It’s 7AM on July 17, a day before Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday, and Corlett Drive, the road leading to The Wanderers Cricket Stadium in Johannesburg, is a sea of cars.
At least 15,000 people are expected to pour into it today, to hear one former president speak about another. Obama on Mandela. Both names big enough to draw generations of South Africans together to the stadium – and others from abroad – on a cold week day.
“I forgot it was winter in South Africa,” began Barack Obama, instantly warming up to the audience that welcomes him with a thunderous applause.
The former US president is here for the 16th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, the biggest ever, timed aptly with the centenary celebrations of the former apartheid struggle hero.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/07/18/the-power-humour-and-anger-of-mandela/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Power, Humour And Anger Of Mandela</a>
<div id="attachment_37017" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37017" class="wp-image-37017 size-medium" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-02.jpg 1902w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />(From Left) Foundation Chairperson Professor Njabulo Ndebele, Graça Machel, President Cyril Ramaphosa, Former US President Barack Obama and Dr Patrice Motsepe. Photo By Gypseenia Lion.</div>
The theme? ‘Renewing the Mandela Legacy and Promoting Active Citizenship in a Changing World’, focusing on creating conditions for bridging divides, working across ideological lines, and resisting oppression and inequality.
“The presence of each and every one here is living proof that the legacy and spirit of Nelson Mandela is alive,” says FORBES billionaire Patrice Motsepe, also founder and CEO of the Motsepe Foundation behind the event, before Obama’s address.
In the audience are recognizable faces, everyone from politicians past and present to billionaire businessmen (Mandela’s long-time friend Richard Branson), movie stars (Charlize Theron), kings and traditional leaders.
The stadium fully represents Mandela’s Rainbow Nation.
<div id="attachment_37016" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37016" class="wp-image-37016 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-05.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />The Soweto Gospel Choir. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“I am here to see Obama, hopefully I will get a good shot of him. Most importantly, I am here to find out what he has in store for us [South Africa], what he thinks about how we are doing outside the country and his views on how we can take our country forward,” says excited guest Asanda Mokoena.
A few hundred metres from the pitch is a car park for attendees like Mokoena. It is a hive of activity. Vehicles, big and small, scramble about for parking space.
Queues form at the gates hours before.
Inside the stadium, loud laughter and banter. Precious photos reminiscing Mandela and recording Obama. “Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can,” the crowd chants.
<div id="attachment_37011" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37011" class="size-medium wp-image-37011" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-04.jpg 1985w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Attendees shield their faces from the afternoon sun. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who calls Obama to the podium, also receives a standing ovation, the crowds singing and cheering for him.
Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane is in the audience.
“We are living in a global society in which the values of freedom are under threat and it is important that people who believe in individual rights, the market-based economy, the freedoms of people, must stand together and advance the values of Nelson Mandela. So I would hope that today is about advancing the value of non-racialism, and reconcile society, then ultimately, a global world on those values can be established,” says Maimane, walking to the VIP area before the event.
Mandela shone brightly. Says Graça Machel, the former president’s widow, on stage, “these occasions make him very happy”, also drawing parallels between Mandela and Obama, portraying them as “symbols of victory over adversity”.
“It should make us hopeful..,” says Obama in his address. “Ultimately, Mandela came to signify something more&#8230;He came to embody the universal aspirations of people all around the world.
“We have to start by admitting that whatever laws may have existed on the books, whatever wonderful pronouncements existed in constitutions, whatever nice words were spoken these last decades at international conferences or in the halls of the United Nations, the previous structures of power and privilege and injustice and exploitation never completely went away…
“I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multi-racial democracy built on the premise that all people are created equal and they&#8217;re endowed by our creator certain inalienable rights. And I believe that a world governed by such principles is possible and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation and pursuit of a common good,&#8221; says Obama, also touching on the politics of fear and the recent chaos in the world.
As the winter sun comes down, and at the end of Obama’s impassioned 90-minute address, the audience is suitably invigorated.
South African actor and presenter, Thapelo Mokoena, says this is a much-needed reminder of the values and sacrifice of Mandela.
<div id="attachment_37012" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37012" class="wp-image-37012 size-medium" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obama-lecture-01.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Thapelo Mokoena, Actor. Photo by Gypseenia Lion.</div>
<blockquote>“Just like art has a way of reminding us who we are and where we are from, this contributes to that. As an artist, this means the entire world and I can tell the story for many years to come,” he says.</blockquote>
“I just feel it is very opportune for us as South Africans to reflect on the kind of leadership that we want to bring into our own lives,” says Tinashe Zigomo, another audience member.
As the crowds leave, they take with them revitalized reflections on Mandela and lessons from Obama.
&#8211; By Ancillar Mangena and Gypseenia Lion

