Trump’s America, Nigeria and the World

Sanya Onayoade

The American democracy has always been the model for the Nigerian media, and by extension the country Nigeria. The US is too important to be ignored. It’s the only empire straddling the globe with power and might, with all the appurtenances of super privileges. They can’t be wrong dispensing democracy, an acclaimed representative governance system; foisting it on some weak countries and enforcing it on some ragtag leaders. It beggars logic that Nigeria was colonised by a Parliamentarian United Kingdom, but fused into the American presidentialism. It’s no brainer that an American president is the most powerful man in the world, and also deemed to be a bearer of freedom and diplomacy.

I have been in journalism since 1987, in the days of Alhaji Lateef Jakande’s Lagos News, and I have seen the Nigerian media profess the American democracy as the standard bearer: A robust system with equally robust media and free press.

Since time immemorial, the Nigerian media had always glued to the international news media and worked the phones for expert opinions on each American election circle, drawing parallels with the Nigerian systems and spewing analyses on how those crooked systems could straighten up to the adorable advanced democracy.

By the time Donald Trump settles in the White House in a few days from now, the United States would be grappling with democracy ideals and freedom of the press. Now is the time for the media and the political class in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa to change the narrative.

I was a recipient of the Department of State’s Educational and Cultural Exchange Programme (International Visitors Leadership Programme) in 2003 and a Fellow of the Washington-based Freedom House. Funded by the US government, the programme enabled recipients to gain insight into the robust American democracy, civil society and the free press. The programme would take you to a couple of states, civil society organisations, government agencies and some iconic American monuments like the Abraham Lincoln memorial, Smithsonian Institution, Statue of Liberty National Monument, the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court. All the Freedom House Fellows (as we were called and even had business cards printed for us) drawn from different countries had meetings and orientations with a couple of Congressmen at the Capitol, Undersecretaries of State at the Department of State Building, the Press Centre, National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). There were also orientations in a couple of historic newspapers including the iconic Washington Post and The Hill which covered the Capitol. Some of us were scheduled for internship in media organisations. I did my own internship with The Hill in Washington DC and Seattle Times in Washington State. We were also embedded in white American families, to live with them for two months for cultural integration and appreciation of the American values. All these boil down to one point: perception management scheme; and the US is good at it. We have an alumni group (recipients of Department of State funded programmes), and they include prime ministers and presidents of countries, leaders in global spheres.

During my own fellowship, as an intern with The Hill newspaper, I was with the editorial team at the Capitol to witness the congressional planeries and the beauty of representative democracy. We met Nancy Pelosi who later became one of US longest Speakers, breaking the glass ceiling for women political leadership. I was at the 147-year old Washington Post for orientation on the history of journalism, the art of newspapering and news room management. During my internship with Seattle Times, I was privileged to interview one of the powerful governors at the time, Gary Locke who was the Washington State Governor and Chairman of Democratic Governors. I tried to compare the ease and convenience of meeting the governor to the encumbrances and the complex red-tapism associated with seeing a Nigerian governor.

Freedom House gave series of lectures on press freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of association. Freedom House, founded in 1941, is the oldest American organization devoted to the support and defense of democracy around the world.

Among its early goals were resisting totalitarianism and promoting freedom and democracy in the US, and later the world. Freedom House publishes country reports, based on criteria that designate countries as Free, Partly Free and Not Free. The US has since time immemorial been designated as Free and several other countries such as the Third World bloc including Nigeria designated as Partly Free or just Not Free. With ‘Emperor’ Trump mounting the saddle in a couple of days, I’m waiting to see what designation would be assigned the forebearer of democracy in the 2025 report.

Fela’s music is in sync with today’s reality. Teacher don’t teach me nonsense speaks to the impending fall of the global hegemony from the Olympian Heights, and we need not look in that direction for democratic patronage or reverence any longer.

At the return of Nigeria’s democracy in 1999, the US’ two prominent political affiliates, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) converged on Nigeria to “support” the country’s fledgling democracy and teach tenets of the representative governance.

