‘I belong to nobody’: Buhari tops BBC best quotes

BBC has compiled its best quotes out of Africa for the year 2015 and President Muhammadu Buhari is at the top of the list.

The first quote on the list is from Buhari’s inauguration speech, where he said he belongs to everybody and he belongs to nobody.

BBC BEST 10 QUOTES OUT OF AFRICA IN 2015

President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria

1. “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”
2. “We must change our lawless habits, our attitude to public office and public trust. We must change our unruly behaviour in schools, hospitals, market places, motor parks, on the roads, in homes and offices.

“To bring about change, we must change ourselves by being law-abiding citizens”

Goodwill Zwelithini, South Africa’s Zulu King

3. “The time for vision has come. I request our South African government to help us clean our land of lice. We need to remove all itching bedbugs and lay them bare in the sun.

“We request that all foreigners should take their baggage and be sent back”

Walter Palmer, US dentist, who killed Zimbabwe’s Cecil the lion

4. “If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn’t have taken it. Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion.”

Nykhor Paul, South Sudanese model

5. “Dear white people in the fashion world!… Why do I have to bring my own make-up to a professional show when all the other white girls don’t have to do anything but show up. Don’t try to make me feel bad because I am blue-black – it’s 2015”

President John Mahama, Ghana

6. “I have seen more demonstrations and strikes in my first two years. I don’t think it can get worse. It is said that when you kill a goat and you frighten it with a knife, it doesn’t fear the knife because it is dead already. I have a dead-goat syndrome”

Trevor Noah, South African comedian

7. “This is surreal for me, I’m not going to lie, growing up in the dusty streets of South Africa, I never dreamed that I would one day have two things really: An indoor toilet and a job as host of the Daily Show. And now I have both, and I’m quite comfortable with one of them”

President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe

8. “I’ve just concluded – since President Obama endorses the same-sex marriage, advocates homosexual people and enjoys an attractive countenance – thus if it becomes necessary, I shall travel to Washington DC, get down on my knee and ask his hand”

US President Barack

9. “I love my work. But under our constitution, I cannot run again… I actually think I’m a pretty good president – I think if I ran I could win. But I can’t. When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife – as we’ve seen in Burundi. Nobody should be president for life”

Zimbabwe’s first lady Grace Mugabe

10. “We are going to create a special wheelchair for President Mugabe until he rules to 100 years because that is what we want. That is the people’s choice. We want a leader that respects us”