By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
MANY people think – though erroneously – that Man or Woman of the Year, Person or Personality of the Year is given only to saints; even devils have a right to it, and have many times been so “rewarded” in the past!. The award is usually a recognition of who impacted lives the most, globally or within a geographical location, for good or for bad within the period under review. Who did the most extraordinary things – whether to the people’s acclamation/applause or derision/opprobrium? Who was the most enigmatic, the most controversial and talked-about, again, for good or for bad? Who surprised people the most – in their speeches, actions, and the successes recorded; whose sound bites travelled farther than those of any other person, thus etching a permanent impression on people’s mind and psyche? Emilokan! Make America Great Again! Whose presence/personality, policies (imagined or anticipated) and actions (threatened or real) have impacted or moved people to action more than at any other time in recent history?
These are some of the qualities that determine who is so crowned – for better or for worse. Now, think of any Nigerian other than President Bola Ahmed Tinubu whom the cap fits! Had the Dangote refinery not dashed Nigerians’ hope of a substantial reduction in the price of fuel, Aliko Dangote would have been the undisputed Man of the Year 2024. But as things are, Tinubu is, in many respects, the Nigerian version of the United States’ Donald Trump, its former (45th) president as well as incoming (47th) president a few days from now.
Many in the US were gutted when TIME magazine announced Trump as its “Person of the Year 2024”, perhaps more so than when Trump won the November 5, 2024 US presidential election by a landslide, winning both the popular vote and the electoral college, and leaving no one in doubt that he was the choice of the vast majority of the American electorate. Expect here a similar backlash to Tinubu being Personality of the Year. Maybe we should first take a look at how TIME arrived at its choice of Trump because the similarities between the personality and politics of Trump and Tinubu are striking in many respects.
“For 97 years, the editors of TIME have been picking the Person of the Year: the individual who, for better or for worse, did the most to shape the world and the headlines over the past 12 months. In many years, that choice was a difficult one. In 2024, it was not.
“Since he began running for President in 2015, perhaps no single individual has played a larger role in changing the course of politics and history than Trump. He shocked many by winning the White House in 2016, then led the U.S. through a chaotic term that included the first year of a pandemic as well as a period of nationwide protest, and that ended with his losing the election by 7 million votes and provoking the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The smart money wagered that we had witnessed the end of Trump.
“If that moment marked Trump’s nadir, today we are witnessing his apotheosis. On the cusp of his second presidency, all of us—from his most fanatical supporters to his most fervent critics—are living in the Age of Trump. He dispatched his Republican rivals in near record time. For weeks, he campaigned largely from the New York courtroom where he would be convicted on 34 felony counts. His sole debate with President Joe Biden in June led to his opponent’s eventual exit from the race. Sixteen days later, he survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally. In the sprint that followed, he outlasted Vice President Kamala Harris, sweeping all seven swing states and emerging from the election at the height of his popularity. “Look what happened,” Trump told his supporters in his election-night victory speech. “Isn’t this crazy?” He almost couldn’t believe it himself.
“Trump has remade American politics in the process. He won by enlarging his base, seizing the frustration over rising prices and benefiting from a global turn against incumbents. With those tailwinds, exit polls suggest that he won the largest percentage of Black Americans for a Republican since Gerald Ford and the most Latino voters of any GOP nominee since George W. Bush. Suburban women, whose anger over restrictions to reproductive rights was thought to be a bulwark for the Democrats, moved not away but toward him. He became the first Republican in 20 years to win more votes than the Democrat, with 9 of 10 American counties increasing their support for Trump from 2020.
“Now we watch as members of Congress, international institutions, and global leaders once again align themselves with his whims. The carousel of Trumpworld characters spins anew. This time, we think we know what to expect. Supporters cheer even his promises to take revenge on his enemies and dismantle the government. In a matter of weeks, Trump will be returning to the Oval Office with his intentions clear: tariff imports, deport millions, and threaten the press. Put RFK Jr. in charge of vaccines. Chance war with Iran. “Anything can happen,” he told us.
“Sitting with TIME three weeks after the election, Trump was more subdued than when we visited him at Mar-a-Lago in March. He is happiest to be in a fight, and now that he has won, he sounded almost wistful, recognizing that he had run for office for the final time. “It’s sad in a way. It will never happen again,” Trump told us. And while he is thinking about how that chapter has ended, for Americans and for the world, it is also the beginning of a new one. Trump is once again at the center of the world, and in as strong a position as he has ever been.
