ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9196 OU15 - Ethiopia -- The Decision
Towards the end of the 1980s, Andrew Thomson started to expand the Business School outside the United Kingdom. In this initial stage, however, this expansion was almost entirely into the rest of Europe. I remember the School building having days when it was full of Polish or Czechoslovakian delegates; who were desperately trying to obtain the franchises for those countries. In fact, in this, Andrew was very successful; for such overseas countries eventually came to account for a substantial part of our business. On one certificate course, which I later ran, we had something like 2,000 students studying in Eastern Europe.
In the midst of this we had an approach from Nigeria. I was interested, as I had always been, in extending education to the Third World. Accordingly, where everyone else was dismissing it, I decided to put forward a proposal. In this I was assisted by Giles - who ran our outside publications, in essence the books that we franchised to outside publishers. Between the two of us we put together a very good proposal. However, things started to go wrong when we realised that our ambition -- of running very cheap MBAs for poorer Nigerians -- was being sidelined by the crooked businessmen in Nigeria; who clearly intended to pick it up for a very cheap price, and then market it at a high-price to the elite in Nigeria. We dropped the project like a stone at that point.
It did have one positive outcome though. One day I was strolling down the corridor and saw Andrew coming towards me. Just as passed me he said "You're Africa aren't you, David?". I couldn't think what he meant, and then I remembered Nigeria. I replied in the affirmative and Andrew said "Well I have an interesting proposition you might like to follow up." The proposition was Ethiopia. Accordingly, I contacted the British Council who were fronting a proposal to teach the MBA to some members of the Ethiopian government. Having very quickly sussed it out as a possible runner, I immediately persuaded the Open University to let me fly out to Addis Ababa. I don’t think that anyone else in the UK realised just what might come from such humble beginnings. I certainly didn't
It is a long way to Addis Ababa, and 12 hour overnight flight flattened me. There I was met by the car from British Council and taken to the Hilton Hotel -- something I never expected to see in a third world country. Accordingly, I had a very comfortable room overlooking the slums, the shacks, of Addis Abeba. It was a strange experience. The television was showing a news item about some criminal offence in Leighton Buzzard, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. Yet out of the window I could see the African township stretching out into the distance.
I was there to ensure that the level of students, their academic track record, was sufficient that they could handle our MBA. In this respect I interviewed all of them, or what I thought was all of them, one by one. In reality, as I later learned, they were interviewing me rather than the other way round.
The interviews took place in the old palace but, if that sounds impressive, like many of the old buildings in Addis Ababa it was made out of corrugated iron. The approach to it was, though, impressive. At the top of the road by the Hilton there was a burned-out tank from the end of the Civil War, which had finished only a few months before. I well remember journalists describing this incident on the news at the time, and I thought that the tank in question had been somewhere in the wilderness. In reality it was just 100 yards away from the bar of the Hilton, where the journalists spent most of their time during the war!
More threateningly, there were real tanks watching us as we made our way to the main entrance to the Council of Ministers building; which was protected by tanks and by troops with Kalashnikovs. We eventually were allowed into the compound and then moved through to an even more secure area on one side of it. After a more searches by troops with Kalashnikovs, we were eventually led - on foot - to the old palace. As I said it wouldn't be impressive if set in London, but it was a big building and it was palatial inside.
This was the where I was to interview my potential students. As one rather gruesome aside, I used the toilet off the conference room a number of times. What I didn't know, until several years later, was that Haile Selassie, who it was assumed had been murdered by the previous government, was - as a final insult - buried just six feet under that toilet!
The students were all of a very high quality. As they had been members of the guerrilla army, their background was almost entirely as military officers. But they impressed me with their intellectual capabilities and I had no problem to deciding that they were of sufficiently high calibre material for us to deal with.
I then went back home with the Director of the British Council to discuss my findings. His home was fairly typical, for one of the Western Diplomatic Corps. It was surrounded by high fences and beyond them -- once more -- were the shanty towns. He had of course a number of servants. One of these opened the gate -- since security was important. Again this house was tin roofed, as everything in Addis was, but it was quite palatial inside. The servants on the other hand lived in something like the stables which might be attached to a British country house. But I guess they were well looked after. Anyway, I reported my findings and we decided we could go ahead with the project. He mentioned in passing that I'd been invited to dinner that night, but he couldn't come since he'd been invited to cocktail party American embassy that night. I guess he regretted thereafter the fact that he didn't come with me; as will become clear if you read, elsewhere, what happened that night!
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