The NDI which prides itself as “Working for Democracy, Making Democracy Work”

supports and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. Its counterpart, the IRI says “advancing democracy worldwide is about empowering individuals on a personal level….Once people can raise their voices without fear, and participate in a free and fair political process, they will finally have the tools they need to build a democratic destiny in the country they call home.” The institutes, in the early 2000s committed so much in training Nigerian governors, National Assembly members, state legislators and the civil society organisations; ferrying these groups to the US for exchanges and sundry political activities. Today, it is left to be desired if those efforts have paid off. Not that democracy didn’t work, it worked and works for the only class that appropriates its rein: the politicians, their families and acolytes. You see this in contract awards, political (and judicial appointments) to wives, children and concubines. Go to the Central Bank of Nigeria, the NNPC and other fiefdoms of privilege.

Donald J Trump represents all that is undemocratic and apostate.

In his book, The Age of Unreason, former British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, dwelt on the crisis in democracy and capitalism. The book examined the rise of “populist nationalism” embodied by Donald Trump’s US presidential bid.

“Capitalism and democracy is in crisis. The West is in retreat. The forces of populist nationalism and prejudice are on the rise, amplified by new technology. The likes of Donald Trump say to people, what the hell have you got to lose. The answer is, a lot. Peace, prosperity and security.”

We have been severally warned by people of good conscience and leaders with foresight that Trump is not fit to be president; that he is fascist, vengeful and divisive. He is the first convicted felon to be elected as US president. He is unabashedly nepotistic, a misogynist, and the only president in history condescending to ableism (making fun of people with disabilities or nursing prejudice against them).

Americans and the world might have been saved the ugly theatrics of a Trump losing the election, because he had built up an empire of ‘fake elections’ and ‘fake results’ prior to the election and refused to accept any outcome that did not favour him. The joke was on the US electoral system, however robust it was in the past. From time immemorial, US election monitors and sitting presidents had always admonished African countries, and other Third World to obey people’s wishes and refrain from electoral malpractices or violence; following up with threat not accept results fraught with rigging in those countries or denying reapers of such electoral exercise access to the US. Imagine civil societies in those countries admonishing US to obey people’s wishes and refrain from rigging; and taunting that any US citizen involved in rigging would be denied access to their countries? Ridiculous, you may think, but the US 44th President Barack Obama may now redirect his admonition of African leaders: that Africa does not need strong men, but strong institutions. The truth is, Trump is a strong man attempting to weaken the country’s strong institutions.

He has severally called many heritage media outlets ‘fake news,’ calling for the licences of some media like NBC and ABC to be revoked. He has threatened CNN and Washington Post countless times. Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog, claimed in its research findings that Trump verbally attacked media more than 100 times in the two months run-up to the election. He coaxed ABC for a $15 million defamation settlement and threatened to go after Jeff Bezos’ businesses if he didn’t rein in Washington Post’s criticisms. Bezos, the recent publisher, caved in, annulling the newspaper’s decades-long endorsement of a presidential candidate, which in the last campaign favoured the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. The Post which I visited as part of my fellowship in 2003, and which I hallowed for its heritage and journalistic excellence is now in reputational tatters; currently bearing the weight of a slew of retaliatory resignations including a recent one by a prodigious cartoonist whose illustration was dropped for depicting Bezos and some other tech giants cringing before the all-mighty Trump. The Pulitzer award winner, Ann Telnaes, who had been at The Washington Post since 2008, said: “In all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at, until now. The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Besides the resignations, The Post lost an estimated 250,000 subscribers.

Trump had threatened to jail the no-holds-barred TV host Jimmy Kimmel and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook which yanked him off the platform for spreading insurrection during the invasion of the Capitol. His first time in the White House was a rough ride for the media, it’s going to be barbaric from January 20.

Kimmel said Americans had a choice between a prosecutor and a criminal, “they chose a criminal,” and referenced the choice between Jesus and Barnabas. He said of the election day: “Terrible day for women, journalists, the physically challenged, for Healthcare, poor people, also terrible time for those who voted blindly without knowing him.”

He is historically black-hating, thumping up his familiar refrain during the last presidential debate that Black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs. He was sued in 1973 for refusing to rent apartments to black families. Several Black participants in The Apprentice, a reality TV floated by him expressed gross racial biases. His shithole reference to African countries and stereotyping Blacks as lazy are well documented. It’s no brainer that his Africa foreign policy would be hugely negative.

