Ozioma Okorie With Agency Reports
20 October 2008
Lagos — Former Botswana President Festus Mogae emerged the winner of a $5m (£2.8m) prize, which the Sudan-born entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim set up to encourage good governance in Africa.
Mogae stepped down in April after serving two terms in office setting a record that place Botswana as one of Africa's most stable countries. The country has never had a coup and has had regular multi-party elections since independence in 1966.
Announcing the prize, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annnan also commended Mogae for his action to tackle the Aids pandemic which has ravaged the country.
The Ibrahim Prize, the most valuable individual annual prize in the world was set up by Sudan-born telecoms entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim. As well as the $5m prize, Mogae, 69, gets $200,000 a year for the rest of his life.
Mogae stated that Botswana was already doing well before he became president in 1998. According to him, I did not create the democracy in my country, I consolidated it and deepened it by practiced, accountable governance, respect of the rule of law, independence of the courts, respect for human rights, including women's rights.
But Mogae also inherited a country with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/Aids and he took strong action to tackle it, making Botswana the first sub-Saharan African country where anti-retroviral drugs were widely available for free.
The drugs are known locally as 'Mogae's tablets'. "President Mogae's outstanding leadership has ensured Botswana's continued stability and prosperity in the face of an HIV/Aids pandemic which threatened the future of his country and people," Annan said.
Kofi Annan announced the winner. Botswana has Africa's highest average income and is seen as its least corrupt country, according to Transparency International. It is the world's biggest diamond producer but unlike other resource-rich countries in Africa, this has not become a source of conflict.
Annan said: "Botswana demonstrates how a country with natural resources can promote sustainable development with good governance, in a continent where too often mineral wealth has become a curse".
Annan also said Mogae had tried to diversify Botswana's economy away from its reliance on diamonds. In 2006, President Mogae's government introduced a law curbing the sale of alcohol and banning it last Sunday. He blamed alcohol for the spread of HIV/Aids, among other problems.
But Mogae also came in for criticism from lobby group Survival International for Botswana's policy of relocating Bushmen groups away from their traditional homes in the Kalahari Desert.
Mogae was succeeded as president by Seretse Khama Ian Khama in April. Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano won the inaugural Ibrahim Prize last year.
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It does not matter what you think coz he deserved it.
Well Icho, its a pity you choose to see things in a negative and inhuman way. Mogae was trying to move the First People of the Kalahari closer to infrasture and he was doing it for their own good, something of which people like you and Sunday school choir called SI ignore to see,why because they are viewed as attracting tourists. BW has better things that could be used to attract tourists. Anyway he got the price for his hard work and fighting for his people, there is nothing you can do about it. Hats off to you Festus!!
Well, i don"t know whether denying the Bushman their land rights with the backing of America can be said to be good governance, just handing over power to another person without holding an election is good governance and being democratic, denying your people to enjoy the wealth created from the diamonds sales good governance. I think its high time that the world should know that the ordinary Batswana citizen is not benefiting from the diamond sales but America is benefiting much more and that why it wants its Africom project to be based in Gaborone ie for SADC region.