Mo Ibrahim Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Mo Ibrahim:
Women do kids. Women do cooking. Women doing everything. And yet, their position in society is totally unacceptable.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Every man, woman and child knows about Mugabe, but people say, 'Mogae, who is that?'
~Mo Ibrahim
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While the Marshall Plan was important for Europe's recovery, Europe's prosperity was really built on economic integration and policy coherence.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The leakage of information means you're going to be able to read everybody's e-mail.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I ended up being a businessman unwittingly. I wanted to be an academic; I wanted to be like Einstein.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.'
~Mo Ibrahim
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Experience shows that when political governance and economic management diverge, overall development becomes unsustainable.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Now is the time for Afro-realism: for sound policies based on honest data, aimed at delivering results.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.'
~Mo Ibrahim
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The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The mobile industry changed Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Not any amount of aid is going to move Africa forward.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Before any investor goes into any country, he is looking for the exit door.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The way forward for Africa is investment.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Corruption exists everywhere.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Look at the international bodies that came out of U.N. - international, publicly funded bodies that neither you or I know their names, because they are completely outdated and still publicly funded because there are no sunset clauses.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I came to the conclusion that unless you are ruled properly, you cannot move forward. Everything else is second. Everything.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering.
~Mo Ibrahim
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It's time Africa started listening to our young people instead of always telling them what to do.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I am not a politician. I am not in politics. I'm just a citizen.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It's amazing - no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Nobody can come and develop Africa on behalf of Africans.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Remember, 2000 was the year of the dot-com bust. The telecom industry lost about $2 trillion in market capital at that time.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I'm uncomfortable, frankly, with the hype about Africa. We went from one extreme... to, like, Africa now is the best thing after sliced bread.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Roads are not practical in Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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What do you do if you're an executive who resigns? You declare yourself a consultant.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Electoral turnout is falling among the young, and political apathy is on the rise.
~Mo Ibrahim
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When Captain Moussa Dadis Camara came to power, too many thought he would hold to his promise to stand down, introduce democratic elections and restore the rule of law.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Africa offers the highest return on investment in the world.
~Mo Ibrahim
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All we hear about Africa in the West is Darfur, Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia, as if that is all there is.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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?'
~Mo Ibrahim
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Africa should not again face isolation or stigmatisation based on ignorance and unrepresentative imagery.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Africa is underpopulated. We have 20% of the world's landmass and 13% of its population.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Mexico established a unique three-part governing system shared by the government, the information commission and civil society organisations.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Multinationals don't pay taxes in Africa - we all know that.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The Ibrahim Index is a tool to hold governments to account and frame the debate about how we are governed.
~Mo Ibrahim
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We measure everything - why not governance?
~Mo Ibrahim
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Modern slavery is a hidden crime and notoriously difficult to measure.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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In the final analysis, finding a way to do clean business and not to pay bribes actually improves your bottom line.
~Mo Ibrahim
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A narrative that branded Africa as little more than an economic, political and social basket case was not likely to provide the investment needed to drive development.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Billions of dollars are thrown at African countries.
~Mo Ibrahim
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For citizens to become fully engaged in holding their leadership to account, accurate information is required to see where action is needed, to measure the results of policies and programmes, to build support for courageous decisions and to consolidate political legitimacy.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Cape Verde produces good people.
~Mo Ibrahim
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More people smile at me now I'm richer.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Experience counts in government even more than in business.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Most of the money I made has gone back to Africa or is going back to Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Sudan cannot afford to be on the wrong side of history. The north and south will have to work together, but will they?
~Mo Ibrahim
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People never confess to failure. They should.
~Mo Ibrahim
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You get over your first love by falling in love with something new.
~Mo Ibrahim
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There is a crisis of leadership and governance in Africa, and we must face it.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Computers are very expensive and they need power, and that can be a problem in Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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When you ask people what they think of Africa, they think of AIDS, genocide, disasters, famine.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I'm an engineer. I'm a techie, really.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Transfer pricing is causing huge problems in Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I think we need to look at ourselves first. We should practice what we're preaching. Otherwise, we are hypocrites.
~Mo Ibrahim
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From my father, I learnt kindness and how to talk straight.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Educational opportunities have supported the rise of the African middle class, the professional cadre of young people who are now willing and able to contribute to Africa's future prosperity.
