Cape Town – The African Leadership Magazine Persons of the Year Awards committee has unveiled that the director-general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been named the African of the year 2020.
The list of winners include the president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, as the African Political leader of the year 2020, Graça Machel as the African Climate Champion of the year 2020, alongside 10 other distinguished Africans in a keenly contested poll.
Other winners included Professor Samuel Edoumiekumo, vice-chancellor, Niger Delta University, Nigeria, who has been named the African Educationist of the Year, and Nicky Oppenheimer, chairperson Oppenheimer Generations, South Africa, who is African Industrialist of the Year.
According to a statement issued on Monday, the poll attracted more than 120 000 votes on the ALM website, with more than 7 million active online engagements during the voting period and more than 5 000 votes via email.
The winners will be honoured and presented with honour instruments on February 26 during the annual African Leadership Magazine Persons of the Year Award ceremony, the statement said.
Magazine publisher Dr Ken Giami said that although 2020 had been a turbulent year, with the Covid-19 pandemic stretching Africa’s fragile health systems and exacerbating poverty in the continent, certain Africans contributed towards minimising the impact of the pandemic on the continent and helped inspire hope for the future.
The African Leadership Magazine Persons of the Year, which is in its ninth year, is an annual award reserved for distinguished Africans, who have blazed the trail in the year under review.
African New Agency (ANA)