By Sorie Sudan Sesay in London.
Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair believes President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma is one of two reliable and committed African leaders he could do business with. The other is the Rwandan leader Paul Kagame.
In an exclusive interview in the authoritative London-based Financial Times This Is Africa magazine, Blair(photo) said the two presidents absolutely have the right vision for their respective countries.
“What I am trying to do is to go into these countries with a group who are really smart, dedicated people - we’ve hired them internationally - who will try and build proper systems of governance around President Koroma and Kagame, each of whom...have absolutely the right vision for their countries,” the former Prime Minister said.
Blair said by the look of things, Sierra Leone with a relatively new business-savvy President and a larger diamond industry, could replicate Rwanda’s economic success, adding: “it is potentially a dynamic, wealthy country, but they need critical infrastructure investment, they need the right relationship with the private sector, and yes, the type of institution to develop that doesn’t exist at the moment, that’s why I am interested in the work I am doing now”.
According to This Is Africa, it is governance and capacity-building initiatives that now form the main thrust of Blair’s programmes in Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
On his view about Western policy towards Africa, Blair said Western policy should focus on building capacity in governance.
He said even though the donor aid has done a tremendous amount of good, he thinks the purpose of what they (Western countries) do in Africa should be to get to the point where each African country can wave the donor community goodbye.
According to him, one reason why China is moving so sharply is because, for a lot of the countries, China comes in, they say, ‘right, you need major infrastructure, we’ll provide major infrastructure,’ it’s a done deal, it gets done.
Tony Blair defended his unilateral intervention by the United Kingdom in the conflict in Sierra Leone in 2002, saying, “that was because the multilateral means did not exist. So we had a choice as to whether to let Sierra Leone get taken over by gangsters or to intervene and I decided that we should intervene.”
Blair’s positive remarks about Sierra Leone are beginning to turn things around positively.
This Is Africa’s Publisher, Simon Blackmore, last Wednesday met with the Information Attaché’ at the Sierra Leone High Commission in the United Kingdom, Sorie Sudan Sesay, to begin modalities of travelling to Sierra Leone for a documentary to improve the image of Sierra Leone internationally.
“Sierra Leone is being portrayed negatively in the outside world; people say awful things about your country here in the UK and the rest of the world. They still believe Sierra Leone is a war zone and that interview of Tony Blair will do your country a lot of good about her image,” said Blackmore.
In a letter dated 13th January, 2009, Blackmore said, “Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair gave an exclusive interview to This Is Africa in which he mentions Sierra Leone and our readers, I am sure, would like to understand the development of the country since 2002 better.”
This Is Africa is an authoritative magazine publishes by Financial Times that addresses African issues within a global context rather than a purely African one.
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