As we peek into 2011 I just had to make a list like this one to end 2010. Happy reading.
REVELATION OF THE YEAR
This wasn’t so much a revelation as it was a more graphically-delivered argument as to why I perpetually feel the need to round up all Nigerian politicians or precisely put, all Nigerian government officials, lump them all in a vast space and set the place ablaze while I sit legs crossed, with the Ten Commandments in hand, listening unperturbed to their anguished last wails as they slowly but surely roast to their deaths. Simply put, when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria raised all the right dust about 25 percent of the nation’s overall expenditure being gulped up by the National Assembly (a group of just 469 individuals) the import of it all was that not only is the rest of the population left to subsist on the remaining 75 percent of total expenditure but those same mercenaries – who only (pretend to) work for the people 181 days every year - and their cronies in politics and government across the landscape also share out of the 75 percent. In summary, from Maiduguri to Lagos, Sokoto to Calabar, a collection of just about 10 thousand mostly half-educated, visionless, maladjusted individuals is, conceivably, trapping about 90 percent of the wealth meant to tend to 150 million people under their feathers in the name of governance.
Honourable mention: Amos Adamu’s bribery scandal; Wikileaks’ many exposes (make your pick, please)
MOMENT OF THE YEAR
If you weren’t following this on any news and information medium, you possibly weren’t living on planet earth or even on any of the planets. For an initial 17 days the world waited anxiously to know the fate of the brave men. Then 51 days later we were finally going to see the first of them on the surface of the earth for the first time since August 5, 2010. They were not going to spend Christmas 700 feet underground after all. For several hours on October 12, 2010, everyone got itchy as the final tests were carried out on the transport capsule that had been designed to convey each man up through a 700 ft shaft. When the contraption was finally lowered, to fetch a man up for the first time, the whole world - from Manila to Maiduguri, Sao Paulo to Sokoto, Beijing to Bouake, Santiago to San Marino – waited with baited breath. As the capsule, bearing its first passenger trundled its way up the shaft, you could literally cut through the blanket of anxiety across the world with a knife. And then the capsule popped up into the hands of waiting rescue engineers, at around 12am on October 13, and the collective sigh of relief by about one billion television audience across the globe was nothing like the world had ever felt before. Clearly, this most daring of rescue operations, an ‘experiment’ to rescue 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped below 2000 tons of rock was workable after all. Unbelievably, 22 hours later, with chants of "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le," greeting each emergence of the capsule from the shaft, it was “Mision complida, Chile,” and the world went into rapturous celebration.
ASSHOLE(S) OF THE YEAR
In a year during which a traditional ruler physically battered his wife in public, in which some nincompoops smuggled a dying president into the country in a move to further disrupt things in an already unsettled socio-political landscape, picking a single person or group of persons to receive this prestigious gong given for inane and ludicrous acts of absolute comic, yet tragically laughable performance is no tea party. After painstaking appraisal of top nominees, the award goes to… the Nigerian National Assembly. How could they not trump all comers when by the evidence of just two incidents during the sixth and the twelfth months of the year respectively, members of that (supposedly) hallowed group managed to put up performances that wowed the country and charmed people from across the world? Can we really ever forget those disgraceful scenes of June 22 when a mass brawl in which teargas canisters, the House’s mace, whistles, furniture and of course, fists were employed as weapons of debate, broke out on the floor of the House of Reps? Is it also possible for us to ignore how those 469 men and women sent a cavalry after one scrawny little fellow who dared remind us of the blood-sucking existence of the members of that Assembly?
Honourable mention:
Sani Kaita (Super Eagles player who helped ruin Nigeria’s best chance of winning a match at the 2010 World Cup)
Laurent Gbagbo for refusing to concede defeat to Alhassane Ouatarra over the November presidential run-off election in Ivory Coast.
FEUD OF THE YEAR
This was a ‘street fight’ between two people who deserve each other more than 150 million Nigerians or 6 million Ogun State population deserve either or both of them. The “Battle of Sango,” as many have labeled the incident, was the confrontation that took place between Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole at the formal opening of the Sango-Ota overhead bridge on July 29, 2010. The story is told of how Daniel spited Bankole by hurriedly leading Minister of Works, Sanusi Daggash, to ceremonially declare the bridge open when Bankole, who was scheduled to join Dagash in cutting the ceremonial tape was just a few metres from the scene. In furry, Bankole jumped into the bus that conveyed the governor and the minister to the place and… well, the rest of the story can be learned in as many ever-marginally varying versions as there are people willing to give an account of the events.
Honourable mention: OBJ vs Ayo Fayose’s “Bastard & Father of Bastard” word match in Akure.
PRODUCT PROMOTER OF THE YEAR
Before August 5 2010 when 33 miners were trapped underground at the San Jose mine near Copiapo in the Atacama desert in Chile, Chile was, beyond the legend of the Atacama Desert and the copper mining industry in the country, more famous for the bestiality of its former president and strong man Augustus Pinochet, as well as the pair of Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas, both celebrated Chilean football players of the 1990s and early 21st Century. By October 13, 2010 when the trapped miners were rescued in a made-for-the-cameras exercise, something fundamental had changed for the country, although it is still to be seen how far reaching the effect could go still. Chile may not be a ‘product’ in the same way as you would refer to Coca Cola, but experts and laymen alike believe that with the thrilling, ultimately successful media packaging of the rescue of the miners, Chile gained a lot of goodwill that should mean more tourist visits and more willing foreign investment in the country. As the ‘orchestra conductor,’ the Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera said after the successful rescue operation: "We faced up to this rescue united as a country. We did it the Chilean way, which means the right way." Great advert! Brilliant PR!!
JOKE OF THE YEAR
That, once again, as we go into year 2011, 9 years before 2020, in spite of the country still being barely able to light its homes while its roads are hell-holes, Nigeria will, come 2020, become one of the 20 most industrialised nations of planet earth. With the caliber of presidential material we have had for the past four years? Abeg I still dey laugh o.
END OF THE YEAR QUESTION
By whose votes will the next Nigerian president be elected in 2011?
PROPHET OF THE YEAR
Paul, the psychic octopus, for (supposedly) correctly predicting the outcome of eight football matches during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
QUOTE OF THE YEAR
One quote will not be enough for me here, so I’m going with two:
“I dey laugh o” - former president Olusegun Obasanjo, reacting to news that former vice president Atiku Abubakar had been chosen by the Northern wing of the PDP as its consensus candidate for the PDP primary elections in 2011.
“My name is Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, (my name is) not Central Bank Governor. By my nature, if I do not believe that I am wrong, I do not apologise” – Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on December 1, while standing up to the Senate’s bullying over the CBN governor's 25 percent net spending comments.