“Over time, we’ve seen the Person of the Year franchise shift: from Man of the Year to its current designation; from the period between the world wars, defined by leaders like Mohandas Gandhi and Wallis Simpson, to the first quarter of the 21st century, an era marked by the tremendous changes ushered in by a technological revolution. Although the American presidency has evolved across these eras, its influence has not diminished. Today, we are witnessing a resurgence of populism, a widening mistrust in the institutions that defined the last century, and an eroding faith that liberal values will lead to better lives for most people. Trump is both agent and beneficiary of it all.
“For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2024 Person of the Year.”
If it was not difficult for TIME to choose its Person of the Year 2024, it should be no less for us here in Nigeria. Tinubu has been an influential recurring decimal in NIgeria’s political scene since he was elected as senator in 1992. He was a leading figure in the pro-democracy activism that fought military dictatorship to a standstill before becoming a two-term governor of the country’s most important state of Lagos (1999 – 2007), where he shone like a million stars. From there, he became a godfather, snatching the political leadership of the South-west from his erstwhile political godfathers. By playing a pivotal role in cobbling together the All Progressives Congress alliance to snatch power from a sitting president, he helped to engineer what had not happened before in Nigeria’s political history. He rode on the crest of that momentum to contest and win the presidential election in 2023.
Like it was thought of Trump after he lost his 2019 re-election bid to Joe Biden, everyone thought the end had come to Tinubu’s political career when his own party, the APC, gave him the cold shoulder from 2015 to 2023. Who ever thought the Asiwaju of Yorubaland and Jagaban Borgu would win the APC presidential ticket, not to talk of going ahead to win the presidential election of 2023? But he did, surprising even himself! Despite the barricades erected by party cabals, and the betrayals he suffered, even from some of his most trusted lieutenants! The Muhammadu Buhari he helped to make president was indifferent, even adversarial, to his own presidential ambition. To quote Anthony in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the buffeting Tinubu endured from some of his supposedly die-hard godsons qualified as “the unkindest cut of all”. Just like some of the closest associates of Trump who showed up in court to testify against him!
TIME says Trump virtually shuttled between the courtrooms (answering to sundry allegations and criminal charges) and the campaign ground, so also did Tinubu face a barrage of allegations and accusations bordering on his name/identity, age, schools attended/certificates, state of origin/paternity, health status, corruption charges, name it! Like Trump, he survived them all, including erstwhile CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele’s currency change in the rundown to the presidential election that was widely interpreted as targeted at derailing Tinubu’s campaign strategy.
Unlike Trump who still has a few more days to wait before taking over and rolling out his stated policies which have not only Americans but the entire world catching cold already, Tinubu has been in the saddle for a little over one-and-half years and has exploded from his first day in office with policies that have thrown the entire Nigerian system into a tailspin, so to say. His twin-policy of “subsidy is gone” and floating of the Naira has become the defining moments of his presidency. At no time in this country’s recent history has any government or its policies affected – nay, afflicted – Nigerians as these two-some, which critics have aptly described as Tinubu-Pain but which the Tinubu government itself optimistically sees as Temporary-Pain necessary to prevent the total collapse of the economy while restoring it to good health again over time.
Like Trump, Tinubu is audacious. They both share the same never-say-die spirit. The stubborn streak in both men steeled them to plunge into storms head-on like an eagle, daring to be different and seeing victory where everyone else sees defeat. Marching gallantly where even angels fear to tread must be one of the qualities that qualify them for Man or Person of the Year. The decisive steps on state police, local government autonomy, revamping of the comatose refineries, and the proposed tax reforms all indicate that Tinubu is not one to fear stepping on powerful toes. If Trump’s comeback was of “historic proportions” as TIME says, Tinubu’s ascendancy to the Nigerian presidency was no less. Who would have thought that the former governor of Lagos, with all the baggage hewn on him, would succeed where the trio of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo; Chief Olu Falae, and Basorun MKO Abiola failed?
Congratulations, Mr. President, but rather than rejoice or go to sleep, be reasonably advised to wear this accolade with fear and trembling (Phillipians 2: 12) because “better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof” (Ecclesiastes 7: 8). The renewed hope that you canvassed; the light at the end of the tunnel that you promised; the T-Pain that you said is temporary; the better days ahead for all Nigerians that you said in your New Year speech are around the corner – all these must materialise if the joy of today is not to turn to ashes in your mouth.
Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in the New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
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