Once again, as a crisis-scarred 2024 gives way to an as-yet pristine 2025, it gives us great pleasure to introduce you to 100 African individuals who we believe have made a substantial difference to the continent – and in many cases, to the world over the year.
“The real value of this annual feature in New African,” one of our esteemed readers and collaborators told us, “is that it is a like a large family get-together. Everybody is busy dashing off and doing their thing in all sorts of places, and we get to hear a few snatches about them over the year, but then, come the end of the year – and it seems like they all come home for the annual get-together – we learn what wonderful, or not so wonderful, deeds they have been up to in a great exchange. We can all share in their triumphs and discover so many new personalities – like an ever-growing, but always loving family.”
I must say I had never thought of our 100 Most Influential Africans (MIA) feature in quite that way but now I think our friend has really nailed it and given it a special African flavour – the Ubuntu motto “I am because we are”.
Come to think about it, perhaps what the world really needs right now is a heavy dose of African Ubuntu – the ability to put ourselves in the skin of the other and to see things as they see them – to empathise, to share in sorrow and joy, to embrace and laugh and cry together.
We need this because I cannot recall the world being so polarised, so divided, so stone-faced in the face of terrible man-made atrocities. It seems that virtually all world leaders today rose to power by appealing to one group and therefore ‘othering’ others as if they don’t matter and can be disregarded.
This is going in the opposite direction to all the wonderful principles agreed on at the end of the Second World War and enshrined in the UN. Today it remains an ignored and forlorn voice of reason and human values as the world seems determined to tear itself apart through violence, injustice and the deliberate crushing of any hope for those who lack destructive power.
Africa, of course, is not immune to these terrible waves of evil as they sweep over places like Sudan, the Sahel and central Africa but, by the grace of the Almighty, most of our continent is at peace with itself and the world and our basic, intrinsic humanity has remained intact. May it remain so for aeons to come, we pray.
Reading the runes
While it is true that our MIA section is like a grand gathering of the clans where we celebrate exceptional achievements and toast both the long-stayers who have made the list before and the new champions making their debut this year, the list also acts like a barometer.
It reflects fairly accurately what Africans, individually and collectively, perceive as priority areas of endeavour. One of our most astute columnists, Moky Makura, argues in this issue that given the fact that the often wildly capricious nature of modern African history has forced us to adapt and change at a moment’s notice, we have become world experts at adjustment and flexibility – a very necessary quality in today’s rapidly changing world. (See page 17.)
I would add that Africans have also become experts at reading the runes and preparing, well before the events they have anticipated have come to pass.
This is particularly in the field of study and professionalism – which are always long-term projects. For example, a large chunk of this year’s entries are in the Science and Academia section, which in turn is dominated by people specialising in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI is probably the newest branch of the vast digital juggernaut that has virtually changed the way we do everything. It is clearly still in its infancy stage but it is already generating heated dialogues among the experts, let alone lay people like me. We are told that unless it is well and – most importantly – benignly managed, it could run out of control with heaven only knows what disastrous consequences for humankind. Please pay close attention to the work that our AI experts on the MIA list do, and like me, I have no doubt you will feel reassured that at least those areas of AI are in very good hands. Almost all of our choices in this field are involved, at the highest level, in reducing the actual or potential harm from AI applications. They are identifying and removing the hidden stings and the poisonous elements that have crept into the systems.
Perhaps only Africans, with their heightened sense of danger lurking in unexpected places, can do this vital work. What is more impressive is that all these experts began their journeys well before AI had quite surfaced, indicating an uncanny ability to read the runes – as mentioned before.
In parallel, we see a marked jump in the number of individuals involved in various aspects of climate change – the breathing monster in the room that some world leaders would prefer to ignore.
It is these African men and women, mostly young and often using their own resources, that are trying to hold the feet of these leaders to the fire and shaming them into doing the right thing to save the world, and keep to their pledges to pay up for the disasters their unimpeded greed has wreaked over the globe.
Sign of the times
It is also a sign of the times that for the second year running, Heads of State have been conspicuous by their absence. In fact, we feature only two national leaders – Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who won the Presidential elections against all expectations, and Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, who celebrates 25 tumultuous but highly successful years.
The absence of national leaders in this year’s listing must be regarded as a positive as it means that most leaders are getting on with the job of running their complex countries efficiently and do not deserve or need any further acclaim. Those that have made a complete mess of their nations stand condemned for all time by their own actions and can never make New African’s MIA list.
The drop in the number of national leaders is more than made up for by a rise in people engaged in public service, as governments become more responsive to the everyday needs of their populations.
After the global polycrisis that perhaps began with Covid, and has continued more or less through the Russia-Ukraine and Middle East wars, which has raised the cost of living across the globe and created unsustainable inequality, leading to the rise of right-wing governments, Africa’s priority was to maintain an even keel throughout the turbulence.
This our business leaders – working with imaginative governments and vigorous and flexible continental institutions including development banks – have largely achieved. This is reflected in the as-you-were look of our business section, where you will find old stagers holding the fort while several new faces make their debut.
Incredible women
At a time when the Western mainstream press is being accused of having gone AWOL, especially over its coverage, or lack of coverage of the terrible situation in Gaza, it is our journalists, like the UK Guardian’s Nesrine Malik and MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin that have stepped into the breech, with their courageous and clear-eyed reporting.
Traditionally, the most thrilling and entertaining sections are sports, and arts and culture. African creatives are now very much part of the warp and woof of the global cultural space and astonishingly, several of them are right at the top of the pyramid in their adopted non-African countries.
Cameroon’s Koyo Kouoh becomes the first African (unless I’m very much mistaken) to head the Italian cultural Holy of Holies, the Venice Biennale and singer Zhong FeiFei is knocking them dead in China!
Finally to sport and our champions have yet again made us proud. This time it’s the incredible women who deserve the laurel crown – Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon and Ethiopia’s Sifan Hassan have pushed the bar so high, it is unlikely that anybody else (unless it is them) is likely to reach it for a long while yet.
But these are just a few nuggets from a treasure chest of outstanding African achievement that forms this year’s edition of the 100 Most Influential Africans. Enjoy the journey.
Click here to read the full list.
