Zannah Mustapha
A lawyer who closed his practice to school the orphans of a war he had no side in
Zannah Mustapha practised law in Maiduguri, in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno State, until 2007, when he closed his practice to open the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School. It began with thirty-six pupils in a modest compound and grew, as the Boko Haram insurgency spread across the region, into a school of hundreds, providing free tuition, food, healthcare and uniforms.
The insurgency left enormous numbers of children orphaned on both sides, those whose parents were killed by Boko Haram and those whose parents fought or died for it. Mustapha insisted his school take children from either group without distinction, a decision that drew suspicion from some in the community but reflected his conviction that punishing children for their parents' choices only fed the cycle of violence.
His standing with communities on both sides of the conflict led to an unusual role: in 2016 and again in 2017, he served as a mediator in negotiations that secured the release of dozens of the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in 2014, working alongside the Red Cross and Swiss diplomats. He was awarded the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award in 2017 and named a CNN Hero in 2021, recognition he has used to expand his school and open a second campus for the growing number of displaced children in Borno State.