The Africa Report’s top 10 Africans who control
the levers of power across politics, business and the arts: from billionaire
barons to unpredictable peacemakers and soft-power superstars.
1.
Aliko Dangote
From
Nigeria
He’s the richest black man in the world and
Africa’s richest man, with an estimated wealth of $10.3bn. Within Nigeria,
Senator Ben-Murray Bruce called him “more influential and powerful than
(President Muhammadu) Buhari”.
The billionaire’s latest project is a $10.5bn
oil refinery that will be Africa’s largest, so Dangote will not be sitting on
the sidelines when it comes to oil-sector reform debates there. He is
investing in the continent’s manufacturing and agribusiness capacity, and plans
to launch the long-awaited London IPO of Dangote Cement in late 2019.
Meanwhile, his philanthropy is taking flight.
2.
Elon Musk
South
Africa
The yo-yoing of his company shares, his hirings
and firings and off-the-wall tweets keep Musk in the headlines. He may be a
maverick but his ideas are shaping the future, from reducing global warming
with his electric cars to urban transportation on a cushion of air and plans to
establish a colony on Mars.
His Boring Company could help a boom in urban
public transportation, and he is a big pessimist about the impact of AI. He
donates to both the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, saying it is
necessary to pay up in order to have a voice.
3.
Koos Bekker
South
Africa
When China-based Tencent sneezed in August 2018,
Naspers share price caught a cold. It didn’t last long, but it showed how tied
the fortunes of the South African media and entertainment behemoth are to its
largest holding (Naspers owns 31% of the Chinese internet giant). Buying a
stake in Tencent in 2001 makes Bekker the Buffett of Africa: the initial $32m
investment has grown to $116bn since then, and Bekker famously waived a salary
to get paid in stock options when he was CEO. With the bulk of South African
pension funds invested heavily in Naspers and allegations of Gupta-style
influencing in a 2017 broadcasting deal, Bekker said the company would work on
its transparency at the 2018 annual general meeting.
4.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Nigeria
The Nigerian author-cum-public intellectual
continues her stratospheric ascent and is as often seen behind a mic as in
print these days – engaging audiences about racism, sexism and the human
condition.
She started the year 2018 slaying a French journalist for her lack
of knowledge about Nigeria and ended it on stage with former US first lady
Michelle Obama. Who’s next?
5.
Trevor Noah
South
Africa
One of the US’s most prominent voices critiquing
the presidency of Donald Trump, Noah has brought millennial-inspired thinking
and an astute outsider’s view to The Daily Show and taught some Americans that
Africa is not a country. With the renewal of his contract in 2017 his job is
secure until 2022, which will carry him through the febrile US election season.
He is also quite funny.
6.
Tidjane Thiam
Côte
d’Ivoire
Thiam’s turnaround of Credit Suisse since 2016 has
left bankers and analysts awestruck. Ignoring naysayers, the Ivorian CEO
relegated the derivatives traders and recast the bank as a wealth-management
operation focusing on emerging markets. He explained his view to Euromoney:
“This is a fabulous bank. Or let me be more precise: it has always had a
fabulous bank within it.” But it faces big blowback for its role in the
Mozambique tuna bond scandal.
7.
Davido
Nigeria
He has riches (he’s worth $16m), good looks, fast
cars and political clout. Using his music to inspire Nigerians to vote in the
2019 elections, he also lent his star appeal to presidential candidate Atiku
Abubakar’s campaign, seriously upstaging the 72-year-old politician. His next
act will be to crack the tough US market, with his eyes set on a gig at Madison
Square Garden, having filled the 15,000-seat O2 Arena in London in January.
8.
Enoch Adeboye
Nigeria
In 2017 Pastor Adeboye’s resignation from leading
his five-million-member church in Nigeria was greeted with dismay by
congregations around the country. Nigeria’s highest-profile pastor, who numbers
the Nigerian vice-president Yemi Osinbajo among his followers, had to step down
from running the domestic operations of the church he had built up almost from
scratch after a new law put a 20-year cap and 70-year-old age limit on the leadership
of non-profit organisations. Adeboye could have argued that The Redeemed
Christian Church of God was not, strictly speaking, “non-profit”, with Forbes
quoting the net worth of the man born into poverty at €39m, but he chose not
to.
9.
Kumi Naidoo
South
Africa
Appointed as secretary general of Amnesty
International in August 2018, Naidoo was a youth activist in apartheid South
Africa and the first African head of Greenpeace. By making clear the link
between environmental crimes and human rights abuses, Naidoo heralds a new era
for Amnesty, widening its focus from political prisoners to indigenous peoples
and everyone in between. “We need to redefine what it means to be a strong
leader. Because strong leaders don’t bully activists. Yet that is exactly what
is happening with a global crackdown on NGOs. We need to see less vitriol and
more compassion from our leaders,” he explained on Twitter.
10.
Abiy Ahmed
Ethiopia
Catapulted into office in April 2018 by the
resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Abiy has made a huge splash
at home and internationally. In 11 months, he has made peace with Eritrea,
released 60,000 political prisoners, calmed ethnic tensions, signed multimillion-dollar
infrastructure deals with China, started liberalising the economy, persuaded
diaspora Ethiopians to contribute $2.4m to a trust fund, filled his cabinet
with women, diffused a potential military coup by doing press-ups with
soldiers… and the list goes on.
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