For some people around the world, the year 2016 has been full of surprises, and for some, not so much. Not counting the number of celebrity deaths, the refusal of global oil prices to go up, and the turning away from the destruction in Aleppo, few events could have been predicted before they became major problems, especially the political ones.

In Nigeria, the recession, the “nine lives, never dying” terrorist group Boko Haram and their leader Abubakar Shekau, president Muhammadu Buhari’s flaccid cabinet and his pseudo war on corruption have been problems in 2016.

Another event that should have been predicted is Donald Trump’s rise to power. The world is still dumbfounded by Donald Trump’s win in the USA presidential elections. Like Brexit, a new trend seems to be emerging, not only in the USA but all over the world. Donald Trump rose to power on the back of being unapologetic on his stands regarding USA’s foreign policy, immigration policy, racism, xenophobia; on issues where many “traditional” conservative citizens held the same views but were afraid to speak out because of political correctness. Europe is steadily moving towards a sort of populism, with the key actors gearing up. But first, Nigeria.

Make or mar time for President Buhari and his band of misfits

It took Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, about 6 months to appoint people to his cabinet, and another 6 months for these to start working. In those periods, Nigeria was embroiled in a budget corruption scandal unprecedented in its history, oil prices were falling globally and then the nation slid gracefully into recession. Nigerians have realised in the space of few moths that incompetence can be as bad as corruption, even worse. Public perception about the Nigerian Government is now at an all-time low, with any mouth screaming “Sai Baba” in public in danger of being met with a slap.

As usual, one of the problems in Buhari’s administration has been the unholy touting of his budgets as the “one cure fits all” to Nigeria’s problems. The 2016 budget (infamously called “the budget of change”), despite the setback it suffered at the Nigerian senate in the beginning of the year, eventually got appropriated into law. However, despite its record breaking proportions and provisions, for all intents, the budget has been hard to track. Spending by the Government has been high in 2016, however, with little to show for it. President Buhari once again presented the 2017 budget to the Nigerian senate last week. Nigerians would be expecting the over 7.29 trillion naira budget, highest in Nigeria’s history, to put a stop to the recession.

One of the key players to that will be Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s Minister for Finance. She has borne the brunt of criticisms this year, partly because of the policies instituted by her ministry to fight the recession, and partly because of the out-of-sync relationship with the Central Bank of Nigeria. 2017 will be a year for redemption for hers. Clearly, she came highly recommended but she’s seemingly performed below expectation. Her constant rhetoric of “spending much of the budget on capital projects” means much of the budget would be allocated to Nigeria’s Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola(BRF).

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Mrs. Kemi Adesoun, Nigeria’s Minister for Finance.
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Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, Nigeria’s Minister for Power, Works, and Housing.

BRF’s reputation as former Governor of Lagos state precedes him. In a period of 8 years, he oversaw the completion of different capital projects in the commercial capital of Nigeria i.e. Lagos. Nigeria has a long history of uncompleted projects and embezzlement of funds meant for projects. Fashola’s role in all these would be important, to determine if, in 2017, capital projects would truly spark an economic revival or not.

Fighting corruption as a nice rhetoric

Also, Nigeria’s economic revival can’t come without winning the fight against corruption. We have found out this year that incompetence is just as bad as corruption, if not worse. The heads of Nigeria’s Legislature have been at the center of corruption scandals in 2016. Bukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate President is currently attending court hearings at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) for false declaration of assets. If found guilty, his removal from office would be the least of his problems. Same goes for the speaker of the House of representatives Yakubu Dogara who was accused of “padding” the 2016 Nigerian budget by rep. member Abdulmumin Jibrin.

Babachir Lawal, the Secretary General to the Federation of Nigeria will surely be in the news for much of 2017. Like his predecessor in crime, Sambo Dasuki, Lawal’s accusation of embezzling funds meant for IDPs makes him automatically corrupt, except the president would like to protect him. These guys all have cases to answer in the New Year and the court decisions would surely give an indication of president Buhari’s war against corruption.

Dictators get together in 2017

While Nigeria has been struggling to reconcile the image of a former dictator with his newly found democratic mien, dictators across Africa are digging in their heels to stay in power. Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh has refused to step down after losing in the presidential elections in his country, meaning there is going to be a major thriller in Manila(or in Banjul) in West Africa in 2017; ECOWAS has a low tolerance for dictators in Africa.

Down South in Central Africa, Joseph Kabila is trying to get a third term in office contrary to the constitutional term limits in the DRC. Already, negotiations are ongoing for him to step down peacefully, a process which could draw out into 2017. The failure of these negotiations, which analysts say are last gasp efforts, could see DRC dissolve into another civil war, sending ripples to the entire region including Rwanda, Burundi, Congo Brazzaville and Angola.

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Joseph Kabila represents a new-breed of African dictators. Credits- Time.ke

Rwanda’s long-serving and much loved president Paul Kagame would also be heading to the polls to be naturally re-elected, while Angola’s president-for-life Jose Eduardo Santos is set to step down in 2017, as he promised in 2015. It is all in the narrative. Here is V.A.’s roundup of 2017 elections in Africa.

