Economies are improving, but rule of law is slipping. The buck now stops with Africa’s leaders | Kenneth Mohammed

The west has spent decades judging Africa’s governance and colonialism is much to blame. But Mo Ibrahim’s latest index offers a different perspective – and some uncomfortable truths

The west has never been short of advice on how Africa should govern itself. It has produced rankings, attached conditions to aid and delivered lectures on corruption, often while its own banks and corporations have profited handsomely from the continent’s governance weaknesses.

So, there was something refreshing about sitting in Cairo, listening to a Sudanese-born, self-made telecommunications entrepreneur and billionaire on why Africans needed to measure their own governments.

At the launch of the 2026 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), now two decades in existence, Mo Ibrahim returned to a question he attributed to Nelson Mandela: “How could Africa be so…