Even in a year when COVID-19 brought the entire world to its knees, many Nigerian politicians still managed to make ridiculous jokes about the pandemic, while others just chose to be the protagonists of controversial moments.

In no particular order, here are the 10 most controversial politicians in Nigeria in 2020.

Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde, is one of the governors who enjoys some goodwill on social media. This is partly due to his perceived gentle mien and the tenacity with which he emerged governor, without being tied to the apron strings of any political godfather.

But on March 18, the governor disappointed many of his admirers when he poked fun at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the existence of COVID-19 in Nigeria at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally in Ibadan.

“They said we shouldn’t do a rally because of coronavirus. But it’s their own leader that said coronavirus is inside their party…. There’s no coronavirus inside our own party,” Makinde had said in Yoruba.

While Makinde’s sentiment was in sync with that of most Nigerians who believed Africans are immune to the virus, others who had problems with the dangerous statement dragged the governor for playing politics with a pandemic.

Days after joking about the pandemic, the governor tested positive for the virus.

Since he emerged Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello has always been a subject of one prolonged argument or the other. But in 2020, the governor stirred more controversies over his reckless take on COVID-19 and how his administration handled it.

In May, two months after the federal government realised the danger of the infection and started taking serious measures to curb the spread of the disease across the country, Bello said Nigerian leaders were paying too much attention to the disease.

The governor also accused the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) of doctoring the mortality rate of the coronavirus disease in a bid to create panic.

For months, the governor denied the existence of COVID-19 cases in his state, saying his administration had developed a mobile application to prevent the spread of the disease in Kogi. Even when the NCDC detected and announced a COVID-19 case in his state, Bello and his cabinet members did their best to engage the NDDC in a mud fight over the announcement.

Like Yahaya Bello, the Governor of Cross River State Prof Ben Ayade, had a dangerous take on the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the thick of the pandemic, Governor Ayade made the wrongest of moves, including displaying his disdain for a disease that forced countries to shut down and drove many into recession.

When Nigeria started recording an increase in COVID-19 related deaths, the governor relaxed the restrictions he put in place in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak by directing all categories of civil servants to return to work on Monday, May 4, 2020.

Days after, he lifted the suspension on religious worship in the state as he maintained his stance that there were no COVID-19 cases in Cross River.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is probably the only former Nigerian president who does not care about how he is perceived. It’s this mindset that throws him into controversies each time he expresses opinions about governance and fellow politicians.

In 2020, Obasanjo’s penchance for controversy did not get Nigerians talking until August when a former lawmaker from Ogun State, Buruji Kashamu, died from COVID-19 complications.

Barely 24 hours after Kashamu’s death, the former president, in a condolence letter addressed to Prince Dapo Abiodun, the Governor of Ogun State, said Kashamu used law and politics to evade justice.

He added that no legal, political, cultural, social or even medical manoeuver could have stopped death from laying its cold hands on Kashamu.

The ex-president was heavily criticised for speaking ill of the dead, but Obasanjo didn’t give a damn about anybody’s opinion. Instead, he told his critics to mourn him however they please when he dies.

In September, OBJ was embroiled in another round of controversy when he said Nigeria is fast becoming a failed state under President Muhammadu Buhari.

The ex-president again got Nigerians talking when he weighed in on the current state of the nation. While many criticised him for allegedly pushing a narrative to defame Buhari, others praised him for speaking up.

If the level of involvement of politicians in controversies in 2020 could be rated on a scale of one to 10, Femi Fani-Kayode’s show of shame in August would break the scale.

The former Minister of Aviation shamelessly disgraced himself when Eyo Charles of the Daily Trust politely asked him about who was paying for his ‘Good Governance Tour’ of the south-south region during a press briefing in Calabar.

Instead of answering the simple question, Fani-Kayode tore into the gentleman with all the energy left in him on the day. He described Charles, a man in his 50s, as a very stupid person.

During his endless diatribe, he reeled out his resume to intimidate the journalist and finally warned Charles not to ever try to ask him an insulting question again because he has a short fuse.

Two months after the video of his dehumanising verbal attack on Charles went viral, the politician with a short fuse was caught in another video exchanging bitter words with his estranged wife, Precious Chikwendu.

Fani-Kayode later took to Twitter to tell Nigerians how he caught his wife in bed with a married man, adding that the video in which he was seen exchanging words with Precious was nothing but a propaganda move.

Many Nigerians who did not know the name of the Deputy Governor of Ondo State, met Agboola Ajayi in 2020, thanks to the protracted political battle between him and Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

On Sunday, June 21, Ajayi dumped the APC for the PDP shortly after an encounter with the State Police Commissioner, Bolaji Salami, who according to Ajayi, prevented him from moving out of Government House.

As a member of the PDP, Ajayi partook in the party’s primary election and lost to Eyitayo Jegede, who represented the party in the October 10 governorship election.

