Chinua Achebe Quotes

Elections alone will never be enough to ensure good governance.

Our political leaders have great responsibilities, but as with many situations in life, people often rise or fall to meet your expectations. Our responsibility as citizens is to expect our leaders to lead and to give them enough support so that they may do so.

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.

And they understand that to be an effective member of a democracy, you have to accept responsibility.

In a democracy, a leader must be the head teacher, someone eager to respond to doubts and questions and explain the need for and the benefits of a new course.

Here's to democracy. May we get the government we deserve.

As a president I will be like the candidate that I am, a respectful candidate, a rallying candidate, a normal candidate for a normal presidency, at the service of the Republic.

So I think democracy, in the long-term, in our countries will survive if it comes to be associated with leadership, will not survive if democracy plus media brings to us more and more followship rather than leadership.

Dialoging is the first principle of good government.

The success of an elected official is doing what everyone knows needs to be done.

Abstention is a dereliction of citizenship: always cast a vote, if only to cast stones at the most hated.

Good government

All politicians will have to change to be worthy of our people.

I think it's the height of patriotism to continue to exercise your right as a citizen and to hold your government to account. Isn't that what the very essence of democracy is about?

I believe that democracy is about values before it is about voting. These values must be nurtured within society and integrated into the electoral process itself.

If I were to say anything to people I may say people should vote for those who are respectful to democracy, rule of law, who get on well with people.

We are determined to rebuild the confidence of our people in public institutions and restore the credibility of those elected to serve them.

When all Americans believe that the people we elect deserve to be in power, that their conduct in office is worthy of respect, and that they can be held accountable for their decisions, our politics will finally be worthy of our great people.

Reading a teleprompter is not what makes you presidential. It's your actions that you take, and it's democracy.

The country's future is what you will make it. Make your local representatives in parliament and assembly more answerable. Ask for more transparency in use of public funds.

After Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, I was heartened to see him issue an Open Government Initiative on his first full day in office.

Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.

A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency.

Advocacy groups and voters are not wrong to push candidates to declare their position clearly on policy issues. That is good citizenship. Hard questions should be asked of every candidate, every politician. And those public servants should be prepared to answer, but in their own words.

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.