The Forbes 2018 ‘The World’s 75 Most Powerful People ranking’ released on Tuesday put Chinese President, Xi Jinping, as number one.
Xi and his administration amended china’s congress’s constitution in March, increasing Xi’s influence and invalidating term limits, thereby giving him life presidency. This is the Chinese president’s first time in the top spot.
He displaced Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who has been relegated to second place.
President Donald Trump falls to the No. 3 spot.
Businessman, Aliko Dangote is the only Nigerian on the list.
Newcomers to the list include Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia (No. 8), who has risen to power and will be the fulcrum around which the region’s geopolitics move for the next generation.
See the full list below:
Rank Name Organization Age
#1 Xi Jinping China 64
#2 Vladimir Putin Russia 65
#3 Donald Trump United States 71
#4 Angela Merkel Germany 63
#5 Jeff Bezos Amazon.com 54
#6 Pope Francis Roman Catholic Church 81
#7 Bill Gates Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 62
#8 Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud Saudi Arabia 32
#9 Narendra Modi India 67
#10 Larry Page Google 45
#11 Jerome H. Powell United States 65
#12 Emmanuel Macron France 40
#13 Mark Zuckerberg Facebook 33
#14 Theresa May United Kingdom 61
#15 Li Keqiang China 62
#16 Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway 87
#17 Ali Hoseini-Khamenei Iran 78
#18 Mario Draghi European Central Bank 70
#19 Jamie Dimon JPMorgan Chase 62
#20 Carlos Slim Helu America Movil SAB de CV (ADR) 78
#21 Jack Ma Alibaba Group 53
#22 Christine Lagarde International Monetary Fund 62
#23 Doug McMillon Wal-Mart Stores 51
#24 Tim Cook Apple 57
#25 Elon Musk Tesla 46
#26 Benjamin Netanyahu Israel 68
#27 Ma Huateng Tencent Holdings 46
#28 Larry Fink BlackRock 65
#29 Akio Toyoda Toyota Motor 62
#30 John L. Flannery General Electric 56
#31 Antonio Guterres United Nations 69
#32 Mukesh Ambani Reliance Industries Ltd. 61
#33 Jean-Claude Juncker European Union 63
#34 Darren Woods ExxonMobil 53
#35 Sergey Brin Alphabet 44
#36 Kim Jong-un North Korea 34
#37 Charles Koch Koch Industries 82
#38 Shinzo Abe Japan 63
#39 Rupert Murdoch News Corp 87
#40 Satya Nadella Microsoft 50
#41 Jim Yong Kim World Bank 58
#42 Stephen Schwarzman Blackstone Group 71
#43 Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan United Arab Emirates 70
#44 Haruhiko Kuroda Japan 73
#45 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Egypt 63
#46 Li Ka-shing CK Hutchison Holdings 89
#47 Lloyd Blankfein Goldman Sachs Group 63
#48 Recep Tayyip Erdgan Turkey 64
#49 Bob Iger Walt Disney 67
#50 Michel Temer Brazil 77
#51 Michael Bloomberg Bloomberg 76
#52 Wang Jianlin Dalian Wanda Group 63
#53 Mary Barra General Motors 56
#54 Moon Jae-in South Korea 65
#55 Masayoshi Son Softbank Corp. 60
#56 Bernard Arnault LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton 69
#57 Justin Trudeau Canada 46
#58 Robin Li Baidu 49
#59 Michael Dell Dell 53
#60 Hui Ka Yan Evergrande Real Estate Group 59
#61 Lee Hsien Loong Singapore 66
#62 Bashar al-Assad Syria 52
#63 John Roberts United States 63
#64 Enrique Pena Nieto Mexico 51
#65 Ken Griffin Citadel LLC 49
#66 Aliko Dangote Dangote Group 61
#67 Mike Pence United States 58
#68 Qamar Javed Bajwa Pakistan 57
#69 Rodrigo Duterte Philippines 73
#70 Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments 56
#71 Reed Hastings Netflix 57
#72 Robert Mueller United States 73
#73 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Islamic State 46
#74 Joko Widodo Indonesia 56
#75 Gianni Infantino FIFA 48
A Politically United Africa would make the world’s largest nation and potentially the most powerful! Africa needs a Union of African States.
The continent of Africa, if it can unite into one federal state, would be the largest nation, by far, in terms of geographic area (over 30 million square kilometers); unsurpassed natural resources; and a population of over 1.3 billion people, predominantly young and full of energy. Democraphically, where all other, large and powerful nations, are declining (exept for India), Africa is on its way to becoming not only the largest in area but also overwhelmingly the largest in population. However, being politically divided (the genius of colonial legacy) into 55 separate nations, most of them small and weak, leaves the entire continent of the blak person, the birthplace of all humanity, divided and thus weak and vulnerable to exploitation. Although most people in the North (highly developed nations) view and promote an African continent full of problems and mired in poverty, civil unreast, poor infrastracture etc, if the African Continent can unite into a Unified Democratic Federal State, it would have the capacity to become the leader of the world bringing humanity into a full circle: not only Africa being the very cradle of humanity in the past, but ushering a new renaissance not only for the blessed continent, but also for the entire planet. In this view, Nigeria is the most important nation and it has the potential to play a leading role in the pan-African dream.