Mo Ibrahim
Mo Ibrahim
Dr Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahimis a Sudanese-British mobile communications entrepreneur and billionaire. He worked for several other telecommunications companies before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Mo Ibrahim Index, to evaluate nations' performance. He is also a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of...
NationalitySudanese
ProfessionBusinessman
CountrySudan
Governance is everything. Without governance we have nothing
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 mobile industry changed Africa.
There is a crisis of leadership and governance in Africa, and we must face it.
The problem is that many times people suspend their common sense because they get drowned in business models and Harvard business school teachings.
Behind every corrupt politician are 10-20 corrupt businessmen.
United States has always been very close to Africa and it's very sad now to see that Africa has a lot more friends - a lot more engagements with the Chinese, with the Indians, with the Brazilians as the United States retreats. Actually, Africa is a wonderful place to do business and American business is missing a big opportunity by really overlooking Africa.
People never confess to failure. They should.
You get over your first love by falling in love with something new.
The way forward for Africa is investment.
The state and its elites must be subject, in theory and in practice, to the same laws that its poorest citizens are.
The issue with international institutions is that there is a crisis of legitimacy. Trust in these institutions is a serious problem.
If a European guy came to Africa and said hey guys, you don't have good - people could tell him to go to hell. You are an imperialist. You are a colonialist. Who are the hell are you to come and tell us what to do? I'm an African. Whatever I say nobody in Africa tell me well, it's not of your business. It is my business.
I made money. I wanted to give it back to Africa but I wanted to give it back in a meaningful way. So I really want to do something which deals with the root of the problem of hunger, of disease, of ills we have in our society.