George Ayittey and the cheetah generation

George Ayittey is a Ghanaian economist and author, and he has a problem with African autocrats above all other things, even oppression and mismanagement by colonial powers.

He appears on Twitter every so often, and when he does he usually lets rip with a volley of tweets. He doesn’t pull his punches. When Muammar Gaddafi was killed by NTC soldiers recently, Ayittey suggested that he should be mummified and put on permanent display as an example to other dictators.

He just tweeted this:

Ayittey believes that Africa’s problems should be solved by Africans, particularly the ‘cheetah generation’ of dynamic, intellectually agile and entrepreneurial young Africans who don’t tolerate ineptitude and corruption.

Below is Ayittey speaking in 2007. He is also interviewed in The Browser in which he names 5 essential books on development and Africa.

Africa’s cheetahs versus hippos