AU and partisan politics

The African Union itself is currently embroiled in a leadership tussle as a new AU commission chairman would be announced in January 2017. Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, Botswana’s foreign minister, is a front-runner for the post, and rightly so. She won the first round of voting in 2016, but not with enough votes to make her chairman. Her country, Botswana, has one of the most stable democracies in Africa. But as is the way in politics, there are factions and there are interests. Her closest rival is Amina Mohamed, Kenya’s foreign minister.

Perhaps, the most exciting fact is that the front runners are women, proving that the old men in Africa’s top echelon are either not sexist, or have just perfected the art of hiding in plain sight. One of the issues the new AU chairman would address is the increased spate of migration from Africa into Europe in recent years. Migration might not be a big deal in Africa, but it is in Europe.

The right to be Right in Europe

Immigration was a major reason for Brexit, i.e. Britain’s exit from the European Union in June 2016. That singular critical juncture has sparked a wildfire globally, one of extreme far-right populism, nationalism with a tint of anti-globalization, Islamophobia, xenophobia and the other group phobias. France and Germany, two pioneer members of the European Union are not left out of this new wave.

Marie Le Pen is the face of the far right in France. She is the leader of the National Front party and one of the favorites for president the 2017 French elections. Her subtle racist and Islamophobia rhetoric have found solace in the hearts of some French citizens who have witnessed some of the most brutal ISIS lone wolf attacks on their country recently. She has also promised to take stringent measures against immigrants into the country. She has always maintained that French citizenship should either be “inherited or merited”; nationalism at its finest. A win for her in next year’s poll could also signal the withdrawal of France from the EU. She has already secured the services of Donald Trump’s election campaign manager, Steve Bannon to help with her media campaign.

French far-right Front National (FN) party President and member of the European Parliament Marine Le Pen holds a press conference in Nanterre, near Paris, on July 16, 2016, regarding the July 14 attack in Nice. Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front party, on July 16 called on France's interior minister to quit after the deadly Nice truck attack. "In any other country in the world a minister with a toll as horrendous as Bernard Cazeneuve -- 250 dead in 18 months -- would have quit," she told a news conference at her party's headquarters. / AFP / ALAIN JOCARD (Photo credit should read ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images)
Marine Le Pen holds a press conference in Paris, on July 16, 2016. She is the face of France’s far right Credits-ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images)

Following Francois Hollande’s decision not to seek re-election in next year’s polls, the odds are increasingly in Le Pen’s favour. Her closest contestant is Francois Fillon, former Prime minister of France and representing the center right Republican party. Like Le Pen, Fillon’s rhetoric is quite focused on more “frenchness”. It probably is up to Hollande’s party, the Socialist party to provide a voice of reason to the brand of nationalism espoused by the french political right wing.

European giant Germany is facing the same identity crises as France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been widely criticized in Germany for her immigration-friendly policies and has also been blamed for the Jihadi attacks in Germany. While there is really no genuine contender to her re-election in 2017, surprises have been known to spring up in recent elections in the west; Donald Trump and Brexit. Her contenders include Frauke Petry, Sigmar Gabriel and, tentatively, Martin Schulz. Of the three contenders, Frauke Petry is more Marie Le Pen-like and that is why we would hear much about her in 2017.

Before France and Germany go to the polls however, another EU giant in Holland goes to the polls first. The clear favourite is Gert Wilder, a far-right populist politician who is known for his criticism of Islam and people of Moroccan ancestry living in Holland. A win for him in the March elections would add to the angst in France and Germany. Never since the fall of the Berlin wall and communism has Europe felt so vulnerable.

UNSG and Syria

The new United Nation’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ immediate focus would be finding a resolution to the civil war in Syria, and finding a way to curb the extremities of the Assad regime and Vladimir Putin. Perhaps, the reason why he is the best man for the job is his experience as former head of the UN High Commission for Refugees. He has spoken strongly in the past about the situation in Syria from “outside”. Now, he is charged with taking the lead on an issue where the United Nations Security Council failed. No better time to test his mettle.

End of political correctness in the U.S?

Donald Trump and his daily mouth diarrhea on Twitter might continue after he is sworn in as president in January, but being politically correct might cease in becoming a thing. His rhetoric before and after elections have shown that modern political systems have probably grown a thick skin to political correctness. And where there is no societal-approved way of preaching tolerance and censoring hate speech, there would be attacks on groups protected by political correctness, as is being seen now. Attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ community, the Latinos and other minority groups have increased in the states since Trump’s win. Welcome to Trumpland.

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Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States of America, has no regards for political correctness. Credits-Business Insider

Fidel Castro’s death has paved the way for his brother Raul Castro to lead without outside influence now. Cuba’s next presidential election is in 2018. Would Raul hold tighter to the reigns of power, or give in to the inevitable and embrace change, albeit probably coming from the west? 2017 would determine that.

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