My brother,
 
I took advantage of the few minutes I was going to use to share some Caesar  
with you by going to the link you provided vis-a-vis Mo Ibrahim.
 
1. You shared a link where "experts" rendered opinion on the Mo Ibrahim  
foundation.
I was giving you advice on how debilitating it can be to share others'  
opinions of yet others' faiths and religions and relying on such to castigate.  You 
should have sent us a link to _www.moibrahimfoundation.org_ 
(http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org)  not  to "expert" or celebrity opinion on it. Did you 
think others' opinion of  anything is terribly significant to me? The way I form 
opinions is to research a  matter in more proprietary detail. If possible I 
visit the place myself, or  speak with my friends and coleagues who have 
witnessed it, or call and ask  pertinent questions and then verify the answers to 
those questions.  Then  and only then, and to consolidate my opinions so made do I 
ever visit celebrity  or other opinion on a matter. Have you ever seen a 
celebrity offer  countervailing opinion on anything? What I share with you is that 
you have not  done Mo Ibrahim's foundation's raison d'etre justice by just 
sharing a link to  celebrity comments. If I didn't have the presence of mind to 
click to the other  pages and then come back to your linked page, I will have 
been screwed and it  will have been your sole fault.
 
Several months ago at Posten, our coleague and friend Dave Manneh,  
honourable, introduced Mo to us and his project. My comments then were that  even 
though I think Mo's heart is in the right place, the idea of coercing good  
governance by rewarding presidents is itself ill-conceived. I advised that if Mo  
wished to do good for the people of Africa, first he could begin in his home  
country, I think the Sudan. You do know there is genocide in Darfur don't  you???
 
Anyway, I did learn more about Mo's project in that he has established an  
index or indicators of good governance that was reviewed by Havard academics.  
There are five indexes and they are called funnily enough: The Ibrahim index of 
 good governance. I know that doesn't strike you as funny. They are:
1. Safety and Security
2. Rule of Law, transparency, corruption
3. Participation and human rights
4. Sustainable Development
5. Human Development
 
Now this sounds to me like the maiden speech of a military Junta.  
Nevertheless, based on these indices, the foundation ranks these countries this  way:
Ghana        8
Senegal      9
Mali           20
Gambia      22
Conakry     33
S. Leone    39
Liberia       43
Bissau      44
 
All toward what end? To determine who receives the Mo Ibrahim Prize for  
doing what they ought to be doing without coercion, intimidation, or  force.
 
Now if I were a thinking idiot and Guinea Bissau, I don't stand a chance in  
hell of that prize. Will I ammend my onerous ways??? Not very likely. At least 
 not according to The Mo Ibrahim index or hopes of winning that prize. So 
Suntou  my dear, what I think Mo ought to do is to first jettison the celebrity  
dipsticks. Then speak with the ordinary African Farmer, fisherman, cobbler,  
welder, housewife, patients, etc. to come up with his index. He can still call  
it the Ibrahim Index. But not from Harvard. From Africa. I know the folks at  
Harvard are excellent. But we are talking here about ranking governments  
according to their goodness to their African citizens.
 
Next, he should not give a prize to the good governor. He should work in  the 
nation of bad governance and use the prize and recognition to make it good.  
That will be a greater, more sincere prize for the people of such country.  
Besides, the presidents can steal more money than the prize is worth. You have  
to understand Suntou that when a president received power through dishonesty,  
he/she does not have much inclination to govern well. So the prize can be 
used  as incentive throughout the tenure of that president in more ways than the  
president him/herself can ever imagine. And at the end of the tenure, that  
president can be awarded a recognition prize for cooperation toward good  
governance. NOT MONETARY PRIZE. A greedy person is never satisfied, with  whatever 
amount of money you give him/her. He/she uses that amount to hoard even  more 
by dishonest means.
 
If I have an opportunity or the time to speak with Mo, these are some of  the 
things I wish to share with him. He may be trained on a totally different  
dispensation, in which case I will have wasted my valuable time.
 
Masoud. Next time you send us a URL, please make it the main site unless of  
course you are directing us to a particular referential item that is  valuable 
to us. Celebrity opinion ain't it. Ax somebody else if you don't  believe me. 
MQDT. Darbo. I still have to share Caesar with you. Remind me. Al  
Mutawakkil. 



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