Top 88 Mo Ibrahim Quotes

Modern slavery is a hidden crime and notoriously difficult to measure.

Tony Blair is paid $500,000 for one speech, and no one asks how he is going to spend it.

We need to keep pressure on our own governments to force more and more transparency.

All we hear about Africa in the West is Darfur, Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia, as if that is all there is.

Nobody can come and develop Africa on behalf of Africans.

Many African people are smarter than me – kids who could have been better. I have no claim for genius.

Africa is progressing but maybe not in the way you think it is. Even if the overall picture looks good, we must all remain vigilant and not get complacent.

I really don’t have heroes in business; I never looked up at business people.

In the final analysis, finding a way to do clean business and not to pay bribes actually improves your bottom line.

You get over your first love by falling in love with something new.

The state and its elites must be subject, in theory and in practice, to the same laws that its poorest citizens are.

You fly for hours and hours and hours over Africa to go from one place to another.

African leaders work really under severe limitations and constraints.

Africa was perceived – it still is to some extent – as a place which is very difficult to do business in. I don’t share that view.

Remember, 2000 was the year of the dot-com bust. The telecom industry lost about $2 trillion in market capital at that time.

I left Sudan when I was 25 or 26 years old. If I had stayed, I would never have ended up being an entrepreneur. You can have the qualities, but if you don’t have the environment, you just wither away. It’s like a fish: take it out of water, it will not survive.

Of course, Nelson Mandela, everybody knows Nelson Mandela. I mean, he’s a great gift not only for Africa but for the whole world, actually. But do not expect everybody to be a Nelson Mandela.

I need to be free, to speak the unspeakable. You can’t do that in office.

Computers are very expensive and they need power, and that can be a problem in Africa.

While the Marshall Plan was important for Europe‘s recovery, Europe’s prosperity was really built on economic integration and policy coherence.

Africa offers the highest return on investment in the world.

I don’t subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism.

The brain drain from Africa has been reversed.

Corruption exists everywhere.

Cape Verde produces good people.

If we are to build grassroots respect for the institutions and processes that constitute democracy, the state must treat its citizens as real citizens rather than as subjects.

When I was young, there was only one TV channel, sponsored by the government, and it only broadcast things like what the leader had for breakfast. There was no real media.

The U.S. has been a great friend all these years, but as soon as Africa found itself starting to move up, the U.S. is really disengaging.

The leakage of information means you’re going to be able to read everybody’s e-mail.

Not any amount of aid is going to move Africa forward.

The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.

Roads are not practical in Africa.

Experience counts in government even more than in business.

There is a crisis of leadership and governance in Africa, and we must face it.

Business people get many undeserved prizes – golden parachutes and bonuses even when companies fail. I don’t think people should get rewarded for screwing up.

Young people are better educated. They grew up in a society which is well connected, well informed. They are able to communicate to one another, to know what is happening.

Celtel established a mobile phone network in Africa at a time when investors told me that there was no market for mobile phones there.

Women do kids. Women do cooking. Women doing everything. And yet, their position in society is totally unacceptable.

I am not a politician. I am not in politics. I’m just a citizen.

Botswana had three successive good presidents who served their legal terms, who did well for their countries – three, not one.

It is very difficult for any dictator or any incumbent to falsify the results of an election and just get away with it.

Young people, all too often, find their interests overlooked and their voices ignored.

Africa has 53 countries. And you find that three or four countries in these 53 are dominating the news.

The way forward for Africa is investment.

Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy.

Business is global. Countries need to react to that; taxes need to be paid where profit arises.

The fight against Ebola cannot undermine the fight against poverty.

I’m an engineer. I’m a techie, really.

If you are African, the more educated you are, the less chances you have of getting a job.

Nobody in Africa loves to be a beggar or a recipient of aid. Everywhere I go in Africa, people say, ‘When are we going to stand up on our feet?’

In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world’s unexploited arable land.

Now is the time for Afro-realism: for sound policies based on honest data, aimed at delivering results.

Mexico established a unique three-part governing system shared by the government, the information commission and civil society organisations.

It was a no-brainer that the cellular route would be a great success in Africa.

I never set out really to build a financial empire or to be a wealthy man.

Electoral turnout is falling among the young, and political apathy is on the rise.

Governance has been at the heart of the work of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations and is a clear focus in its report, ‘Now for the Long Term.’

The Security Council represents the situation from 1945 – you had the Allies who won the war who occupied that. The defeated guys – the Germans and Japan – were out. The occupied countries had no voice. That was fine in ’45, but today, Germany rules Europe, frankly. They are driving Europe but have no voice.

Experience shows that when political governance and economic management diverge, overall development becomes unsustainable.

Nobody messes with China, nobody messes with the United States, or with Europe, because these are really big entities with a lot of clout and a lot of economic power. They have a place at the table.

Women in Africa are really the pillar of the society, are the most productive segment of society, actually. They do agriculture.

Remarkably, governments are beginning to embrace the idea that nothing enhances democracy more than giving voice and information to everybody in the country. Why not open their books if they have nothing to hide?

Mobile phones play a really wonderful role in enabling civil society. As well as empowering people economically and socially, they are a wonderful political tool.

Africa should not again face isolation or stigmatisation based on ignorance and unrepresentative imagery.

Everywhere in Africa, you see Indian, Chinese, Brazilian businesses. Other than Coca Cola and the oil companies, it is very rare to see American businesses.

Mobile phones could not work in Africa without prepaid because it’s a cash society.

I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering.

Billions of dollars are thrown at African countries.

Increasing extremism – across Africa and the world – must be understood in the context of the failure of our leaders properly to manage diversity within their borders.

Africa is underpopulated. We have 20% of the world’s landmass and 13% of its population.

Sudan cannot afford to be on the wrong side of history. The north and south will have to work together, but will they?

The issue with international institutions is that there is a crisis of legitimacy. Trust in these institutions is a serious problem.

What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation or democracy… it doesn’t work.

Many Africans are used to a life where they get up in the morning and don’t know what they’re going to do that day.

Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.

Africa is rich, and why are we poor then if our continent is rich. It is not right.

People never confess to failure. They should.

Sudan has been an experiment that resonated across Africa: if we, the largest country on the continent, reaching from the Sahara to the Congo, bridging religions, cultures and a multitude of ethnicities, were able to construct a prosperous and peaceful state from our diverse citizenry, so too could the rest of Africa.

After the sale of Celtel, I really wanted to give the money back, and I had a number of choices – to go and buy masses of blankets and baby milk or to go into Darfur or Congo. That would have been very nice actually, but it’s just like an aspirin: it doesn’t deal with the problem.

If Sudan starts to crumble, the shock waves will spread.

I ended up being a businessman unwittingly. I wanted to be an academic; I wanted to be like Einstein.

Far from being hopeless, Africa is full of hope and potential, maybe more so than any other continent. The challenge is to ensure that its potential is utilised.

From my father, I learnt kindness and how to talk straight.

There’s no point in trying to hoard money after life, so better really to share with people.

The Nobel Prize is worth $1.5 million, but that’s not the issue. Do the distinguished scientists who win the Nobel Prize need the money? Probably not. The honor is more important the money, and that’s the case with the prize for African leadership as well.

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world’s last ‘New Frontier:’ a kind of ‘it-continent.’

I come from a typical family.

Africa’s success stories are delivering the whole range of the public goods and services that citizens have a right to expect and are forging a path that we hope more will follow.