President Bola Tinubu has been named one of the finalists for the 2024 Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Since 2012, OCCRP’s “Person of the Year” award has recognised individuals who significantly contribute to global organized crime and corruption.
The winner is determined by an expert panel comprising members of civil society, academia, and journalism.
In a report published on its website on Tuesday, OCCRP announced Tinubu as one of the finalists who received the highest number of votes in 2024.
The report partly read,” We asked for nominations from readers, journalists, the Person of the Year judges, and others in the OCCRP global network. The finalists who received the most votes this year were: President of Kenya William Ruto; former President of Indonesia Joko Widodo; President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and Indian businessman Gautam Adani.”
The organization declared former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad the 2024 winner of the “Person of the Year” award.
OCCRP said Assad’s regime was infamous for centralised control, suppression of dissent, and a powerful security apparatus, adding that his forces were accused of egregious human rights violations, including torture, mass detentions, chemical weapon attacks, and targeting civilians.
Also, for the first time in the award’s 13-year history, OCCRP introduced a special “Lifetime Non-Achievement Award”, granted to Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
“Obiang, one of the longest-serving dictators, took power in 1979 through a coup. Under his regime, dissent has been stifled through unlawful arrests, forced disappearances, and torture. Despite Equatorial Guinea’s wealth from oil and gas, Obiang and his elite circle have embezzled much of the nation’s resources, leaving the population in poverty while living extravagantly,” the report added.
The organisation in the report said
Kenyan President, William Ruto garnered the highest number of nominations for the 2024 award, with over 40,000 people citing corruption, youth unemployment, and government discontent as reasons for his nomination.
“Fueled by the passage of a contentious finance bill, youth unemployment, and rage at their corrupt government, young Kenyans held demonstrations for weeks this past June and July, demanding that Ruto step down. Security forces responded with tear gas, water cannons, arrests, and bullets — many people were killed, injured, or went missing following the protests,” it stated.
Previous recipients of OCCRP’s “Person of the Year” award include: María Consuelo Porras in 2023; Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2022; Aleksandr Lukashenko in 2021; Jair Bolsonaro in 2020; Joseph Muscat 2019; Danske Bank 2018; Rodrigo Duterte 2017; Nicolás Maduro 2016; Milo Đukanović 2015; Vladimir Putin 2014; Romanian Parliament 2013 and Ilham Aliyev 2012.
Credit: PUNCH
