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Author: The Nation

  • The wane of Trump Part Two

    The wane of Trump Part Two

    Brian Browne

     

    BAD events tend to be good revealers. They uncover the untidy truths we need to see but try not to. Such is the case with the January 6 assault on the Capitol, America’s Congress. Those who trespassed on the Capitol numbered in the hundreds, a minute fraction of a nation of 330 million. However, this sordid fraction was encouraged that day not only by the rhetoric of Trump. They were also buoyed by the several thousand other Trump supporters who attended the rally that held prior to the storming of the building. Even further, these people, their ugly rally and the subsequent criminal assault, were supported by millions of people, mainly from the southern and western states, who falsely describe themselves as democratic patriots and Christian believers. They lie to themselves in hopes of presenting their lies as facts to other people.

    This cesspool of falsehood and hatred is composed of three major streams. One is the multitude of white nationalist/supremacist organizations, large and small, that believe the only true Americans are the white-skinned ones. Another is the gaggle of evangelicals who believe cultural ways of conservative white American are the total embodiment of Christianity. The third stream is that group of people who believe the American government needs to be uprooted because it is controlled by nefarious foreign entities bent on global dominion and the suppression of constitutional liberty and freedom. There is no firm divide between these three tendencies; in fact, they overlap, with most Trump supporters having a foot in two, if not, somehow, all three streams.

    All of this lunatic hatred leads to Trump but he is not the fount; he is but a receptacle and profiteer. These people see in him some form of secular or religious savior. That one can look upon this ill-mannered, crotchety malefactor as the hand of Jesus or as any form of salvation requires delusional thinking so severe that it will be stuff of academic studies in group psychosis/collective insanity for decades to come. This apotheosis of Trump results from an embrace of hatred based on deep racial underpinnings. This, in turn, produces a jaundiced, deformed view of the Christian religion in the minds of those who support this tawdry apostle. With God as chief bigot, Trump can be his chosen one.

    When evangelicals profess Trump because he will keep America a “Christian nation” and when white supremacists proclaim that he champions the white race, the two positions are using different words to say essentially the same thing. Conservative evangelicalism has as much in common with the teachings of Jesus as American football has with international football (soccer). Instead, evangelicalism is mainly a cultural expression; it is but a euphemism for white supremacy.

    Thus, in the 1800’s, the most devout region in America was the brutal slave belt. The worst of the slaveholders were among the most avid churchgoers. The more they went to church, the more love and mercy seem to depart from them. They saw no hypocrisy in going to church in the morning and whipping their slaves to the breaking point by the afternoon. They worshipped not the God of creation but the god they created. This was the deity of high profit and lush lifestyle built on the spines of toiling bondsmen. In the 1900s, these so-called Christians prevented the black vote while lynching hundreds of black men and wrongfully imprisoned tens of thousands more in order to reduce them to quasi-slave labor through prison chain gangs. Now in the 2000s, they storm the Capitol, seeking to overturn a visibly free, fair election because too many black people voted in a way these whites did not approve and thus cannot respect.

    This is where white evangelicals and supremacists bond with the strongest adhesive. Both are rankled by the notion that some 70-year-old black woman in Detroit who has been working hard jobs all her life but speaks “ghetto English” and loves soul music, that a black man in Atlanta who drives the city bus and the Latino couple in Arizona tired of being accosted by the police as if they were illegal immigrants might now have the same democratic rights and status as white people. These whites cannot accept the life story of that hardworking black woman as being as validly American as their own.

    By all objective measures, the presidential election was among the most secure and fairest in the nation’s history. Yet, these people cannot reconcile with facts because their twisted beliefs allow them to claim a moral and racial superiority not found in actual reality. Thus, they are acutely comfortable claiming electoral fraud and malfeasance in American cities with large black populations. In their minds, such libel is already established beyond a doubt because black people are inherently suspect; we are all a felony in prospect. The black man in the polling booth or the black official counting ballots is intrinsically a vote thief. He simply cannot help himself just like as any black person who enters an expensive store is a likely shoplifter or a criminal using ill-gotten money to purchase things honest, hardworking white people can no longer afford.

    Theirs is not a historic hatred grown cold. This animus is of the red-hot variety, pulsating, vivid and thirsting for retribution for a wrong that never happened. Sadly, such thirst is insatiable precisely because it is unwarranted. Wrongs that believe they are right are never easily extinguished.

    These Trumpists are so enraged that minority voter turnout may now hold the key to victory in presidential elections that they are willing to violently tear down the government they claim so dearly to love. In their demented worldview, they are doing the necessary and patriotic thing; they follow a divine calling. But this has no connection to the divine or patriotic.