Obama-lecture-03

Obama The Orator; The Mandela Lecture

When a veteran American comedian and actor Jon Stewart retired as the anchor of The Daily Show late in 2015, after 16 years at the helm, his producers scrambled to offer the job to everyone from Chris Rock to Amy Schumer. They settled on the fresh face from South Africa, with an unusual accent, to dissect and satirize the complex United States political scene as it heads for this year’s elections.
Months before the first show went to air, on September 28, American journalists were skeptical. They didn’t believe Trevor Noah could fill Stewart’s shoes in a show that once captured 3.57 million viewers when Barack Obama breezed through on the cusp of his 2008 election victory.
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Bad reviews followed and Noah’s viewership has fallen compared to the days of Stewart. Seven months on, before a press gathering on set, to mark his 100th show, the 32-year-old from Soweto is unfazed.
“It makes sense to me, if my ratings weren’t down I would be offended on behalf of Jon Stewart. It would make sense that people are going to see the king on his way out, when you’re building a new legacy you need to do exactly that. That means building on a new legacy. Television as a whole is down in America. The biggest thing you have to acknowledge is that there are multiple streams of viewership that are happening now,” says Noah.
Despite the drop in popularity among American viewers – the Nielsen ratings report a 37% decline – it broadcasts to 170 countries, compared to 163 when Noah took over.
“These ratings aren’t disastrous, but considering that politics are the bread and butter of late night television, Noah’s numbers are disappointing. Given this preposterous election season, the material practically writes itself. In Jon Stewart’s 2011-2012 season, his nightly average was 1.7 million viewers,” says Hayley Cuccinello a New York-based TV critic.
The show also generates an average of 67 million monthly streams across digital platforms, in 2016, up 22% against 2015.
Noah says the rise of the web is changing people’s viewing habits as millennials switch from television to the internet. His critics agree that these millennials are supporting Noah.
“I like Trevor’s show, I think his take is unique and he is not necessarily copying Jon Stewart. He is kind of doing his own style, maybe a little bit more humorous and characterizations. He is inspired by Jon but he is not just doing imitation of him. The brand of The Daily Show itself is enough to get people interested, especially online, I think Trevor is doing a good thing with social media. I personally don’t watch it on TV a lot but watch it on Facebook and YouTube clips, so I think social media has helped him reach out to people, not necessarily on TV, he has to branch out on other outlets,” says 24-year-old Nader Salem, from New Jersey.
Indeed, the audience at Noah’s 100th show on April 28, in Manhattan, had many people from afar. There were a number of South Africans, supporting their own, including the South African Broadcasting Corporation correspondent in New York, Sherwin Bryce-Pease, and Sunday Times’ entertainment writer Azizzar Mosupi, who flew in for the show.
“We are SAA (South African Airways) employees. It is mandatory for every African in New York to make time for the show. We love Trevor. He is an inspiration to every African child. He is the living proof anything is possible,” says Zanda Setlaleleng.
“I watched Jon Stewart and I have been watching Trevor Noah as well, I didn’t realize today is the 100th show, I am glad I am here tonight. Trevor is very different from Jon but pretty great too. He has a very different view of things that I think people can learn from. I appreciate his sense of humor. Hundredth show on my birthday, there you go,” says Fiona Charlton, a visitor to New York from Britain.
On the night of the show, Noah ran to the stage, fired up, in a black tailored suit and tie. He made the house rules clear to the cheering audience: “This thing is like a sex tape – people watch to get off on seeing both people having a good time… So, you have to give me your all because I am going to give you mine.”
Noah prides himself in a diverse team of scriptwriters who advise him on issues of religion, nationality and gender.
“There’s nothing off limits, it’s just what are you trying to do with a joke. Even before The Daily Show I always liked jokes that bring people together, and jokes that build the nation. In South Africa I made jokes about the president, to his face, for many years. He knows me, people in Parliament know me. That never stopped me from engaging with them and them engaging with me. There’s an implicit understanding. The worst thing that can happen is when somebody takes your joke to hurt another person or group when you didn’t intend to do that.”
Noah stepped into the comedy scene through a dare. In the early 2000s, he was a regular at the comedy clubs in Johannesburg. One night the host called for newcomers to take the microphone, his drunk friends pushed Noah on stage.
That night, Noah slayed them in the aisles and never looked back. In a few years, he would become the country’s favorite comedian, playing to packed houses, and the host of Tonight With Trevor Noah on M-Net across Africa.
Noah says South Africa will always be home and he keeps tabs on the political scene. He is not eligible to vote in the US elections he comments on nightly, but on August 3 he will be one of many South Africans casting their vote at the embassy in New York for in the municipal elections back home.
“Over the years travelling, performing comedy all over the world and now doing The Daily Show, I have learned if you stay true to yourself and if you are proud of who you are and where you come from, that in itself becomes the mantle. I love telling jokes about South Africa and Africa, I will go for the disparaging comments that people think are stereotypes of the continent. I myself, in many ways, a complete juxtapose of what people think of the continent. I am a South African, you can smell it on me,” he says.
Noah grew up crammed into a small house in Soweto, where he shared a room with his stepbrothers and cousins where he peed in a bucket in the mornings. His mother, a Xhosa woman, had a child with his father, a Swiss-German, which was against the law in apartheid days. Noah recalls his mother had to dress like a domestic worker and his father had to walk on the other side of the street to avoid the attention of police on family outings.
“I was born a crime,” Noah often joked.
Whatever the ratings say, it is clear Noah intends to joke through the storm. As a fellow African in New York I put my money on him having the last laugh at the expense of his detractors.

