The Most Famous
SOCIAL ACTIVISTS from Nigeria
This page contains a list of the greatest Nigerian Social Activists. The pantheon dataset contains 840 Social Activists, 1 of which were born in Nigeria. This makes Nigeria the birth place of the 79th most number of Social Activists behind New Zealand, and Liberia.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Nigerian Social Activists of all time. This list of famous Nigerian Social Activists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941 - 1995)
With an HPI of 54.08, Ken Saro-Wiwa is the most famous Nigerian Social Activist. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages on wikipedia.
Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian writer, teacher, television producer, and environmental activist. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as a spokesperson, and then as the president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multiple international oil companies, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He criticized the Nigerian government for its reluctance to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area. At the peak of his non-violent campaign, he was tried by a special military tribunal for allegedly masterminding the murder of Ogoni chiefs at a pro-government meeting, and hanged in 1995 by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for more than three years.
2. Ibrahim Zakzaky (b. 1953)
With an HPI of 47.98, Ibrahim Zakzaky is the 2nd most famous Nigerian Social Activist. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky (alternately Ibraheem Zakzaky, Ibrahim Al-Zakzaky; born 5 May 1953) is a Nigerian religious leader. An outspoken and prominent Shi'a leader in Nigeria, he has been imprisoned several times for what he sees as injustice, especially the system of corruption in his country. Zakzaky claims that only Islam can offer solution to the complex socio-political problems facing Nigeria, which has over the years stagnated the country's development. In a lecture he has delivered in marking the occasion of Sheikh Uthman Bn Fodio Week (May 2023) organized by the Academic Forum of Islamic Movement, Zakzaky stated that he is continuing the Jihad of Uthman Bn Fodio to make sure that Islam becomes the ruling religion in not only Nigeria but the entirety of West Africa. In a lecture he delivered on the same occasion in Sokoko (20 May 2023), one of his proponents, Dr. Nasir Hashim has claimed that Zakzaky’s dream is the only hope for Africa. Sheikh Zakzaky is the head of Nigeria's Islamic Movement, which he started in the late 1970s, when he was a student at Ahmadu Bello University, and began propagating Shia Islam around 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution—which saw Iran's monarchy overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. Zakzaky believed that the establishment of a republic along similar religious lines in Nigeria would be feasible. He has been detained several times due to accusations of civil disobedience or recalcitrance under military regimes in Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s, and is still viewed with suspicion or as a threat by Nigerian authorities. In December 2015, the Nigerian Army raided his residence in Zaria, seriously injured him, and killed hundreds of his followers. Since then, he has remained under state detention in the nation's capital pending his release, which was ordered in late 2016. In 2019, a court in Kaduna state granted him and his wife bail to seek treatment abroad but they returned from India after 3 days on the premises of unfair treatment and tough restrictions by security operatives deployed to the medical facility.
3. Adenike Oladosu (b. 1994)
With an HPI of 26.23, Adenike Oladosu is the 3rd most famous Nigerian Social Activist. Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Adenike Oladosu (born 1994) is a Nigerian climate activist, and initiator of the school strike for climate in Nigeria. She has showcased her climate action at international conferences including the UN Climate Change Conference, World Economic Forum, and Elevate festival in Graz-Austria. In December 2019, Oladosu attended the COP25 gathering in Spain as a Nigerian youth diplomat where she gave a "moving address" about climate change in Africa and how it influences lives.
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Nigerian social activists born between 1941 and 1994. Of these 3, 2 (66.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Nigerian social activists include Ibrahim Zakzaky, and Adenike Oladosu. The most famous deceased Nigerian social activists include Ken Saro-Wiwa. As of April 2024, 2 new Nigerian social activists have been added to Pantheon including Ibrahim Zakzaky, and Adenike Oladosu.
