Nigeria's President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari has
been named one of the world's most influential
people by TIME Magazine.
Other Nigerians who made the list are former
Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, bestselling
author, Chimamanda Adichie and Boko Haram leader,
Abubakar Shekau.
Read their profiles as written on TIME's website
below:
Muhammadu Buhari - A new choice for Nigeria (by
Aryn Baker)
Muhammadu Buhari made history in March by
becoming the first candidate to oust a sitting
Nigerian President through the ballot box. Now he
has to live up to voters' expectations.
From battling the Boko Haram insurgency to tackling
endemic corruption, Buhari has many
challenges ahead. The greatest may be overcoming
his past as a military ruler who seized power in 1983.
Already the born-again democrat is demonstrating
the inclusivity necessary to lead a nation riven by
ethnic and religious tensions.
"We must begin to heal the wounds and work toward
a better future," he said in his April 1 victory speech.
"We do this first by extending a hand of friendship
and conciliation across the political divide." It's a
promising start for a President-to-be who wants to
leave a legacy to match the historic conditions of his
election.
Oby Ezekwesili (by Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe)
Like northern Uganda, where I live, northern Nigeria
is very isolated. For many years, the women who
were abducted from our region remained invisible.
So although I have not met Obiageli Ezekwesili, I
know the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that she
championed is very important. It would have taken a
long time to raise awareness about the girls taken by
Boko Haram without her using her platform as a
former Minister of Education.
We need to remember that these girls are undergoing
psychological and maybe physical torture. So I love
that the campaign says, "Bring back our girls," and
not "Bring back my child." Everybody is in unison
with the parents and the relatives. Everyone is
feeling their pain. Everyone will be ready to embrace
the girls and offer them care and compassion if they
are rescued or manage to escape.
It has been a year, and the girls haven't been
rescued, but she has made a difference by speaking
about it. Not just speaking but shouting. I know
some people will say she is too loudmouthed. The
loud mouth is needed. People hear it.
Chimamanda Adichie - Conjurer of character (by
Radhika Jones)
It's the rare novelist who in the space of a year finds
her words sampled by Beyoncé, optioned by Lupita
Nyong'o and honored with the National Book Critics
Circle Award for fiction. But the Nigerian writer
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is just that sort of
novelist.
A MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, Adichie writes
of the complex aftermath of Nigeria's colonial history
and her nation's rise to prominence in an era when
immigration to the West no longer means a one-way
ticket. With her viral TEDxEuston talk, "We Should All
Be Feminists," she found her voice as cultural critic.
(You can hear it rising midway through Beyoncé's
woman-power anthem "Flawless.")
She sets her love stories amid civil war (Half of a
Yellow Sun) and against a backdrop of racism and
migration (Americanah). But her greatest power is as
a creator of characters who struggle profoundly to
understand their place in the world.
Abubakar Shekau - Scourge of Africa (by General
Carter Ham (U.S. Army, retired)
Most Americans do not yet recognize his name, but
the citizens of Nigeria, Africa's most populous
country, know Abubakar Shekau all too well: he is
the most violent killer their country has ever seen.
Shekau took over the terrorist organization Boko
Haram in 2009 after the group had been weakened by
Nigerian government forces.
Shekau, who is believed to be in his 30s, began to
stage increasingly daring kidnapping and killing
raids on schools, churches and mosques thought by
Boko Haram to be violating their interpretation of
Islam. The taking of over 200 schoolgirls in April
2014 brought Boko Haram into the international
spotlight.
By most accounts, Boko Haram has killed more than
10,000 people and is spreading into neighboring
countries. Shekau's latest action may finally summon
a U.S. response: he has publicly aligned his group
with ISIS, the terrorist group that holds territory in
Syria and Iraq and has expanded its reach into
Yemen and Libya.
.
Buhari, Ezekwesili, Adichie, Boko Haram Leader Make Time 100 Most Influential
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