17th April, 2015
General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president-elect will probably not gloat about being named among TIME’s 100 most influential persons in the world if he has to share it with Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, who is described as the “scourge of Africa”.
The Islamist sect leader was named alongside Bring Back Our Girls campaigner, Oby Ezekwesili and novelist Chimamanda Adichie.
Ezekwesili’s endorsement came from renowned Ugandan activist, Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe. “It has been a year, and the girls (Chibok 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.”
The deputy Managing Director of TIME, Radhika Jones did the honours for Adichie, who was also described as a “conjurer of character”.
“It’s the rare novelist, who in the space of a year finds her words sampled by Beyoncé, optioned by Lupita Nyong’o and honoured with the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction,” she said.
Shekau, whose Boko Haram has killed over 13,000 and has rendered many more homeless was described as the “scourge of Africa” by Gen. Carter Ham(retd.), a former Commander of US Africa Command from 2011 to 2013.