How bad governance stalls Africa’s progress, by Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF) has said Africa’s main problem is not that of scarcity but of ‘abundance of thieves of state.’

The foundation said that this situation of bad governance is stalling the continent’s progress.

MIF, at yesterday’s launch of Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), lamented that after 56 years of independence and 17 years of democratic rule, Nigeria is yet to experience impressive growth. It also said that almost two-thirds of African citizens live in a country in which safety and rule of law deteriorated in the past 10 years.

The IIAG report, the most comprehensive analysis of African governance undertaken to date, brings together a decade of data to assess each of Africa’s 54 countries against 95 indicators drawn from 34 independent sources.

It noted that Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, is ranked 36th out of 54 countries in Overall Governance with a score of 46.5 out of 100, adding that the nation’s score improved +2.5 points over the decade.

Nigeria improved by +2.5 points, declined by -28.6 points over the course of the decade in national security.

According to the foundation, this year, for the first time, the IIAG includes public attitude survey data from Afrobarometer. This captures Africans’ own perceptions of governance, which provide fresh perspective on the results registered by other data.

While commending the 2016 report on Africa’s improvement on overall good governance in the past decade, the IIAG urged African leaders to adopt transparent policies and practices and be accessible to their own people.

Speaking at the 2016 IIAG yesterday via telephone, former chair of the Board and Partnership Council, GAIN, and founding secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Jay Naidoo, noted that it is the role of every government to put into place correct policies, laws and regulations and to create a future based on the opportunities and access and what is the worth of Africa.

Lamenting youth unemployment in Africa, resulting in migration to Europe and the foundation’s efforts to curb the trend, Naidoo said that if Africans have the right leadership, policies and governance, young people will not make the often very dangerous decision to leave the continent for Europe on very unsafe transport ship often organised by criminal gangs in order to find greener pasture.