“I Am A South African, You Can Smell It On Me”

When he was selected to travel to the United States (US) to take part in the second edition of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), otherwise known as The Mandela Washington Fellowship, Jean Bosco Nzeyimana knew that the sky was the limit for him.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4776" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Jean-Bosco-Nzeyimana-founder-of-waste-to-wealth-company-Habona-Ltd-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Last year, US President Barack Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship invited 500 of Africa’s brightest minds to learn new skills and see innovative entrepreneurial trends. For Nzeyimana it was invaluable.
Having grown up in the rural village of Gikongoro, in the Nyamagabe District of Rwanda’s Southern Province, from parents of humble origins, Nzeyimana’s journey to the top was out of the ordinary; especially when you consider he used trash to get there. Garbage is Nzeyimana’s calling.
In August last year, Nzeyimana met Obama, and other US state department officials, in Washington DC immediately after the US president visited Kenya to host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi.
A few months later, Nzeyimana presented his business ideas at St James’s Palace, in London, at an African business event called Pitch@Palace in the presence of Prince Andrew. This event, which Nzeyimana says changed his perspective on green business, takes place twice a year and involves more than 300 CEOs, angel investors, mentors and the event’s business partners.
Nzeyimana became an entrepreneur in challenging circumstances. His neighborhood was gripped by poverty and poor sanitation bedevilled the community.
Firewood was used to cook every day. This was problematic as finding wood was daunting and burning it led to health problems. Nzeyimana felt a need to do something about it.
“I needed to be part of a sustainable solution to address lack of power and affordable sanitation and to fight poverty at my rural village in Kitabi, in Gikongoro. My solution was to try composting trash into cleaner cooking fuel and, if possible, to produce other green products too,” he says.
This led to Nzeyimana starting Habona Ltd, a company that produces 20 tons of briquettes per month, in 2013. He did when he was barely 18 and still studying at the University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics. Habona currently employs more than 100 people.
“I studied business administration because I needed to lead a private enterprise that could solve myriad problems that my folks faced, especially hygiene and lack of fuel,” says Nzeyimana.
While at college, he researched how waste could be turned into green products, such as biogas, compost or briquettes. He was particularly interested in new approaches that could displace firewood or help his parents access cleaner and cheaper fuels during the rainy season, when access to firewood – the primary source of cooking – was more difficult.
With time, the knowledge he acquired from university helped him to draw up a comprehensive business plan for his project.
With barely any capital, Nzeyimana formed a small team to set up waste collection points in Nyamagabe town. The team gathered waste from people’s homes and hired vehicles to transport them to a central processing point.
Here the waste is categorized and the degradable materials are processed into manure, briquettes and biogas, while the non-degradable are turned into ornaments or sold for further recycling.
“You don’t need money to start off successfully,” he says. “A lack of funds did not discourage us in any way. Instead we needed to think out of the box in order to raise capital to enable our idea to take shape.”
When the African Innovation Prize, a continental business competition for start-ups called for entries in 2014, Nzeyimana entered and won, receiving Rwf2 million ($2,700) in valuable capital for Habona.
Nzeyimana also scooped the 2014 Young Innovator Award in Rwanda and was among 10 Africans who participated in training in New Delhi, India, on running a start-up.
By August last year, while attending the YALI fellowship, Habona was granted around $25,000 from the United States African Development Foundation(USADF)  to support Nzeyimana’s waste project.
“The grant will boost our capacity substantially going forward. We intend to employ 10 more workers and increase our briquette making capacity from 20 tons to 50 tons per month,” he says.
Habona sells a kilogram of briquettes for Rwf200 (around $0.30) to people fighting the vicious circle of poverty in Nzeyimana’s rural village.
“There is more value in that the briquettes last three times longer than charcoal of the same cost. This is not only cost effective, but is environmentally sustainable.”
Nzeyimana’s experiences in the US and Britain have led to bigger and bolder ideas.
Since his fellowship in the US, Habona has scaled up its capacity in renewable energy management. Consequently, the company was contracted to run an integrated waste management plant owned by the Nyamagabe District authorities.
At St James’s Palace, Nzeyimana learned to introduce a broader vision of his business.
“I came back charged and armed with a better vision of the potential of my abilities, including where I want to be by the end of 2016.”
The event opened his eyes to the big world of green business.
“I am in the process of setting up an office in Kigali. As an entrepreneur, it is important to spread my wings. My company is in talks with a group of local, regional and international investors to set up something with the same business model, but very huge in Kigali while expanding our operations in Nyamagabe.”
Support for Habona is flooding in.
Nyamagabe District’s Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development, Immaculée Mukarwego, is a firm supporter of the company.
“The project started by Habona Ltd is very good, with a very bright future as it seeks to deal with the issue of waste in a sustainable manner and, in the process, it has a high potential of improving the overall wellbeing of the entire district,” says Mukarwego.
As part of the district’s long-term plans, a plant and dumping post was built at a cost of more than $500,000 to help Habona to increase its activities.
It’s a good start for a rural village boy who started off with nothing but an ambitious dream to fight poverty.