~Mo Ibrahim
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If economic progress is not translated into better quality of life and respect for citizens' rights, we will witness more Tahrir Squares in Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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If we cannot accurately measure poverty, we surely cannot accurately measure our efforts to tackle it.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The brain drain from Africa has been reversed.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Challenging vested interests requires a government's full commitment.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Mobile phones could not work in Africa without prepaid because it's a cash society.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I don't even have a small boat. I don't even have a toy boat in my bathtub. I don't have a biplane, I don't have anything. Those things are toys, and I don't need them to be happy.
~Mo Ibrahim
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You fly for hours and hours and hours over Africa to go from one place to another.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Rwanda really did take very strong steps towards development. I mean, this place is unrecognizable. There's a very good management of economy and resources - it's a success story, and that's great.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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What is a government supposed to do for its people? To improve the standard of living, to help them get jobs, get kids to schools, and have access to medicine and hospitals. Government may not directly provide these public goods and services, but government must be accountable for whether or not they are delivered to citizens.
~Mo Ibrahim
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It was a no-brainer that the cellular route would be a great success in Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The problem is that many times people suspend their common sense because they get drowned in business models and Harvard business school teachings.
~Mo Ibrahim
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We need to keep pressure on our own governments to force more and more transparency.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Botswana had three successive good presidents who served their legal terms, who did well for their countries - three, not one.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Business is global. Countries need to react to that; taxes need to be paid where profit arises.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I am a Nubian.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Retail banking in Africa is very weak. You can't go to a village and get money from an ATM or visit a branch of the bank. So people have to use the Internet.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Tony Blair is paid $500,000 for one speech, and no one asks how he is going to spend it.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The issue with international institutions is that there is a crisis of legitimacy. Trust in these institutions is a serious problem.
~Mo Ibrahim
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We cannot expect loyalty to an unjust regime.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Young people, all too often, find their interests overlooked and their voices ignored.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Societies are not sustainable without institutions.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The state and its elites must be subject, in theory and in practice, to the same laws that its poorest citizens are.
~Mo Ibrahim
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There's no point in trying to hoard money after life, so better really to share with people.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I really don't have heroes in business; I never looked up at business people.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Celtel established a mobile phone network in Africa at a time when investors told me that there was no market for mobile phones there.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The Zimbabwean people, like everyone else, have a right to live in freedom and prosperity and to select their leaders through fair and democratic elections.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I never set out really to build a financial empire or to be a wealthy man.
~Mo Ibrahim
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It is very difficult for any dictator or any incumbent to falsify the results of an election and just get away with it.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I don't subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Mobile communications had been around for a long time, but always as a limited market, constrained by the radio spectrum.
~Mo Ibrahim
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If you are African, the more educated you are, the less chances you have of getting a job.
~Mo Ibrahim
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In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world's unexploited arable land.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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?
~Mo Ibrahim
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Many African people are smarter than me - kids who could have been better. I have no claim for genius.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Africa is rich, and why are we poor then if our continent is rich. It is not right.
~Mo Ibrahim
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To be frank, I don't think President Obama gives much thought to Africa - or gives much to Africa.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Behind every corrupt politician are 10-20 corrupt businessmen.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I need to be free, to speak the unspeakable. You can't do that in office.
~Mo Ibrahim
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If Sudan starts to crumble, the shock waves will spread.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Positive market incentives operating in the public interest are too few and far between, and are also up against a seemingly never-ending expansion of perverse incentives and lobbying.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Make as much money as you can, but can you please pay your taxes, because this is a major problem.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Women in Africa are really the pillar of the society, are the most productive segment of society, actually. They do agriculture.
~Mo Ibrahim
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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.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Africa has 53 countries. And you find that three or four countries in these 53 are dominating the news.
~Mo Ibrahim
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African leaders work really under severe limitations and constraints.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I think the Cold War was worse for Africa than colonialism.
~Mo Ibrahim
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Rule of law is the most important element in any civil society.
~Mo Ibrahim
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The fight against Ebola cannot undermine the fight against poverty.
~Mo Ibrahim
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I come from a typical family.
~Mo Ibrahim
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