The African Icon, is somebody who has made our community proud! Africa’s growth, development and survival rate largely depends on the un sung heroes of the continent. We are living in a new era of enlightenment where you will find, these un conservative, realistic and sophisticated Africans in our community. However apart from the innovative African within us,this year we did not miss to bring out the royals as well. These have always been a cornerstone and development of our cultures. I hope our readers love this year’s African Icons with these diverse aspects into consideration.
Let’s take a look!

• Mohammed VI King of Morocco belongs to the ‘Alawi dynasty and acceded to the throne on 23 July 1999, upon the death of his father, King Hassan II.
  His net worth has been estimated at between US$2.1 billion and over US$8.2 billion. In 2015, Forbes named him the richest king in Africa and the fifth wealthiest monarch in the world.
  Upon ascending to the throne, Mohammed initially introduced a number of reforms and changed the family code, Mudawana, granting women more power.

• Sahle-Work Zewde is an Ethiopian politician and diplomat who has been the president of Ethiopia since 2018, making her the first woman to hold the office. She was elected as president unanimously by members of the Federal Parliamentary Assembly on 25 October 2018.
  Sahle-Work was only the second woman to be appointed an ambassador in Ethiopian history (ambassador Yodit Emiru was the first woman to hold an ambassadorship). She served as the ambassador of both the communist People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and post-civil war Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

• Kumi Naidoo is a South African, human rights and climate justice activist. He was International Executive Director of Greenpeace International from 2009 through 2015 and Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2018 through 2019. Naidoo served as the Secretary-General of CIVICUS,the international alliance for citizen participation, from 1998 to 2008. As a fifteen-year old, he organised students in school boycotts against the apartheid regime and its educational system in South Africa. Naidoo’s activism went from neighbourhood organising and community youth work to civil disobedience with mass mobilisations against the white controlled apartheid government. Naidoo is a co-founder of the Helping Hands Youth Organisation. He has written about his activism in this period in his memoirs titled, Letters to My Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker. In the book Naidoo recounts the day of his mother’s suicide when he was just 15 and how it became a catalyst for his journey into radical action against the Nationalist Party’s apartheid regime.

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