One Man’s Trash  Is Another Man’s  Treasure

The state memorial service held in the driving rain for Nelson Mandela at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg drew the eyes of the world. There were thousands of South Africans and more than 91 heads of state. It also drew droves of journalists, with superzoom lenses, all vying for the picture of the day.
It was an odd image that attracted headlines; three world leaders messing around on a smartphone. I believe the saying, the camera never lies, is misconstrued and this image shows how pictures are all about perception.
The moment revolved around a selfie taken by United States president Barack Obama with Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British prime minister David Cameron. On the social media side, people thought Michelle Obama, in the background, looked jealous of the Danish head of state; there was even talk of a split.
AFP’s Roberto Schmidt, the man who took the picture, has a different story to tell.
“I later read on social media that Michelle Obama seemed to be rather peeved on seeing the Danish prime minister take the picture. But photos can lie. In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance,” Schmidt writes on his blog.
My view is the context is just as important as the image. People at home read far too much into Michelle’s face. In the picture, she comes across as a distant wife, cold towards the fun. It is an easy assumption to make from the comfort of a couch.
Most of the time, wire photographers write generic captions and send through their photos in bulk to put on mass-media sites. Editors, hundreds of kilometers away, then choose a photo from the event. Sometimes, this leads to people losing the essence and taking the image on face value.
The caption for this image does not explain what Schmidt thinks Michelle is doing, leaving it for the reader to guess. This leaves the picture open to interpretation. For all the reader knows, Michelle could have merely been cold and wet in the rain.
The reality was, as the photographer bears, that Michelle was not distant at all; though the image alluded to this.
This is a classic case of how a photograph can mislead and also shows the importance to gathering the context of the image.   FL

000_DV1590969

That Split Second Selfie

United States (US) President Barack Obama announced that private companies are providing $12 billion to his Power Africa program, while US firms will invest more than $14 billion towards banking, construction and information technology on the continent.
The US-Africa Summit held in Washington in August focused on sustainable development, trade, collaboration, investment, and America’s commitment to Africa’s security, its democratic development, and its people.
Obama assured Africa’s head of states, gathered in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, that the US wanted to help Africa grow; nothing else. With his charming voice, he dismissed the notion that the US wanted something in return. Those who are not gullible know the US doesn’t do anything for free.
The African Union has 54 member countries. If the US really cares, it should help Africa in its entirety. It came as no surprise that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe didn’t get an invite. Other black sheep were Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic.
Some African nations declined to join the global superpower. Sierra Leone and Liberia focused on domestic issues rather than sucking up to the US, while Ebola kept West African countries busy.
Africa is not a charity case and progress can be made on our own terms. Foreign partnerships are vital, but the US is not the only option. China is currently forging trade agreements with several African countries.
Now more than ever, Africa needs education to exploit its resources. Academics Nkem Khumbah and Melvin Foote see this as a more viable option than pumping aid into the hands of corrupt officials.
“There’s a way to make a lasting and low cost investment in Africa’s next generation: Obama must bring education – science and technology in particular – to the forefront of the debate about African development,” wrote Khumbah and Foote in The New York Times.
Africa is experiencing an economic upswing, but its growth is predominantly based on extracting natural resources rather than increasing industrial productivity. Most African nations are far away from making any significant international breakthrough.
This is not rocket science. Power-obsessed African leaders need to understand and implement measures to help their countries grow.
Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is a Better Way for Africa, says donations to Africa provide many points to debate – millions march for it, governments are judged by it and celebrities promote the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that goes to Africa each year to be doubled.
Some, however, argue that aid has made the continent poorer and economic growth slower. The aid culture has left countries more debt-laden and vulnerable to the vagaries of currency markets. This leads to Africa being an unattractive destination for investment.
According to Moyo, despite the aggressive debt-relief campaigns in the 1990s, African countries still pay nearly $20 billion in debt per annum, a stark reminder that aid is not free. In order to keep systems going, debt is repaid at the expense of education and health care. Calls to write off the debt are hollow when it is met with a fresh infusion of aid. We are trapped in a vicious cycle.
“In 2005, just weeks ahead the G8 conference that had Africa at the top of its agenda, the International Monetary Fund published a report entitled ‘Aid Will Not Lift Growth in Africa’. The report cautioned that governments, donors and campaigners should be more modest in their claims that increased aid will solve Africa’s problems. Despite such comments, no serious efforts have been made to wean Africa off this debilitating drug,” Moyo points out.
Obama might have good intentions but Africa, the sleeping giant of the world, needs to wake up and guard its assets: both human and natural resources. It needs to protect itself from the toxicity of foreign aid.

