Influence, Power, these words speak of control, and this is something these men have in common. The power of control. This list is a collection of the five most powerful men in Africa’s most populous [powerful] nation, based on not only financial stability, but majorly the influence they wield over the population.
Here is our selection of the Top 5 most powerful men in Nigeria;
5] Alhaji Aliko Dangote
This is Africa’s most successful businessman whose net-worth is in the neighborhood of a staggering $20Billion. He built his fortune in sugar, textiles and cement in his native nation Nigeria, where today he’s a political as well as a financial power broker.
His companies cut across other African nations such as Benin, Togo, Ghana, South Africa, and Cameroun to name a few. He’s also expanding into other nee territories and may list his cement company in London.
Dangote is feted like royalty. He has businesses ranging from cement to sugar to energy in a dozen sub-Saharan countries. He’s a fixture at elite gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. No African has ridden the continent’s halting march out of poverty toward potential prosperity as spectacularly as its richest person, the Nigerian industrialist, Aliko Dangote.
Dangote’s clout extends beyond the boardroom and the high-flier dinner circuit. In March, as votes were tallied in Nigeria’s presidential election, Dangote, 58, served as an intermediary between the camps of the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, and the ultimate winner of the election, Muhammadu Buhari.
“There’s no question that he is quite an exceptional person—not only in Africa but globally,” says Mark Mobius, chairman of the emerging-markets group at Franklin Templeton Investments.
Speaking at the Financial Times Africa Summit in London on Sunday, Dangote had expressed confidence that Nigeria would weather the oil shock that had decimated government revenues if it stepped up the fight against corruption.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a political powerhouse in Nigeria. Some may even refer to him as the King maker of the nation. Since stepping down from the nation’s number one position in 2007, he has become chairman of the board of trustees of the PDP, from which position he can control nominations for governmental positions and even policy and strategy.
As one Western diplomat said, "He intends to sit in the passenger seat giving advice and ready to grab the wheel if Nigeria goes off course."
He voluntary resigned as the chairman board of trustees of the PDP in April, 2012. Afterwards, he withdrew from political activities with PDP. Obasanjo is a member of Club de Madrid, an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Its members are over 100 former democratically elected Presidents and Prime Ministers from more than 60 countries.
Obasanjo is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. Every year, the Panel releases a report, the Africa Progress Report that outlines an issue of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a set of associated policies. In 2012, the Africa Progress Report highlighted issues of Jobs, Justice, and Equity.
Obasanjo was also appointed Special Envoy by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has held separate meetings with DRC President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.
During the Zimbabwean election of July 2013, Obasanjo headed a delegation of African Union election observers. On May 2014, Obasanjo wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan requesting that he should mediate on behalf of the Nigerian government for the release of the Chibok girls held by the Boko Haram militants.
On 16 February 2015, he quit the ruling party and directed a PDP's ward leader to tear his membership card during a press conference.
So pronounced is the authority that this farmer ex-president wields in the nation that both the ruling and opposition parties almost publicly solicited for his support during the last presidential elections. Needless to say that the denouncement of his ties with the then ruling party may have played a huge role in their dethroning.
3] Sultan Abubakar
Sultan Abubakar holds an important administrative influence in Nigerian religious life.
Abubakar is the titular ruler of Sokoto in northern Nigeria and is also the head of the Nigerian National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Leadership of this council means that the Sultan of Sokoto remains the only figure that can legitimately claim to speak on behalf of all Nigerian Muslims.
This role has become increasingly influential over the years with a rise in interreligious tensions between Nigeria’s Muslim majority north and Christian-majority south.
The Sultan has started many initiatives to counter and reduce the influence of Boko Haram, including inviting an international joint Muslim/Christian Delegation to visit Nigeria.
The Sultan is highly influential as head of the Nigerian National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs; adding that as the Sultan of Sokoto, he is considered the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s 74.6 million Muslims, who account for roughly 40 per cent of the nation’s population.
