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
Botswana had three successive good presidents who served their legal terms, who did well for their countries - three, not one.
Business is global. Countries need to react to that; taxes need to be paid where profit arises.
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.
Africa has 53 countries. And you find that three or four countries in these 53 are dominating the news.
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.
In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world's unexploited arable land.
The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.
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.
I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering.
I never set out really to build a financial empire or to be a wealthy man.
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.
I need to be free, to speak the unspeakable. You can't do that in office.
Not any amount of aid is going to move Africa forward.
It was a no-brainer that the cellular route would be a great success in Africa.