Managing AU-financial partner relationships: why Tidjane Thiam and Edem Kodjo?
Audio 04:47
By: Jean-Baptiste Placca
In the news, this week, two names inspire a reflection on the inability of Africa to make the most of its elites: Tidjane Thiam, one of the four personalities appointed by President Ramaphosa to manage relations with the financial partners of Africa; and Edem Kodjo, former secretary general of the OAU, who died on April 11. Why these two men?
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Obviously, the value of the other three members of the quartet is not in question. But the profiles of Kodjo and Thiam speak more to the listeners of our Franco-African microcosm. Tidjane Thiam is a polytechnician. With a brilliant career, dotted with a few injustices, but he has always proven himself. Edem Kodjo is enarque, brilliant elite subject, former administrator of Radio France, and undoubtedly one of these Africans (with Babacar Ndiaye), to whom the generation of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Donald Kaberuka, Trevor Manuel and Tidjane Thiam, could, in the 80s, wanting to look like.
Edem Kodjo has marked the history of the continent with his forward-looking, daring vision. Perhaps even Africa would not be begging, today, for moratoria, if it had followed, since 1980, "its" Lagos Action Plan. However, he never reached the level where he could have given the full measure of his real value, because his mistakes were much less forgiven than others.
Despite a convincing first mandate, he was deprived of a second, at the OAU, out of pure national pettiness. He will cross exile with the insolent ease of the one who has succeeded in everything. The Cameroonian economist Célestin Monga, who had him as a mentor, described him as one: “Sovereign-born, (…) who, at 49 years old, gave the impression of having the present, the past, and even the 'future behind him'.
What did the continent do with this brilliant elite?
In Redemption Song, which is worth testament, Bob Marley wondered: " How much longer would we have to let demolish our prophets, before reacting ". In Zürich, Tidjane Thiam was dragged through the mud. And Africa has remained silent. He has certainly, by his results, commanded respect, but at the cost of what personal sacrifices! In 2002, it was talked about as a possible minister for Jacques Chirac, but it will not be. No longer able to cope with the glass ceiling, he left France for Great Britain, where he quickly became the boss of one of the largest insurance companies in the world. It was, then, Credit Suisse, that he has just left, despite himself, after however brilliant results. And suddenly, everyone starts to say that he is Franco-Ivorian. Is ! But Cyril Ramaphosa asked him for what he is, basically: an African! Please let it be left to Africa!
Isn't he just a citizen of the world?
If Africa had been that solid nation dreamed of by George Padmore, Marcus Garvey and others Kwame Nkrumah, Tidjane Thiam would never have needed to go to work in London or elsewhere. The best Americans are not in Europe, any more than the best Asians are in Europe. And the best Botswana people are in Botswana, a country that looks good, on the mainland. And with its natural riches, its youth, and its elites, brilliant and far more numerous than the four now in the limelight, Africa has the means to prosper, without needing either alms or masters of thought.
We must just take leave of mediocrity, and let excellence seize control of the government of Africa, to finish with what must be called a state of permanent decline!
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