Yesterday, TIME Magazine released their TIME 100 list which looks at the 100 Most Influential People of 2023. Broken into different sections including artists, titans, leaders, innovators, icons and pioneers, this year’s list features four Africans in Nigerian researcher and doctor, Dimie Ogoina, Tanzanian lawyer Elizabeth Maremu Mrema, Kenyan environmentalist Wanjira Mathai and Nigerian politician and President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Below, we give a quick breakdown of who these are and why they made the list?
Who Is Dimie Ogoina?
Dimie Ogoina is a Nigerian researcher and doctor who in 2017, discovered a new mutation of Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) in Nigeria.
Over the next five years, Ogoina documented the potential for sexual transmission of Mpox and published the data he had found far and wide. His research became instrumental in developing strategies around prevention and control that helped the world manage a global Mpox outbreak in 2022,
Who Is Wanjira Mathai?
Wanjira Mathai is a Kenyan environmentalist who serves as the managing director at the World Resources Institute and chief Africa adviser to the Bezos Earth Fund, two organizations, championing environmentalism in the most climate-vulnerable places and communities around the world.
Who Is Elizabeth Maruma Mrema?
Late last year, Tanzanian lawyer, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema oversaw one of the world’s most important environmental wins— an agreement to conserve or restore nature on 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030.
Then serving as the U.N.’s executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Mrema oversaw the orchestration of a deal that took into consideration 195 countries’ and will in theory help boost finance for developing countries, and protect the rights of Indigenous communities.
Who is Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
Nigerian president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is featured on the list for overcoming steep competition in Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar in Nigeria’s recently concluded and highly controversial Presidential elections.
While the results continue to be challenged in court, Jagaban has his work cut out and needs to unite a country deeply divided.