[b]A fortnight ago, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation released its governance report for 2012. The foundation was established by Dr Mohamed “MO” Ibrahim in 2006. Mo Ibrahim, who was born in Sudan but now settled in Britain, is the billionaire entrepreneur who founded the telecommunications giant Celtel. By the time he sold it in 2005 for $3.4 billion, Celtel had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. In 2006, he established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage good governance in Africa. He also created the Mo Ibrahim Governance Index to evaluate African nations’ performance.

In 2007, he established the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership which awards a $5 million initial payment and a $200,000 annual payment for life to African presidents who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their nations. In 2007, the prize was awarded to President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique; in 2008 to President Festus Mogae of Botswana. No African president qualified for the award in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, it was won by President Pedro Pires of Cape Verde. No African president performed well enough to earn it this year. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation also publishes the Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranking the performance of all 53 African countries. This year, both Sudan and Southern Sudan were not evaluated for lack of sufficient data.

This year, the best performing country by the index is Mauritius. And the top best 10, apart from Mauritius, are Cape Verde, Botswana, Seychelles, South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Tunisia, Lesotho and Tanzania in that order. For the first time since this governance assessment started, Nigeria is graded among the worst 10 governed nations of Africa. This should hardly surprise us, except that we have not heard any abusive condemnations of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation from Jonathan’s verbose aides.

Nigeria shares this infamy of being among the worst 10 with Equitorial Guinea, one of the most corrupt countries in the world; Guinea Bissau, which is technically a failed state; Cote d’ Ivoire; Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe still looms large; Central African Republic; Eritrea; Chad; Democratic Republic of Congo, another failed state perpetually at war; and, of course, Somalia, which has been taken over by thugs, terrorists and pirates. Jonathan’s Nigeria is clearly in good company.

Many of us have had cause to declare that, even by Nigeria’s very poor governance standards, the Jonathan government stands alone and apart. Our current problem is monumental corruption which robs vital sectors of funding, and also incompetence in governance. “Incompetence” and “clueless” are words that have been freely associated with the Nigerian president all over the world. Borno and Yobe states are the headquarters of Boko Haram operatives and Yobe, especially, is a completely failed state. The Yobe governor doesn’t even live in the state anymore.

The situation in Yobe is worse than the situation in Somalia. Yet, the president has not visited there – not even once. When asked recently, the president said the Maiduguri Airport was not functioning, but every Nigerian knew that was a presidential lie. I have never seen a commander-in-chief so afraid of felons like our president. Because Jonathan has refused to go there, it should not be any surprise that many people including Boko Haram chieftains now believe that the president has ceded those two states to Boko Haram, just like we have al-Shabaab-controlled areas of Somalia.

It is the type of corruption that allows as much as N2.6 trillion to be stolen from a single subhead in a single year that has deprived the nation of funds to tackle the insecurity in the country. As I have always averred on this page, security is the first and basic responsibility of every government. And if any government fails in this index, it will fail in all the other indices. It is also corruption that has prevented the country from making any meaningful progress in education, provision of healthcare services, development of infrastructure as well as all aspects of human and material development.

I hope that this year’s very damning Mo Ibrahim report on Nigeria would be very useful in serving as a wake-up call to President Jonathan to know that it’s not only Nigerians that are watching him. The world is also watching and the verdict on him so far is very, very bad.

SAM NDA-ISAIAH Columns The Monday Column - Last Word


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IT IS ONE THING TO MAKE A COMMENT ON A REPORT A FOUNDATION AND ANOTHER TO MAKE THE RIGHT OBSERVATION BASED ON THE EXPERIENCE, AND REALITIES ON GROUND.
Lets exray what ou leadership News man-SAM NDA-ISAIAH says about the MO IBRAHIM FOUNDATION's report. There are so many development from 2007 till date when the Yar'Adua/Jonathan administration came in, must be mentioned if we must compare our 2011 to other countries(the report is based on 2011 governance data.)
This has the signal that there is much than drawing government attention to what MO IBRAHIM FOUNDATION is saying, for we must through this report acknowledge that insecurity is the worst thing that can happen to any government which has been used by so many politicians in the guise of Boko Haram to distract government attention and plan of work.
The fluctuation in the data in terms of rule of law and judiciary for instance is a clear indication that we must look in the direction of peace than unconstructive criticism.

First in Nigeria, in 2007 Human development moved from 44 to 48 in 2012 which came as a result of dedication of the government which was pursued vigorously by the Yara'dua/Jonathan administration.
Second, Sustainable economic opportunity rose from 40 in 2007 to 41 in 2012,.
Third, participation and human right rose from 37 in 2008 to 38 in 2011, etc.

In this report, we must observe that no country has ever moved more than 4 units which means that development can never be realised by a magic wand but by the effort of everyone in or out of government.
Most importantly, is the fact that it is obvious even to a blind man that the overall position from 2007 to 2011 which the study covers shows that security, centripital and centrfugal forces of political manipulators have most impacted negatively ondevelopment and growth of every nation.

Mauritius and Somalia as the top and bottom liners in the report should further our research and search for the solution of our protracted and chronic problems than apportionment of blames, hate and prejudices against anyone, and the less this administration. For every Nigeria politically enlighten we know that we have undergone military Dictators, political Impostors imposed on us by Godfathers who knows nothing about governance or human and infrastructural developmental which are the engines of good governance that produces the fruits of democratic dividends.

Nigeria like never before is in the course for higher economic and political development which all, including San Ndah-Isaiah have seen, touched and felt.
We must stop terroristic strategy against government which ruins the plans and developmental strategy, if we desire sincerely, a true democracy which include and not limited to Mo IBRAHIM Foundation Index but to the well being of all Nigerians.
And I must say at this juncture that verdict of the foundation is not the verdict of the world as put forward by Sam and can never be "very, very bad" for GEJ as was not to JFK in 1962 when facing the Russian in Cuba misile buid-up as contended by Sam, nay Mo IBRAHIM foundation.
We must be patriots and not recalcitrant biased critics of mere political manipulator.