2] President Muhammadu Buhari
- President Buhari addressing the 25th AU Summit
President Buhari was the first chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and was the mastermind behind the construction of 20 oil depots throughout Nigeria, a project involving over 3200 kilometres of pipelines,” the magazine said. “Both the Warri and Kaduna refineries were built under his leadership. He also established the blueprints for the country’s petro-chemical and liquefied natural gas programmes”.
Mr. Buhari is also an active environmentalist who has drafted several plans to preserve wildlife in Nigeria. He has also exerted great efforts on the conservation of nature in Nigeria; such as controlling the logging industry whereby he has ensured that double the number of trees felled are replaced by loggers. He has also worked on restricting the Ecological Fund Office so it can deliver on environmental challenges.
But above all these, he’s the obviously the President and Commander-in-Chief of the federal republic of Nigeria. Even though the authority of this position is not as absolute as it used to be when he was the military head-of-state, but most of the decision making still have to come from him.
He’s not very much loved and adored in some parts of the nation as he is in other parts, but needless to say, he’s the president.
1] Enoch Adejare Adeboye
- Enoch Adeboye with Rauf Aregbesola, the 8th Governor of the state of Osun, Nigeria
You may or may not have heard of E. A. Adeboye, but the pastor of The Redeemed Christian Church of God is one of the most successful preachers in the world.
He boasts that his church has outposts in 110 countries. He has 14,000 branches—claiming 5 million members—in his home country of Nigeria alone.
There are 360 RCCG churches in Britain, and about the same number in U.S. cities like Chicago, Dallas, and Tallahassee, Fla. Adeboye says he has sent missionaries to China and such Islamic countries as Pakistan and Malaysia.
The RCCG is the fastest growing church in the world.
At revival meetings in London, Adeboye and his ministers are known to preach for about 12 hours straight to crowds of up tp 30,000.
Enoch Adeboye does not occupy any supreme position in the Nigerian Church in terms of office, but is widely regarded and recognized as the No 1 Christian in the nation. Many online scammers have been known to use him to try to extort money from people – but who else can really be used for such a scam whose influence cuts across all Christian denominations and divides but Adeboye himself. He commands the respect of every single one of Nigeria’s approximately 95million Christians.
Every last Friday of the month, the RCCG organizes the “Holy Ghost” service at the Redemption camp just on the outside of Lagos state. With an attendance of close to 8 million worshippers each month, this meeting is by far the largest Christian gathering on earth and arguably the largest gathering of people as well.
Redemption City is a tranquil home to a population of about 100,000 people. It is perhaps the largest Christian city in the world. Not even the Vatican City, established in 1929 and spread across 44 hectares of land, could boast of the population of the Redeemed City.
He is referred to as “Daddy GO” by not just his followers, but virtually all Nigerian Christians. The amount of influence he wields is genuinely just almost impossible to attain in one lifetime, given the denominational barriers plaguing the entire Christian body today.
But despite all this, he almost never meddles with issues of state. This was clearly underlined during the Nigerian 2015 general election. Given the fact that the current Vice-President of the nation is a follower of his, everyone wanted to know what the cleric had to say during the heated campaigns. But as most who know him well would expect, he never suggested to Nigerians who to vote for neither did he reveal any prophecies.
Behind Adeboye's extraordinary success is his reputation for honesty. While other Pentecostal pastors (including some Nigerians) have been accused of financial misdeeds or faking supernatural powers, Adeboye remains above the fray. Nigerian government leaders have been known to seek his input on pressing social issues.
His appearance is straitlaced: he always wears a pinstriped suit, a gleaming white shirt and a bow tie.
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG) Pastor E.A Adeboye, had earlier in the year prayed for UK Prime Minister, David Cameron and the congregation at the ‘Festival of Life’ programme which holds in London.
Cameron was to lead the Conservative Party to participate in the UK general election holding on 7th May 2015, to elect the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom.
In a country where Religion is held in very high esteem, and believers can be almost very fanatical, Enoch Adeboye – even though he personally may not like the idea – holds sway over a vast majority.
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