The in-coming American President needs some knowledge of the American history, just like I, an alumnus of US Department of State had 20 years ago; may be that could water down his rambunctious and myopic posturings: How America became a great nation built on freedom and diversity and democracy, shaped by a history of innovation and migration. And understanding that the White House was so named, not out of white supremacist irredentism, but a simple white coating of the building after the British Army torched it during the War of 1812.

He should also have an historical excursion of the Republican Party founded by one of its progenitors, the legendary Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed a free press; and remind him of how he succeeded destroying the party and muffling all dissenting voices.

I asked Meta AI to describe Donald Trump’s behavior in a sentence, it returned this: ambitious, dominant, and outgoing, with tendencies to be impulsive, self-serving, and exploitative, often prioritizing his own interests and image over traditional norms and institutions. ChatGPT returned this: Donald Trump’s behaviors are often characterized by assertiveness, a confrontational communication style, self-promotion, and a tendency to challenge norms and conventional authority.

When people apply for sensitive positions, organisations do background checks. Simple background checks devoid of politics would have enlightened the ‘uninformed’ American people more about the man they were staking their lives on.

The US judicial system has always been a reference point for other countries. How it failed to send the convict behind bars or extract corresponding fines seems one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I imagine how the Western World would have described the “despicable judicial” act were it to be in a Third World country. I thought the developing/underdeveloped countries were the ones credited with inequitable judicial system skewed only against the poor and the underprivileged.

A jury had earlier convicted Trump in New York of 34 counts of fraud, a Class E felony offense with a penalty of up to four years in prison and hefty fines. But the New York Justice, Juan Merchan at the January 10 sentencing issued an “unconditional discharge,” meaning “the case is over, the conviction stands, and no further conditions attach.” Legal juggernauts are still scrambling to understand the unconditional discharge of an artful fraudster who would lead the most powerful nation on earth.

A leader should inspire hope and trust. But Trump’s second coming is sending waves of anxiety and fears in a world already stressed with wars, hunger, deaths and disasters. After Scotland First Minister John Swinney congratulated Trump and offered a hand of fellowship, the congressmen asked him how Scotland would benefit from Trump, a misogynist, conspiracy monger, a climate denier, a racist and a fraudster, a convicted felon.

World leaders are in unanimous panic attack because of the election of one man. Leaders in EU, North America, NATO, Africa and the Middle East are bracing up for a war-mongering and self-serving, impulsive and ill-mannered president. You are yet to take the levers of power, and you are already touting annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark; Panama Canal owned by the sovereign country of Panama. You serially ridiculed a more respected Prime Minister of Canada, calling him Governor Trudeau and mouthing a self-serving rhetoric of making Canada the 51st state of US. He has been on a threat binge against numerous countries including Iran, Mexico.

The privilege of the US as a superpower cannot be underrated. But countries of the world need to be unanimous and make concerted efforts in confronting the Trump threat lest their inaction or passivity breed another Hitler, and another World War.

Africa needs not look unto today’s US as a repository of democratic conduct or judicial impartiality. The Western World have always sermonised against the vote-buying prevalent in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. But how do you explain the pro-Trump pre-election deals by the tech giants led by Elon Musk in anticipation of government contract patronage? African countries need to grow their own systems in consonance with local demands. In Trump’s America, Africa won’t be on the table. As a Chief Correspondent with The Punch in 2003, I had the opportunity of interviewing the then US Ambassador to Nigeria, Howard Franklin Jeter, who spoke glowingly about the US enactment of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade program enabling about 35 sub-Saharan African countries including Nigeria to export certain goods to the US without tariffs. That programme would be the first casualty in Trump government.

Nigerian governors, national and state legislators as well as other members of the political class have been trained in the US on the Western-style democracy and civil society systems since the outset of the Fourth Republic, with huge financial input. Nigeria and other African countries need to stop all that political pilgrimage and the illogical funneling of tax-payers’ money. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

.Sanya Onayoade is a Freedom House Fellow