Mobutu's Quotes & Sayings

I no longer have a borrowed soul. I no longer have borrowed thoughts or ideas. I no longer speak in a borrowed language. — Mobutu Sese Seko

Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list. — Mengistu Haile Mariam

No man is a caricature, no individual can alone bear responibilty for a nation's collapse. The disaster Zaire became, the dull acquiescence of its people, had its roots in a history of extraordinary outside interference, as basic in motivation as it was elevated in rhetoric. The momentum behind Zaire's free-fall was generated not by one man but thousands of compliant collaborators, at home and abroad. — Michala Wrong, In The Footsteps Of Mr Kurtz

The chief is the chief. He is the eagle who flies high and cannot be touched by the spit of the toad. — Mobutu Sese Seko

If you steal, do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Steal cleverly, little by little. — Mobutu Sese Seko

If you want to steal, steal a little in a nice way. But if you steal too much to become rich overnight, you'll be caught. — Mobutu Sese Seko

I have rendered my country and people an enormous service. They owe me everything. — Mobutu Sese Seko

It's a funny thing to complain about, but most of America is perfectly devoid of smells. I must have noticed it before, but this last time back I felt it as an impairment. For weeks after we arrived I kept rubbing my eyes, thinking I was losing my sight or maybe my hearing. But it was the sense of smell that was gone. Even in the grocery store, surrounded in one aisle by more kinds of food than will ever be known in a Congolese lifetime, there was nothing on the air but a vague, disinfected emptiness. I mentioned this to Anatole, who'd long since taken note of it, of course. "The air is just blank in America," I said. "You can't ever smell what's around you, unless you stick your nose right down into something."
"Maybe that is why they don't know about Mobutu," he suggested. — Barbara Kingsolver

But most people will draw their own conclusions on learning that the dictator's official name, Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, translates as 'the cock who goes from hen to hen knowing no fatigue'. — Jonathan Margolis