this article was reported on 3.20.09 by the AFP. The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the US.The American Free Press is a populist weekly newspaper that reports what the mainstream media will not. Here's their report.
LAGOS (AFP) — Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan Friday called on Africa's ageing leaders, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, to make way for younger successors, saying it was a "shame" how they clung to power.
"It is a profound shame that since independence so many African leaders, once elected, come to believe that only they can be trusted to run their country," said Annan.
"The result all too quickly becomes government for the benefit of the ruling elite rather than society as a whole," he said in an address to a Nigerian research institute, the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation.
Annan said Africa needed political leaders "who recognise that democracy means they that can be voted out as well as into power.
"I don't see why any African at 84, at 85, can still feel that they are the only ones who can run their country and won't hand over to younger men.
"Look at Obama, he is 47, in many African countries they would probably consider him too young," Annan said, referring to the new US President Barack Obama.
If Mugabe, who at 85 is the oldest African president, was to be replaced by a younger person, "his attitude would be different," Annan said.
"We must find ways to attract much larger numbers of talented young men and women into politics...there are men and women of their time, they know how the world works.
Good leadership and governance as well as tough anti-corruption practices, would ensure a country's natural resources are used to improve society, he said.
"For too many countries in Africa, natural resources have not been a boon but a curse. We must (have) greater transparency in the revenue which governments receive from the extraction of natural resources and how the money is spent," said Annan
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