TIME 100: Bola Tinubu and Dimie Ogoina named among Most Influential People of 2023
Nigeria’s president-elect Bola Tinubu and Dimie Ogoina, a Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Niger Delta University (NDU), Baylesa State, have been named among the TIME 100 most influential people of 2023.
TIME, an international magazine, releases the list of the world’s most influential people every year. The 2023 list was announced on Thursday, April 13, 2023.
Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state who won the February 2023 presidential election, was listed under the leaders section while Ogoina was listed among the Innovators.
Following its tradition where a renowned person writes the profile of individuals on the list, Astha Rajvanshi, TIME’s staff writer, who wrote Tinubu’s profile claimed “Tinubu helped restore the country’s democracy in 1999 after fighting military rule and then served two consecutive terms as governor of Lagos.”
Although the president-elect, who went into exile when the military took over power and clamped down on opposition leaders, was part of a pro-democracy group – NADECO that fought for the declaration of MKO Abiola as winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the TIME profile paints a picture that suggests Tinubu singlehandedly restored democracy to Nigeria without acknowledging the roles played by many journalists and political activists who were jailed and killed during the agitation for transition to democracy between 1993 and 1998.
Ogoina made the list for sounding the alarm on a new presentation of Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) he saw in Nigeria and his documentation of data which helped develop strategies to combat the global spread of the virus in 2022.
“Recognizing the importance and potential implications for global spread, he persisted, documenting the potential for sexual transmission of Mpox and publishing the data in high-impact scientific journals. As the global Mpox outbreak unfolded in 2022, Dimie’s insights became critically important to developing better strategies to prevent and control outbreaks.”
Anne Rimoin, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, who wrote Ogoina’s profile describe the academic as “a passionate champion for global health equity. He has often made the point that Mpox is not a new disease and that had the world paid attention sooner, we could have avoided a global outbreak. It is this drive that has led Dimie to make significant contributions to the field through his advocacy, leadership, and research.
