Businessman

The problem is that many times people suspend their common sense because they get drowned in business models and Harvard business school teachings.

To be frank, I don't think President Obama gives much thought to Africa - or gives much to Africa.

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

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

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

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

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

The way forward for Africa is investment.

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

The brain drain from Africa has been reversed.

I came to the conclusion that unless you are ruled properly, you cannot move forward. Everything else is second. Everything.

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.

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

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

I think we need to look at ourselves first. We should practice what we're preaching. Otherwise, we are hypocrites.

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.

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.

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

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