President Bola Tinubu has been selected as one of the finalists for the 2024 “Person of the Year” award in Organized Crime and Corruption by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Since its inception in 2012, OCCRP’s “Person of the Year” award has honored individuals whose actions have notably contributed to global organized crime and corruption.
The winner is chosen by an expert panel that includes members from civil society, academia, and journalism.
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In a report published on its website Tuesday, OCCRP announced that Tinubu had received one of the highest numbers of votes for the 2024 award.
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 highlighted that Assad’s regime was notorious for its centralized control, suppression of dissent, and a powerful security apparatus. The regime’s forces were accused of severe human rights abuses, including torture, mass detentions, chemical weapon attacks, and deliberate targeting of civilians.
Additionally, in a historic first for the award’s 13-year history, OCCRP introduced a special “Lifetime Non-Achievement Award,” which was presented 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 organization mentioned in the report stated that Kenyan President William Ruto received the highest number of nominations for the 2024 award, with more than 40,000 individuals citing corruption, youth unemployment, and government dissatisfaction as the primary 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:
- 2023: María Consuelo Porras
- 2022: Yevgeny Prigozhin
- 2021: Aleksandr Lukashenko
- 2020: Jair Bolsonaro
- 2019: Joseph Muscat
- 2018: Danske Bank
- 2017: Rodrigo Duterte
- 2016: Nicolás Maduro
- 2015: Milo Đukanović
- 2014: Vladimir Putin
- 2013: Romanian Parliament
- 2012: Ilham Aliyev
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