After losing the primary election, the deputy governor assured PDP leaders and elders in Ondo that he would help them defeat Akeredolu in the gubernatorial election, but Ajayi had other plans.

A month later, Ajayi dumped the PDP for the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) to run as the party’s governorship candidate.

Ajayi’s controversial move across three parties was done within the space of 42 days. The 52-year-old lawyer was the first political gambler to achieve such a feat in Nigeria.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, isn’t a politician who loves to engage in antics just to be in the news.

But in October 2020, Fashola pulled a ridiculous stunt that got Nigerians talking and laughing at his dramatic attempt to help in investigating the alleged shooting of unarmed Nigerians.

On Tuesday, October 20, 2020, soldiers fired live bullets into a crowd of young Nigerians protesting against police brutality and bad governance at the Lekki tollgate. The incident was followed by a violent crisis in Lagos, as hoodlums and anarchists hijacked the protest to loot and destroy public and private properties.

However, five days after the shooting incident at Lekki, ministers including Fashola, and governors and legislators from the southwest region, paid Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu a visit to sympathize with him on the carnage that had reduced the country’s commercial capital to rubble.

The entourage went round the city, and when they got to the tollgate, where the shooting happened, Fashola conveniently found a camcorder at the scene that had earlier been cleaned up by the Lagos Waste Maintenance Agency (LAWMA).

How Fashola found a camera hidden in plain sight at a scene that had been combed and cleaned five days after the shooting incident, was both mysterious and hilarious.

For days, Fashola’s discovery of the camcorder at the tollgate was a trending topic on social media, as many Nigerians poked fun at the minister, labelling him ‘Agent Fashola’ or ‘Fashlock Holmes.’

In 2020, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State proved to us all that he could immerse himself in many rounds of controversies and emerge unscathed.

Wike’s first shot at controversies in 2020 occurred in January when he mocked and insulted traditional rulers in Rivers State during a meeting.

Describing one of the royal fathers as a “small boy” who appears old because he was wearing an Usman Dan Fodio hat, the governor humiliated the monarchs on national TV in a manner that was so degrading that one could see the traditional leaders obviously consumed by shame.

In April, Wike accused the federal government of playing politics with the COVID-19 pandemic because the federal government released a N10bn grant to the Lagos State Government to address the outbreak of the disease in the state. At the time, Lagos had recorded 115 cases of the disease, while Rivers had confirmed only one case.

In May, the governor was heavily criticised for ordering and supervising the demolition of two hotels in Rivers. The management of the hotels were said to have flouted lockdown guidelines in the state.

Not done with the hotels, days after the demolition of the buildings, Gov Wike approved the construction of a primary school at the site of one of the hotels.

As part of measures to curb the spread of the disease in Rivers, Wike also ordered the state’s task force team to auction hotels and vehicles that violate COVID-19 guidelines in the state.

After featuring in the Joi Nunieh vs Godswill Akpabio saga as a human rights activist, Wike again played a prominent, albeit controversial role in the Edo governorship election.

In October, during the nationwide #EndSARS protests in the country, the governor was embroiled in another controversy when he warned that protesters rallying against police brutality, profiling and extra-judicial killings would be arrested if they are seen anywhere near his state. He later apologised to the youths for the unguarded comments.

Last year, Babatunde Gbadamosi, the candidate of the PDP in the Lagos East Senatorial bye-election was on the Pulse List of politicians that should not be heard from in 2020.

If it wasn’t for the COVID-19 outbreak and the bye-election he lost to Tokunbo Abiru on Saturday, December 5, 2020, maybe we wouldn’t have heard from Gbadamosi this year, but we did and it was unpalatable.

In April, Gbadamosi, who was a governorship candidate in the 2019 election, was arrested for flouting COVID-19 guidelines in Lagos.

The politician was one of the guests at a house party organised by actress Funke Akindele-Bello and her husband, rapper JJC Skillz. The party was a contravention of the Lagos and federal government lockdown and curfew directives put in place to curb the spread of the disease in Nigeria.

Gbadamosi reportedly spent a night in prison before the state government withdrew the charges against him and his wife, Folashade Gbadamosi.

If the suspended national chairman of the ruling APC, Adams Oshiomhole, had foreseen himself losing political relevance by October 2020, he wouldn’t have enmeshed himself in all the controversies that stripped him of his political power.

Oshiomhole fought too many controversial battles and lost them all.

In the build-up to the September 19 governorship election in Edo State, the former governor bickered over everything. His endless squabbles with Governor Godwin Obaseki proved the death knell for the APC in Edo.

The 68-year-old politician knelt and begged the people of Edo to vote for Pastor Ize-Iyamu Osagie, his anointed candidate, whose image he helped destroy in the past.

After the election, the APC in Edo said they lost the election because of Oshiomhole’s ‘irresponsible leadership.’

Following his suspension as the national chairman of the ruling party, Oshiomhole accused a serving minister and some governors of being behind his travails.