Why Aid Is Bad For Africa

Mo Ibrahim is rich, relaxed and a lot of fun. He sees humor in the leadership of Africa as he delivers his Nelson Mandela lecture. He compares Robert Mugabe to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who both ran the world’s biggest economy in their 40s.
“Here we have somebody in our neighboring country, who, at 90 years old, is about to start a new term. So what is wrong with us? And the other day I was thinking, ‘If Obama senior decided to take the young Obama back to Kenya, where would the young Obama be today?’ You may guess, I know, he will never be president of Kenya,” says Ibrahim to laughter from the audience in Pretoria.
Ibrahim knows Africa like the back of his hand. He was born in Sudan in 1946, the second child in a family of five. He went to school and university in Alexandria, Egypt, where his father worked as a cotton trader. After university, Ibrahim went to work for the telecommunications department in Sudan. Following training and assignments abroad, he completed his Masters and Doctorate at the University of Birmingham, in England.
It led to an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of world telecommunications. Ibrahim joined British Telecom (BT) as a technical director when it won the first license for cellular technology. He designed the first mobile network in the United Kingdom.
Ibrahim left BT to start Mobile Systems International (MSI) and founded Celtel International, one of the first mobile phone networks in Africa, in 1998. At the time, people were scrambling for licenses everywhere but Africa. The general consensus was that Africa was too difficult.
“Wherever there is a gap between perception and reality, there’s a good business opportunity,” says Ibrahim.
He sold MSI in 2000. Celtel was sold in 2005 to MTC Kuwait for $3.4 billion, making him a reported $1.4 billion. At the time, the company had six million subscribers in 13 countries.
Ibrahim hails mobile technology as an African success story, but cautions that despite the continent having more mobile phones than Europe and the United States, it makes none of them. He says African nations should sign contracts with mobile companies forcing them to set up factories here and then transfer the skills.
The leadership that could bring this about has been honored with millions of dollars by the Ibrahim Foundation, launched in October 2006, to support good governance and great leadership in Africa. The foundation publishes an annual index on the quality of governance.
The Ibrahim Prize—of $5 million-a-year for 10 years—has been awarded a mere three times and goes only to former heads of state. In 2007, it went to former president of Mozambique Joachim Chissano; in 2008, Festus Mogae of Botswana; in 2011, Pedro Pires of Cape Verde.
Ibrahim says that it’s a prize for excellence that doesn’t come easy. He adds it is a prize and not a pension. Many do not agree with the idea, but Ibrahim challenges people to name three western leaders who could have won it in the last six years.
On the business front, Ibrahim is trying to channel investment through Satya Capital, of which he is chairman.
“Business is wonderful because business means prosperity, development and jobs,” says Ibrahim.
Good business that is. Ibrahim is disturbed by fellow African businessmen whom he believes are detached from society. A closer interaction is essential because, he says, business cannot succeed if society doesn’t thrive. He also thinks that the business world is too scared to rock the boat and hold government to account, forcing transparency and good governance.
