Mo Ibrahim African leaders prize: No winner

For a second consecutive year, no leader has been deemed worthy of the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.

The foundation's prize committee announced Monday that it had decided not to award the prize -- the fourth time there has been no winner in its seven-year history.

Winners must be democratically-elected leaders who have stepped down in the past three years after serving their constitutionally mandated term, and have demonstrated "excellence in office." The committee's failure to again find a prize winner has led some to comment that its selection criteria are too narrow, and should be broadened to include those showing leadership in civil society.

But Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born telecommunications businessman and billionaire, who created the foundation in 2006, defended the prize.
"Most African countries are new states -- some of the states did not exist 70 years, 50 years ago," he said, adding, "In established democracies there are some kinds of checks and balances, but at the early stages in a state's formation the power of the president is huge ... And we need really to point the finger at where the responsibility lies.

"Let's put the light there and let us seek heroes."

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The previous winners were President Pedro Verona Pires of Cape Verde in 2011, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique in 2007 and Festus Mogae of Botswana in 2008. Nelson Mandela was made the honorary inaugural Laureate in 2007.

In 2009 and 2010 there was no winner, but in 2012 the foundation awarded Archbishop Desmond Tutu a one-off $1 million special prize for his lifelong commitment towards "speaking truth to power."

(CNN)