sees the past all around him. All that suffering he thought would disappear, once he acheived his goal still there in the haunted eyes of the hungry children, abused women, youth facing a bleak future in their prime years, a society of anxiety and desperation the majority of whom have a life long search for only maslows lowest tier of human needs, and most of all a society that seems to reject the very existence of his family the “poor peoples of Africa”. Remember he is now rich but his family and relatives are all still poor. He becomes subject to African populations expectations of African Leader, a social provider of everything and respository of all social responsibilities. We in Africa assume that once you are good at what made you money you become trained at solving all social ills! That is simply not true of any human being and that attitude must change. Leaders of Africa need our help because the very signal that the populations emit makes it almost impossible to be productive in Africa. Thats why no one would ever think of including the mind as an environmental resource in Africa. Isaac the past exists with us all now in Africa. We must just be honest about it and face up to the responsibilty. Yes it seems like such a huge burden to say “I am good at something but I come with responsibilty of a family with 10 dependants”, when competing on the global market. These vulnerable people are family and thats how it is for Africa. You have one shining star in a haze of dust. Yes we have our nasty past, but we can change the future and perhaps find healing by going a little extra than what money requires now. Africa just needs love and a little patience. Chop chop quick fix wont work.
@John Khumalo: Isaac here: I am aware of the African Enterprise Fund Ltd by Mo, but you have to admit its requirements are steep for young people trying to break into business. The average investment is US$20 million for an already existing business. If you go to their website, its hardly informative, no telephone number, one email add, P.O. boxes and a registered office in Belize. I hope by now they have country or regional offices, and no doubt they need to bring down their average investment to attract small-to-medium enterprises with capacity for growth.
Very good article Isaac. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
This was a very well articulated argument.We certainly need more of such critical analysis.That said,here is the argument.
If one takes Mo Ibrahim’s financial figures,US$5millions(a one off payment) and then an annual US$200 000-00 to each of Ibrahim’s old and faded flames(retired heads of African states) and you say,’Hell no ! I am going to fund Business scholarships in each of the African States instead OR provide soft risk free seed finance to up-coming African entrepreneurs’ and then you do the Maths,you get very interesting figures.Africa roughly has 53 independent states.Mo Ibrahim,on a conservative figure of US$50 000-00 per MBA student OR ‘venture entrepreneur’, would be able to produce at least four(4) guaranteed students per year.That figure astronomically rises to 100 if you take the US$5millions into consideration.That is much more worthwhile than rewarding retired heads of state,who for all you know,dipped their sticky fingers in the national purse while still in office and did very little to expand Africa’s corporate culture and wealth.
It is interesting to note that the man who initially made his fortune on the African Continent,from its natural resources,Cecil John Rhodes,on his passing on,left in place a small kit to do just that: Rhodes Scholarships. Now you compare that with what Mo Ibrahim says on his Foundation’s website, I quote: Talented individuals from sub-Saharan African can acquire the management and leadership skills essential for individual, corporate and national success. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation scholarship for sub-Saharan Africa aims to help produce exceptional leaders for the continent by supporting outstanding students on the full-time MBA programme at London Business School. Each year ONE(1) scholarship, providing full payment of fees and a living allowance, will be awarded to an exceptional MBA candidate from sub-Saharan Africa with financial need.
Question is: ONE? Is that enough OR even necessary?
Mo Ibrahim is making a lot of dough out of Africa. $5m a year to this foundation is peanuts. He must donate a good amount towards empowering children – African children – who are Africa’s Obamas. What’s the point of pouring $5m into Thabo Mbeki or Joachim Chissano’s already bursting pockets while our children are running around naked? And I hear they make a lot more than $5m a year so it’s hardly an incentive to quit…
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Pablo
Isaac, I was reading this with a friend and guess what they had to say, “Mapudzi anowira kusina hari” Mo’s money mapudzi akawira kusinahari. The thing is the he must have gone broke this time around to be able to run the award coz I know someone who is qualifying for that award and everyone else too does. He has to look around Africa and give back to where the money came from, the African people!
Well presented arguments Isaac. I would like to challenge you to bring forth your incisive analysis closer home…..
i fail to see the point of this analysis deemed by some as brilliant.mo ibrahim has his money and is using it the way he sees fit.it is like castigating someone for spendinding money on beer when he clearly affords it and more.we cannot all pump money into the same charities and in any case nothing much is being said about the other people he is helping outside the foundation.its his money unlike african leaders who are rich and doing nothing with people’s money.the poor of africa are not poor because the rich arent doing anything.the poor are poor because the politicians are doing a bad job
@Mazila: IKE here: Thankx for the short but highly debatable comment. Can I just say this; Strive mentioned the other day that HE MADE HIS FIRST MOBILE PHONE CALL IN NIGERIA, NOT ZIMBABWE. What does that tell you? I think if we limit our analyses and activities close to home as you put it, we run the clear and present danger of selling ourselves shot. To cut a long story short, lets think home yes but Africa-wide and globally if we are to make real impact ! What do u say?