The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is an annual prize of $5 million USD awarded to a former African executive Head of State or Government and was instituted in 2007. The winners includes; 2007 – Honorary Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, South Africa. 2007 – Joaquim Alberto Chissano, Mozambique. 2008 – Festus Gontebanye Mogae, Botswana. 2011 – Pedro De Verona Rodrigues Pires, Cape Verde. 2014 – Hifikepunye Pohamba, Namibia. 2017 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia.
Nigeria was rated as 19th most corrupt country in Africa according to the latest ranking of Transparency International [TI] in it’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index [CPI] has rated Nigeria as 19th most corrupt country in Africa, 18th most corrupt country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 33rd most corrupt country in the world!
Akwaaba in Ghana means, ‘Welcome’. Akwaaba to Nigeria’s corruption square where the King must not dance naked even if asked to dance to appease the gods. It is a taboo for him to dance naked in the corruption square, he will be shielded by the palace guards.
Justice has been ripped to shreds by Nigeria leaders who preyed on the people rather than caring for the masses. We dream peace, but we are plaque by war, we cherished law and order, but we are cannot stem the rising tide of robbery, rape, and murder. We want to trust our neighbour but we have to lock our doors for protection.
Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] has prosecuted and convicted a number of high-profile corrupt individuals since its inception in 2003, but most of them have escaped effective sanctions.
President Muhammadu Buhari is simply working his way for those that, will and can contribute to his supposedly 2019 presidential project.
Nigeria rulers who should have known justice exploited Nigerians, as if tearing the skin and flesh of sheep and breaking their bones. They are like brier or a thorn hedge. Nigerians get scathed, clothes ripped, dealing with Nigerians unjustly, treacherous and corrupt.
We are like in the midst of their roaring lions; the judges were evening wolves that gnaw Nigerians bones till morning. Nigeria leaders are like rapacious, wild lions, disregarded righteousness, ravenous, insatiable wolves, devouring everything. How could Nigerians stand-up under this?
A nation that is bleeding under the scorching hardship inflicted on the masses by the king[s], never to be tried nor sentenced by any law court and in any case, the king[s] are welcomed back with a live television broadcast thanksgiving, celebrating freedom from the VIP prison with pomp and ceremony. The king[s] must not dance naked as they leave behind endless footprints of corruption and graft!
The hope of millions of electorates across the country is being dash. When hope is crushed, the heart is crushed, but a wish comes true fills the heart with joy. The power brokers in Nigeria political affairs continue to capture, hijack, impose and select who governs, irrespective. according to a Chinese saying; ‘When you see a mad bull in China’s shop you find a way of leading out gently to avoid damaging the contents in the shop.’
The electorate across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria are being stretched beyond their limits, no thanks to the capricious and despotic Nigeria rulers. The only way out of the logjam is a collective will, resist the impostors. Is it because I am a Nigerian that I can be so bastardized by my rulers? Show us your face God, the masses of Nigeria are before the hangman! In pursuit of a better world through one ideology or another, mass graves are being filled.
Most people have become too tolerant of murder, punished it too lightly and excused it by perpetrating the most abominable atrocities against their fellow human beings, when it was in the service of Utopian visions!
Let the rain come down and wash away Nigeria’s scourge of corruption and save the masses from the shackles of poverty and enslavement, as the king[s] can neither be de-robe, nor allowed to dance naked [go to jail] in the corruption square.
“Nigerians are weeping like a woman for what they cannot have as a man”. In the name of governance the politicians have perpetrated the most abominable atrociousness against their subjects.
Can/will The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership [an annual prize awarded to a former African executive Head of State or Government], curtail, minimize, and stop Nigeria rulers’ tendency for greed, corruption, become servant leader [not leader servant], uphold the rule of law and practice true democracy? The present scenario is quite telling!
Nigerians should rather stop weeping and brace up to face the challenges of institutionalizing GOOD GOVERNANCE, so as to celebrate Mo Ibrahim Leadership Prize Award Initiative for Good Governance, and express this Portuguese saying, ‘COCKNEY ‘TA’, ‘GOOD and THANKS’.
According to UK Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, ‘There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and endings of things. This is surely not the end of the beginning nor the beginning of the end, but the beginning of the beginning.’
Nigerians cannot continue to weep, rather we have to brace up and reverse the trend now!