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A scion of a traditional noble family and a great nephew of the country's revered founding President, ��é������ Houphouët-Boigny, he had impressed as a top government official and minister in the 1990s, overseeing infrastructure development and radical economic reforms.

He is well connected in West African political circles - he is the great-nephew of Ivory Coast's first President ��é������ Houphouët-Boigny, while his uncle Habib Thiam was a prime minister in Senegal, on two occasions, spanning a total of nine years.

The Super Eagles will meet Angola, who impressed in a 3-0 win over Namibia earlier, in the last eight on Friday, also in the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium.

In Abidjan, university student Laurent Wassa of ��é������ Houphouët-Boigny University — named for a French lawmaker who became Ivory Coast’s first postcolonial president — said he stopped wanting to study in France, because he thinks the quality of education he would receive has gone down based on what he’s heard.

Fresh from law school at Poitiers University, in France, he was working as a counselor at the French embassy in Washington when the first Ivorian president, ��é������ Houphouët-Boigny, named him the country’s first ambassador to the United States and Canada.