Good Governance: Nigeria ranks 35 out of 53 African Countries
Yar Adua, President, Nigeria
It would be recalled that the 2008 Ibrahim Index of Governance ranked Nigeria 39 out of 48 African countries. The current poor ranking of Nigeria in the area of good governance comes on the heels of outcries from stakeholders in the country for the current administration to review its performance on its seven point agenda and a recent poll conducted by a Research & Marketing Services which revealed that up to 64% of Nigerians disapproves of the present administration's performance.
The Ibrahim Index is managed and published by the MO Ibrahim Foundation. It is an African initiative that aims at improving the quality of governance in Africa. Through the periodic publication of the Index of African Governance the Foundation seeks "to provide a robust, comprehensive and quantifiable tool for civil society and citizens to hold governments to account, to stimulate debate on governance and to provide a framework to assess governance quality in Africa." The Ibrahim Index rankings were made based on the assessment of good governance delivered in four major areas: safety and rule of law; participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development. In these four areas, Nigeria scored 50.6, 41.8, 42.6 and 50.8 respectively.
In the West African sub region, it is remarkable that countries like Cape Verde, Ghana and Sao Tome leads with overall score of 78.0, 66.0 and 60.2 respectively while Nigeria scores 46.5. This index reveals that Nigeria which claims to be the Giant of Africa does not have the governance competence which smaller countries possess. Ghana, Nigeria's peer in the struggle for independence and African liberation is fast outpacing Nigeria in not only rankings but in natonal reputation and standing in the comity of nations. The celebrated visit of the first black president of United States of America, Barack Obama to Ghana alone, neglecting Nigeria is in recent times the most visible sign of the increasingly low reputation of Nigeria in the eyes of the world. This is most disturbing as the country has all the potentials to put it much above any African country. But possessing mere potentials seems to be inadequate for transformation to greatness. Good leadership is critical as it provides the required governance that can exploit all the potentials for the good of the citizenry.
Africa has not been lucky with such good governance. The devastating civil wars that have ravaged countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia and the dictatorship that has misruled countries like Zimbabwe, Gabon, and Togo are all evidence that Africa is bereft of good leadership. Bill Clinton lamenting the leadership crisis in Africa had once noted that "Leadership is important everywhere but especially so in Africa. The tasks facing leaders in Africa are challenging, and the lives and well beings of many millions of people will depend upon the performance of those leaders". Chinua Achebe in his celebrated treatise on Nigeria's condition, Trouble with Nigeria also concludes that good leadership is the key to Nigeria's transformation.
In furtherance of good governance and in celebration of that rare good leadership in Africa, the MO Ibrahim Foundation instituted an annual Prize which rewards African leaders who have offered good leadership. In 2007, Joaquim Alberto Chissano, president of Mozambique between November 1986 and February 2005 received the MO Ibrahim Foundation Prize for African Leadership for his contributions towards the peace and stability of a war torn nation. In the same year the Foundation honoured Nelson Mandela with the African Leadership prize for the exemplary sacrifice he exhibited in the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. In 2008, Festus Gontebanye Mogae, the third president of Botswana, who served between 1998 and 2008, received the prize for the remarkable life changing programmes he implemented while in office.
The question remains: Which Nigerian leader will ever receive such prize?
Explainer- Ibrahim Index of African Governance
The Ibrahim Index provides a comprehensive ranking of African countries according to governance quality. The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of African countries according to governance quality. Funded and led by an African institution, the Ibrahim Index aims to be Africa's leading assessment of governance that informs and empowers citizens to hold their governments and public institutions to account. Thus we hope to stimulate debate in a constructive way and establish a framework for good governance in Africa. The Ibrahim Index measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by government and non-state actors. The Ibrahim Index uses indicators across four main pillars: Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development as proxies for the quality of the processes and outcomes of governance.
The Ibrahim Index assesses governance against 84 criteria, making it the most comprehensive collection of qualitative and quantitative data that measures governance in Africa. The criteria are divided into four main categories and 13 sub-categories. The indicators that make up the sub-categories are based either on official data (OD) or expert assessment (EA).
Source: http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org
No comments:
Post a Comment