Buhari, Ezekwesili, Adichie, Boko Haram Leader Makes TIME Mag. 100 Most Influential List

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.