Mo Ibrahim, founder of the African leadership prize, at a press conference.
A $5 million prize to reward good leadership in Africa was dramatically awarded Monday to ... nobody.
I found this quote to be slightly comical, but the reality of it to be rather sad. The committee of deciders just thought that there really wasn't anyone worthy of the prize.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anna chaired the prize committee, which also included last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari; Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and another Nobel laureate; Graca Machel, chancellor of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and former minister of education and culture in Mozambique; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights; and Salim Ahmed Salim, a former prime minister of Tanzania.
So we know that there are some brilliant people here, and they said that there were some credible people that were considered, but none were chosen. It seems like a whopping amount of money, so I would hope they would choose someone worthy, if there's no one worthy, better to just save the money I suppose.
Maybe people will be inspired to be better leaders knowing that no one was good enough this year.
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