As has become customary at this time of the year, various organisations have started naming those who they choose as their Person (s) of the year.
Earlier this month, Time Magazine named Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and “the spirit of Ukraine” as its 2022 Person of the Year.
The award goes to an event or person deemed to have had the most influence on global events over the past 12 months.
Other finalists included protesters in Iran, China’s leader Xi Jinping and the US Supreme Court.
The magazine’s editor, Edward Felsenthal, said the decision was “the most clear-cut in memory.”
He wrote: “In a world that had come to be defined by its divisiveness, there was a coming together around this cause, around this country.”
He added that the “spirit of Ukraine” referred to Ukrainians around the world, including many who “fought behind the scenes,” such as Ievgen Klopotenko, a chef who provided thousands of free meals to Ukrainians and medic Yuliia Payevska who was captured, then released after three months in Russian captivity.
In Nigeria, the Nation Newspaper in naming athlete Oluwatobiloba Ayomide Amusan as its Person of the Year 2022, based its decision on her ability to flourish as the Nigerian spirit to create world records that buried our centrifugal impulses of tribe and faith and united us in one thunderous roar.
“Her story inspires and chastens us, asking us to abandon what divides us and embrace what stitches us into a commonwealth,” the newspaper’s editors said.
Leadership Newspaper named three outstanding Nigerians, the President of Afrexim Bank, Prof Benedict Oramah; the chairman/CEO of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig- Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa (rtd); and world athletics champion, Amusan, as Persons of the Year.
The newspaper said while Oramah was chosen for his “numerous noble accomplishments across the world, standing him out as an extraordinary ambassador of his country, Nigeria, in his career and service to the country and the continent,” Marwa was awarded Person of the Year “for his giant strides in the war against drugs, particularly for making the biggest drug busts in the history of the country and repositioning a government agency that had been long moribund and Amusan, made the list “for breaking Gail Devers’ 22-year-old record to defend the Diamond League 100 metres hurdle title in a winning time of 12.29secs, with her latest title, the Diamond League, adding to the plethora of records and titles she achieved in 2022.”
My Person of the Year is the Nigerian, the ordinary Nigerian. The one who has remained resilient, in spite daunting challenges in the country.
I celebrate the never say die spirit of the ordinary Nigerian who has shown rare courage and tenacity in very difficult times.
Those who have borne with equanimity, the challenges life has thrown at them and endured
Those in the throes of everyday survival who comb the streets in search of the ever elusive daily bread.
Those who have survived kidnappers and bandits and those who live every day in fear because they have no where to run to and it is only a matter of time before the criminals catch up with them.
Those who have survived armed robbers on the highways from the Southern to the Northern part of the country.
Those who have survived insurgents and crisis by separatist groups in parts of the country.
Those who have escaped and survived accidents on the many bad roads that dot the landscape of the country.
Those who have survived food inflation and have had to adopt unorthodox means of survival such as eating once or twice a day in smaller rations just to stay alive.
Those who have survived the astronomical cost of living and have had to adjust their already poor standard of living to even lower standards.
Thousands of graduates who have become despondent as a result of unemployment.
Those who have borne the brunt of poor government policies and who watch helplessly as those in government fritter away their common patrimony.
Parents and other family members of school children that were kidnapped in their hundreds in 2021, some of who are still with their captors, while state actors remain unbothered.
Those whose lives were lost in needless circumstances.
Those who were lucky to survive the near absence of quality health care in the country while many others died.
Those who have had to buy petrol at between N290 and N350 a litre this yuletide, way above the regulated pump price, just to be able to move around, after enduring many months of scarcity.
These are my Persons of the Year 2022.
Happy New Year!
PS: This piece was first written in 2021 and reproduced as the issues remain the same, but edited to reflect current realities.