Ibrahim is a proponent of integration. He feels that achieving a central market for Africa is essential, that the continent has yet to achieve this because of a lack of political will. According to Ibrahim, an African business plan must begin with integration and that Africa needs scale that allows the development of industries to compete with India, China, Brazil, the European Union and the United States.
“We cannot really build 54 successful small economies in Africa, it’s out of the question,” says Ibrahim.
“Only 11% of our trade is amongst Africans. We refuse to let our people travel from one country to another.”
Ibrahim says Africa needs infrastructure, roads and railways, power generation and broadband.
“Africa will not develop just by accident, people need to work and see what needs to be done and work together,” he says.
Then, there is youthunemployment.
“If you are a young African person, the more educated you are the more likely you are not to get a job. Our education system is not providing the skills for the job market. We need to rethink how our schools teach,” says Ibrahim in a speech to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), an organ of the United Nations.
“The future is theirs [the youth], they have a better understanding of the future than us. This continent belongs to its young people,” says Ibrahim.
Delivering the 11th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, Ibrahim posed a question whether young Africa can become the factory of the world when China has no youngsters to work in theirs, in 10 to 20 years time, because of the aging population.
What about the notion that China is taking over Africa? Ibrahim sees this as a healthy business relationship as long there is technological transfer, local sourcing of components, transparency, and respect for the environment and communities.
“Why are Africans poor when we have a rich continent?”
More money is lost from multinationals not paying tax, through what he calls ‘fancy accounting’, than gained from aid. He calls for a strengthening of tax institutions. Although the west has woken up to tax dodging, Africa slumbers.
Governance, according to Ibrahim, is about making difficult decisions and being judged on the numbers.
“Physics and numbers don’t lie, but people do,” he says.
Ibrahim says there is a dearth of leadership in Africa; that leadership is not about bossing people around, having a seat on the Security Council, or chairing the AU. It’s about engaging with others.
He says that the continent holds South Africa up as a role model, but that the country has become too arrogant and refuses to learn from other countries.
When the BEE policy was introduced in South Africa, Ibrahim asked his friends in the ruling party if this was not a slippery slope to corruption. He says that the policy has done nothing to keep South Africa from being at the bottom of the Gini Index scorecard, making it the most inequitable country in the world. He says there should be no “sacred cows”, including land reform. If something doesn’t work then policy makers should revisit it.
The 2013 Ibrahim Forum will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November and will discuss where the continent is going after 50 years of the African Union. It will focus on achievements and those that got away.
Ibrahim doesn’t know where he gets his sense of purpose from, but he simply sees things that need to be done and does them. In the end, Ibrahim just wants to be remembered as a son of Africa that made it in the west and never forgot his people.

