When President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania’s sixth president and the first female to hold the office, she quickly tackled issues her predecessor had been avoiding. That included mitigating Tanzania’s COVID-19 health issues (rumored to be the cause of her predecessor’s untimely death) and political reconciliation with long-estranged opposition parties.
Why They Made the Worthy 100: For one thing, she’s still popularly known as Mama Samia, which is just too cool to ignore. For another, she’s done more for her country in the short stint she’s been in office than most politicians do in their careers. She’s mended fences with exiled opposition leaders, which wasn’t easy to do in one case since the man had been shot at 16 times the last time he was in-country. She’s initiated development and infrastructure projects around new transportation arteries and public facilities. That effort alone garnered one of the many honors she received in 2022, namely the African Road Builders—Babacar Ndiaye Trophy for excellence in “personal leadership, huge investments and commitments” to extending the roads and railways of her country.
