By Adewale Sobowale,
There’s something obscene about celebrating a Man of the Year in a country where survival itself has become a full-time occupation.
Awards presume achievement. Achievement presumes improvement. But what exactly is being improved when a nation grows richer in statistics and poorer in lived reality? When inflation eats wages faster than time eats memory. When the maximum wage wages war on the stomachs of the common man. When security becomes a privilege, healthcare a gamble, and hope an act of stubbornness.
Nigeria today fits that description.
Let me draw an illustration with a couple of incidents:
I decided to go back to school in Canada. What I required for government assistance was my having lived in Ontario for one year. And, there wasn’t any drama about that.
Second, I was critically ill sometime this year. I only needed to call the ambulance, and that was it. I only needed to show my Province ID to be given what I would refer to as one of the best treatments in the world. I even had the opportunity of a post-discharge assessment.
Are any of the incidents mentioned above possible in today’s Nigeria?
Yes, it is! As long as one has money.
If suffering were an award category, Nigeria’s elite would sweep it.
But then, we, the common people, should not be left without blame. On the streets, we have a mish-mash of the Beatitudes and say blessed are the cheats for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But if we consider it critically, are cheats not blessed because we, the ruled, have failed in our duties to pick the right leaders, and when they prove themselves useless, what happened to our right of recall?
No, we would rather sit there and wait for our turn to fleece the commonwealth.
To name a Man of the Year under such conditions is not a neutral cultural exercise; it’s a political and moral statement. It says: someone did well this year. \the unavoidable follow-up question is: did Nigeria?
For the majority, the answer is no.
An unlivable country is not defined by the absence of wealth, which Nigeria has, but by the absence of comfort. It is a place where airports sparkle while hospitals decay,; where policy is defended in press releases but collapses at the market stall, where “reform” is announced from air-conditioned rooms and endured in heat, hunger, and insecurity.
The populace is satisfied with the construction of airports and expressways rather than agricultural estates, schools and libraries. The populace is therefore an accomplice.
In such a setting, the ruling elite often dominate award shortlists – not because they lifted society, but because they survived the year with power intact. Longevity replaces competence. Visibility replaces accountability. Control of institutions (where available) substitutes for performance.
The populace is satisfied with the building of airports and expressways rather than agricultural estates that would cater for their basic survival.
This is how Man of the Year becomes Man of Power, Man of Access, or worse, Man of Endurance – for enduring public anger without consequence.
The Man of the Year award is therefore given to the Nigerian Elite and the Common Man!
Yet, history is unkind to this sleight of hand. It doesn’t ask who held office; it asks who made life better. It doesn’t reward policy rhetoric; it measures outcomes. And, it doesn’t confuse governance with greatness.
In an unlivable country, the true figures of the year are rarely those on podiums. They are the market woman who keeps feeding a family despite collapsing purchasing power; the teacher who stays in a broken system; the doctor who works without tools; the few citizens who refuse to surrender dignity even when the state has surrendered responsibility.
If Nigeria decides to name a Man of the Year without confronting its unlivability, the award becomes an indictment, not an honour – proof that the elite can still applaud themselves while the nation gasps for breath.
Perhaps the more honest title for these times would be simpler and more exact:
Man of the Year in an Unlivable Country: Celebrating Raw Power While People Pay
