Late yesterday Time magazine announced their Person of the Year 2015 and it turned out to be Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. With that she became the fourth woman to win that honour solo since Wallis Warfield Simpson (1936), Queen Elizabeth II (1952) and Corazon Aquino (1986). I will call this another victory for the feminists. Some reasons attributed for her getting this accolade include championing Europe’s policy towards refugee migrant crisis, the Greek debt crisis, her stance against Vladimir Putin’s creeping theft of Ukraine and for her moral leadership amongst others. Donald Trump, a finalist, had something to say about it via twitter
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 18h18 hours ago
I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany
4,640 retweets7,866 likes
he definitely was not pleased about it and neither am I. Unlike Donald, my displeasure is not about who won but about who was not nominated.
First, I know the racism card would work here very well but I am not going to tow that path because I am a half-believer of racism. Time’s Person of the Year award 2015 pontificated about solvers of problems that have crystallized and not solvers of issues before they become problems. Before I reveal who was missing from Time’s nomination let us look at the other finalists.
Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (ISIS leader), Hassan Rouhani and Vladimir Putin (Presidents of Iran and Russia), Caitlyn Jenner (transgender activist), Travis Kalanick (Uber CEO), Black Lives Matter Activist Group, Donald Trump (Controversial but poll-leading U.S politician)
All the above either solved or created problems. Not one forfended a looming disaster. Shouldn’t more attention be paid to people who prevented disaster of great dimensions? Now to my nomination; What about Nigerian ex-President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who, even if he did nothing else, averted a migrant crisis of the 170 million Nigerian population when he conceded defeat and handed political power over to the opposition in May 29, 2015. If one in five Syrians are refugees in a neighbouring country, that means, using same calculations, that there would be approximately 34 million Nigerians seeking for shelter outside the shores of their country and considering the current economic problems that African countries already have, these migrants would be in boats crossing the Mediterranean into Europe. If this had happen Merkel would have received the honour in 2016, if she would not have tired out by then.
Goodluck Jonathan may not have merited being the Time’s Person of the Year 2015 but he sure does merit being a nominee because he may have just helped avert one of the greatest tragedies that would have hit the African continent. This is still putting into equation the “prophecy” by the United States CIA that putting every factor together and continuing at this rate Nigeria would break up in 2015. Since America should know better we could have plunged into a costly – both to Nigerians, Africans and the world at large– war that we may never recover from.
Furthermore, considering the sit tight and third termism attitude of African leaders, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan relinquishing of power against all odds is certainly commendable and deserves, at least, a nomination because while Merkel cleans up the mess Jonathan prevented the mess in the first place.
All said we hail the only two Africans to have won the Time’s Person of the Year and hope our turn would come.
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