The year 2011 witnessed general elections in Nigeria and  several regime changes around the globe.

The Arab-spring in the Middle East swept away the decade-long regime of presidents: Zainul Abidine, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi among others, while the Euro-zone debt crisis led to the fall of Italy’s prime minister, Berlusconi and Greek’s Papandreou.

In this first of our series of year-end reviews, correspondent Abubakar Salihu Abubakar reviews some of the political events within the outgoing year.