Is Mo Ibrahim's award building or hurting Africa?

And yet, something about the $5m (P35.7 million) prize has always bothered me.Lurking behind Ibrahim's worthy aims is the niggling sense that the money amounts to an annual bribe - a bribe for not accepting bribes - dangled like a fat carrot in front of the continent's elites, in the hope of steering them towards the sort of behaviour that should surely be taken for granted.

Isn't the uncomfortable link between money and power being reinforced, rather than broken?The fact that the prize wasn't awarded for two years, because of a lack of suitable candidates, probably made some ex-presidents squirm and fume and, perhaps, a few incumbents scratch their chins.