The World According To Mo And  Why An ObamaWill Never Lead Kenya

A bunch of archivists set out to capture the life of one of the world’s most famous people when they launched the Nelson Mandela Digital Archive in March 2012.
The archive took 18 months from conceptualization to launch. It is a joint venture between the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory (NMCM) and Google’s cultural institute, which supplied a $1.25 million grant in 2011. The archive includes 12,000 documents, photographs and sound and video clips of Mandela. These were from Mandela himself, who would constantly go to Verne Harris saying: “I think I’ve got something for you”; as well as through donations from his former lawyers and comrades. Harris refers to these as “the cherries”, offering us a taste of what’s in store. He hopes to get more content from the National Archives, the ANC archives, Fort Hare and Mayibuye archives.
<div id="attachment_849" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-849" class="size-large wp-image-849" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Obama_002_reduced-747x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" />US President Barack Obama greets Madiba</div>
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A recent acquisition is a diary by Mandela’s former warder at Victor Verster Prison in South Africa’s Western Cape, where he was kept in a private house for three years before his release. Days were spent alone and the diary notes every visitor, meal and notes left to him by Mandela.
Verne Harris is the head of memory programing at the NMCM. His biggest fear is that there are pieces of history rotting away in boxes, sitting in dark dingy rooms. His toughest job is telling the fish from fowl.
Lifting up boots, Harris says: “Now these boots are supposedly his [Mandela’s] boots and they were brought in by a family who claimed that their father, who’s dead now, trained Madiba to be a guerrilla and these are the boots Madiba wore during the training. We showed these boots to Madiba and he said, ‘wrong size’.”
There are a great many chancers, one of whom claimed to have Mandela’s phone from when he was on Robben Island. This, despite the fact that Mandela had no phone
on Robben Island.
There is a white, long-term prisoner in Johannesburg who sends a gift every year. He once made a papier mâché bust that he painted gold and wrote Mandela’s name on it, despite the fact that it looked nothing like the icon.
One of Mandela’s most treasured gifts is a photograph with US president, then senator, Barack Obama that sits behind the desk in his old office. Mandela was visiting the country and the moment was captured using a cellphone after Obama rushed over to meet Mandela. It is a beautiful image of Obama’s silhouette as he stood over Mandela, shaking his hand.
<div id="attachment_848" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-848" class="size-large wp-image-848" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Madiba-1024x640.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="296" />Mandela&#8217;s first legal passport, issues on February 19, 1990</div>
Also in the office is a large picture of Walter Sisulu. Harris explains how Mandela once looked over to him and said: “I want Walter in the office.” They ran around and found a Peter Magubane photo and had it framed. Mandela didn’t know and so one day he walked into the office, saw it and said: “Huh, I see Walter is here today.”
The digital archive houses a warrant of committal from when Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison, noting his release date as November 1967. He was then whisked off to the Rivonia Trial and a red pen crossed out “1967” and wrote “life” in its place.
