Thabo Mbeki ashinda Tuzo … Avikosoa Vyombo vya Habari

Pagan Amum (left), chief negotiator from South Sudan, lead mediator for the African Union, Thabo Mbeki (centre) and Sudan’s head negotiator Idriss Abdu Qadir , attend African Union-led talks between Sudan and South Sudan in Addis Ababa on March 13, 2012. (Getty)

MBEKI WINS 2012 AFRICAN OF THE YEAR AWARD, ATTACKS AFRICAN MEDIA

November 11, 2012 (JUBA) – Former South African President, Thabo Mbeki is the winner of the 2012 Daily Trust African of the Year award, its Advisory Board announced on Thursday.

The annual accolade, the Advisory Board Chairman said, seeks to recognise and encourage an “ordinary and exemplary African who has made an outstanding contribution.”

The ex-South African leader, according to Salim Ahmed Salim, was considered the ideal candidate after the advisory panel looked at his “extraordinary” contribution to the Sudanese crisis. Mbeki says African problems should be resolved by Africans themselves.

“Normally when we as an Advisory Panel choose the African of the Year, we look for an ordinary African doing extraordinary things. But this year in our deliberations we have decided to choose an already prominent African, but someone who in the context of the Sudanese crisis, has made what we consider to be an extraordinary contribution” said Salim Ahmed Salim.

Mbeki, who currently chairs the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP), along with former presidents Pierre Buyoya and Abdulsalam Abubakar, played a key role in brokering a deal between Sudan and South Sudan.

In April this year, the two countries were at the brink of war, before Mbeki and his panel immediately embarked upon a round of comprehensive negotiations, which resulted into the 27 September agreements, between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his Sudanese counterpart, Omer Al-Bashir.

“For his outstanding leadership of the panel, for his persistent and consistent involvement in the peace process, and for the success of the panel in bringing Sudan and South Sudan back from the brink of war and consolidating a new start in relations, Thabo Mbeki is the 2012 African of the Year,” the statement reads in part.

“We believe that this intervention by the African Union in the Sudanese situation must be encouraged. Although a united Sudan could not be maintained, peace between the two neighbours-indeed sisterly states-Sudan and South Sudan, is critical for the African continent,” said Salim, a former Secretary General of the defunct Organisation of African Union (OAU).

MEDIA

The former South African leader, last month, described as “shameful and embarrassing” African media’s alleged failure recognize the key elements in Sudan and South Sudan’s Cooperation Agreement.

“This represents a failure by the media to inform its readers, listeners and viewers about a matter vital to Africa’s future,” Mbeki wrote in a strongly worded article.

Meanwhile, previous winners of this annual award, now in its fifth year, included Denis Mukwege from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria’s Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem of Nigeria, Danny Jordaan of South Africa and Niger’s former Chief Justice, Salifou Fatima Bazeye.

Maoni ya blogu hii: Pongezi nyingi kwa Rais Mstaafu Thabo Mbeki kwa kushinda tuzo hiyo.
Na pengine si vibaya — wanahabari — tukachukulia ukosoaji wake wa vyombo vya habari kwa namna njema, kwamba anatutaka kuongeza umahiri ili kutoa na kuchapisha habari zenye mashiko na zenye kusaidia kusukuma mbele maendeleo ya bara letu la Afrika — na kila raia wake. Tukubali kukosolewa. Tujisahihishe. Tuongeze umahiri. Tuzingatie maadili ya taaluma. Kwa hapa kwetu Tanzania, umefika wakati tuache kushabikia siasa na wanasiasa na badala yake tujikite kufanya kazi kwa umakini zaidi.

Source: Sudan Tribune