By Oweil Lakemfa
THIS has been quite an engaging year. It is  one I am tempted to call the Year Of The Miners in appreciation of the Chilean miners who emerged after been buried seven hundred metres in the earth’s bowels. Their rescue  was a miracle enacted by human ingenuity and the blessing of The Almighty.

The race for The Person Of The Year 2010 did not really exist as  the trophy had already gone to the miners, or so I thought. I was not prepared for the Wikileaks Tsunami which from November 28, began sweeping  through virtually all governments in the world and is not showing any sign of abating.

In fact, the United States (US) government, the world’s most powerful, wakes up every morning in trepidation of new revelations that Wikileaks would have made over night, its implications  and the new damage control measures it needs to embark on. I will not be surprised if the Americans have an entire department on Wikileaks.

Debates on the few thousand US State Department cables so far released out of a promised quarter of a million,  has taken the centre stage in various countries. In Nigeria, it has become a debate  between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Northern Consensus Candidate, the great Alhaji, Abubakar Atiku and the National Consensus Candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.

The highly experienced Atiku blames the latter for the Wikileaks  release of the American Congressional report that cast doubts on his integrity and honesty. But Atiku also praises Wikileaks for revealing cables that claims that Dr. Jonathan was not sure he had enough experience to be the country’s Acting President.

I reflected that were Wikileaks  and its effective sources of information and dissemination available back in 2001, it might have leaked diplomatic cables which confirm that Iraq had no links to the 9/11 hijackers nor had it weapons of mass destruction. This might have saved  humanity the carnage in Iraq that still goes on  today.

Given the global, potentially world-changing impact of the Wikileaks revelations, my Person Of The Year goes to its courageous founder and leader, Julian Assange! He receives this award  for having made the greatest impact  on world politics in 2010 and  for inducing the Tsunami that erupted in diplomatic circles worldwide.

Assange gets this award for vastly expanding press freedom and breaking the bureaucratic barriers of the freedom of speech.

Assange is also honoured for developing new tactics of guerrilla journalism in a world in which power is getting increasingly intolerant of the citizenry, and  for providing  a  freedom space where the mighty hands of governments and their increasingly sophisticated security and military cannot reach.

He also deserves the honour for  motivating a universal citizens movement  which is using the effective praxis of Hacktivism to fight corporate connivance with powerful governments to the detriment of humanity.

The award  also goes to the honoured Assange  for using the internet to further  expand the democratic space, assert the right to know,  and empower humanity against the powerful that hold us in a vile grip.

Invariably, The Media Of The Year Award, goes to Wikileaks for having the most impactful and enduring stories which continues to be quoted worldwide, and threatens to run for another couple of months

The Award for The Most Stupid Person Of The year  was a closely  contested one. A hot contender  was  the Ivorian academic and politician, Professor Laurent Gbagbo  who after losing the presidential elections, believes he has won  and insist that  the world must believe that he won the elections. But the award goes to the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British M16 intelligence services for allowing themselves to be conned repeatedly by the ragtag Taliban in Afghanistan.

The latest case involved ‘Mullah  Akhbar Mohammed Mansur, the Deputy Taliban leader’ He had been introduced to the  Afghan Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar by the Taliban Commander in Kandahar, Mohammed Aminullah. The later had been captured in January 2010 by  foreign troops led by America, but the Afghan government demanded his immediate release on the basis that Aminullah is its  channel to the Taliban.

In appreciation, the Taliban commander offered to  broker peace talks between  Mansour who is Deputy to overall Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and the Afghan government. The American overlord in the country, General Stanley McChrystal sanctioned the talks and asked the M16 to investigate and develop the contacts. When David Cameron replaced Gordon Brown as British Prime Minister in May, he was excited about the breakthrough  and wanted further negotiations with Mansour.

Based on this, a series of meetings were held with Mansour at the NATO base from where he was flown by the  British military to meet President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. After the talks, Mansour was heaped with loads of dollars to facilitate further talks.  It was later discovered that the man thought to be Mullah Mansour, the Taliban deputy leader, was actually a grocer from Qetta, Pakistan! By this time, the conman and his accomplices had disappeared with the dollars.
It is incredible that after fighting the Taliban for eight years, the British and American intelligence services and military and the Afghan government do not even know the face of the Taliban Deputy Leader!
A few months before, an agent of the  Jordanian and American intelligence services, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulai al- Balawi  told his handlers that he had  information on al-Qaeda deputy leader, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri. al-Balawi, a Jordanian medical doctor  was brought to a CIA secret location in Afghanistan where a dozen CIA agents including the agency’s  Head Of  Station gathered to debrief him. At the gathering, al-Balawi detonated a bomb he was carrying and killed seven CIA agents including  the  lady who was leading  a special unit tasked with capturing Osama Bin Laden. Another casualty was Ali Bin Zaid,  the Jordanian handler of al-Balawi. So al-Balawi was actually an al-Qaeda agent who had infiltrated the Jordanian and American intelligence services. He left a message in which he said he felt insulted that the Americans can think he would be their agent. Happy New Year!