There is a room at the NMCM filled with small treasures, like his first legal passport, issued on February 19, 1990—a week after his release. He filled it up in four months. There are desk calendars with detailed notes about his blood pressure, staff issues and every movie he saw—including six reels of a film called Reds. This is all written in a handwriting that seems neat from a distance but is hard to read close up. The same handwriting wrote long notes on miniature slips of paper, which were smuggled out of Robben Island.
The earliest photograph of Mandela is a class shot at Healdtown. Harris recalls how they enlarged it and showed it to Mandela, who said: “This young man improved with age.”
In a packed room in the NMCM there are piles of souvenirs and gifts from all over the world—from a soccer shirt signed by Maradona to a Nobel Peace Prize to bottles of wine and homemade cards from children.
Setting up the NMCM was no easy task and necessity proved the mother of invention. When Mandela’s term in office ended in 1999, it did not mean retirement for him. He is said to have kept calling his old staff to give them instructions. Eventually, fellow activist Professor Jakes Gerwel reminded him gently that there was a new sheriff in town and that the staff no longer worked for him.
No one had thought ahead to what Mandela would need once he stopped running the country. A foundation was set up as a trust to allow him to continue with his work.
By 2002, the foundation outgrew Mandela’s old 13th Avenue house in Houghton, in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. Two years later, the veteran called a memorable ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ press conference announcing that he would be “retiring from retirement”, something that took five years to actually happen. It raised more questions about life after Mandela, leading to the idea of a centre of memory in 2004. The plan is to turn the NMCM into a public facility and create a permanent exhibition that includes a reading room for researchers.
“The legacy belongs to everyone,” says Harris.
The preservation of the legacy is overseen by the eight members on the board of trustees, chosen by the man himself. Mandela had initially appointed 27 members to sit on the board, but unfortunately, hardly ever attended any meetings. So when the transition and restructuring process came about, it was time to clean house and choose members based on their level of commitment. The board includes some old friends, struggle veterans and former colleagues such as Ahmed Kathrada, Dr. Mamphela Ramphele and Professor Gerwel.
The Centre of Memory aims to make an integrated information resource available to ensure that Mandela’s legacy is a living one and accessible to everyone, and to use dialogue as a way of finding solutions to social problems.
Harris says the Dialogue for Justice “uses Madiba’s legacy’s capability to create a space for people to talk to each other that don’t want to and for that space to be safe enough for them to say the unsayable”.
This is in line with Mandela’s work during the critical negotiations between the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) for a transitional government.
Mandela’s living legacy is the internationally celebrated Nelson Mandela Day, his birthday, on July 18. It’s a day the center feels people should feel free to interpret any way they like, whether it is helping someone cross the street, painting a school or donating food.
The legacy lives on and the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory invites you to discover the man behind the legend.

Tag: Barack Obama

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