A Reward for Good Behavior

A billionaire wants to give $5 million to African leaders who rule responsibly.

Mo Ibrahim's ideas have been labeled wacky before. A decade ago, when even American consumers were just getting used to cell phones, he decided that the real growth market was sub-Saharan Africa.

"I'm not a visionary," says Ibrahim, 61, a Sudanese businessman who was raised in Egypt and now lives in London. "Things are obvious, but most of us just don't open our eyes."

Celtel, the Pan-African telecom giant he created then, was sold to a Kuwaiti company in 2005 for $3.4 billion. Now Ibrahim wants to use that money for another big, possibly loopy gamble—to pay African leaders to retire.