Since December 1 when we announced the nominees for our Person Of the Year Award, it’s been a huge wait on both sides to see who clinches the popular vote. This is especially because we predicted a keen contest considering the outstanding profiles of each of the 10 nominees.

King of Payments and Purveyors of Hope, the Tutor General, Banker of Africa, The Woman for the job, The Thinking Man’s Pastor, Winner of Winners, the hitmaker, Revolutionary Administrator, the last Stylebender and Voices of a Generation; it was definitely going to be a hard choice for the voting public.

We have finally arrived at the end of voting and your decision on you consider more impactful, charismatic and influential than anyone else in the country this year, have been collated to decide the winner – at least for the popular vote.

By a huge margin – the winner of the poll is Olasunkanmi Opeifa, teacher and finalist for the 2020 edition of the prestigious Global Teacher Prize.

Opeifa, an English Teacher at the Government Day Secondary School, Karu, a semi-rural area of Abuja, won the popular vote for the YNaija Person of the Year with a record 82.3% of all votes, followed closely by the #EndSARS Protesters with 8.7% of the total votes cast.

READ ALSO: Profile of Olasunkanmi Opeifa; the Tutor General | #YNaijaPOTY2020 Nominee

With over sixteen years of experience in the classroom, Opeifa has developed a reputation for innovation that matches his uncommon passion. He is the kind of tutor that goes out of his way to ensure his students receive the best possible tuition regardless of obvious limitations.

Full breakdown of the votes by percentage are below:

Congratulations to the readers and fans of Olasunkanmi Opeifa who voted, as well as the campaigners across social media platforms who engaged with the Person Of The Year poll in 2020.

The overall winner (Editors’ Pick) will be unveiled to the public by the editors on Wednesday, 30th December 2020.

The YNaija Person of the Year is in its tenth year and is awarded annually to the individual who has most visibly influenced the Nigerian society for good in the past year, breaking new boundaries or consolidating on gains – and driving the advancement of the public, especially young people.

Previous winners include Aliko Dangote, Jason Njoku of iRoKO, Oby Ezekwesili, Josephine Ugwu; the airport cleaner who returned the sum of N12 million to its rightful owner, the Nigerian Paralympics team, Ayo ‘Wizkid‘ Balogun, Segun ‘Segalink’ Awosanya and 2019 winner, Omoyele Sowore.

Editor