    While being faithful to the sinister version of the American creed, their claim to represent God and freedom are risible. Few of them know the Bible or the constitution or have read either document. The few who have read these documents did so upside down. Their understanding of what they read remains as distorted and incorrect as the perspective by which they first approached these writings.

    In seeing blacks as citizens of a lesser status, these people seek to relitigate the Civil War. As with the Civil War, they will again lose because the majority of the nation is not with them. But in their attempt, they may do great harm. People may die in the process.

    In this vein, I must amend the description given last week to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The siege of the building was more severe than I depicted. The more I learn, the more I understand the violent nature of the attack. There were more attackers than I thought. Many were armed with cudgels and other heavy objects. Some carried firearms and makeshift incendiaries into the Capitol itself.  Shouts of racist and anti-Jewish epithets rang through the halls. The flag of slavery, that of the Confederate states of the Civil War, marched through the premises.

    While most of the crowd was mindlessly and emotionally swept up in the tumult of the moment, those who initiated the riot, had concrete if vile goals in mind. That they erected makeshift gallows adjacent to the Capitol was more than symbolic. Had they been able to grab hold of certain Members of Congress, they would have killed them.

    According to police investigations, rioters came dangerously close to where many officials, including the Vice President, sought safe haven. A single black officer steered angry rioters from the office where Pence was secreted. Reports confirm that DC Mayor Bowser’s wise deployment of her police to reinforce the overwhelmed Capitol force staved disaster and saved the lives of numerous Congresspersons. Again, a black woman gets in the way of the racist design.

    Yet, all was not well with those running the Capitol. Some in Congress and the Capitol police force clearly abetted the attack. The knowledge that the attackers exhibited of the complex layout of the building was extraordinary but in no way accidental. They were guided by rebel sympathizers on the inside. Yet, the riot did not succeed in its wild expectations of upending government. What it did was to expose the anatomy of a belief system grounded in hate and ignorant violence.

    This attack should never have come to pass. In truth, this attack was not born in a day or even over the time Trump has been in office. This assault has been building for decades. Yet, law enforcement ignored the grave and growing threat because the threat looked too much like them. American law enforcement has treated violent white supremist groups as kindred spirits if not outright family members. The truth be told, many a white policeman has joined such groups. For them to look at white supremacists is to look into a mirror. Few people are prone to arrest or shoot the man in the mirror. Yet, they will exact much pain on those who do not look as they do. Thus, they have no compulsion in fatally shooting unarmed black men yet resist using strong force to subdue armed and violent white people.

    The federal Department of Justice was created in 1870, in large measure, to ensure constitutional protections provided recently freed black people were respected. This was none too soon. Formed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, the KKK was weighing down violently on the black population in the south. As fate would have it, slavery lost the war but the racism that supported slavery won the aftermath. In time, the Justice Department became more imbued with the spirit of the KKK than the KKK ever became imbued with the spirit of justice.

    Arms of the Justice Department such as the FBI would combat the black struggle for equality. The FBI violently suppressed and killed the leadership of the Black Panthers. This harshness came even though the primary interests of that group was educational and school feeding programs for inner city kids while ridding neighborhoods of drugs and crime. Even now, the mere reference of the Panthers sends many whites into irrational fear and anger. The Panthers never constituted the threat to the republic the white supremacists represent. Yet, the supremacists have never experienced a fraction of the oppression visited upon the Panthers.

    As badly as the FBI has performed, local police, particularly in the south, has been even worse. Police and supremacists are part of the same tapestry. In the south, police forces were established in the 1800s with the primary mandate to put a foot to the neck of black people. The most violent, racist whites were recruited as the local constabulary. They performed this job with great relish. This heritage has been modified somewhat but never fully erased from local police forces. As previously stated, the wanton shooting of unarmed black people is but part of this heritage.

    Law enforcement has allowed white hate groups to proliferate and strengthen. Law enforcement smiled and winked at the groups, treating them as some rowdy but harmless fraternities. The harmless lark has transmogrified into violent insurrection. Law enforcement is now at a loss how to handle the matter.

    While law enforcement is in quandary created by its own racism, the House of Representatives acted correctly by impeaching Trump. However, the Democrat-led House advanced the weaker argument to accomplish this feat. The Democrats complained Trump incited the riot with his speech on the Mall that day. However, the claim has two weaknesses Republicans will exploit in the Senate trial to come. First, the more that the attack seems premeditated, the less compelling is the case that Trump’s speech that day incited it. More importantly, Trump’s defenders claim his statements are constitutionally protected free speech because he never clearly told the throng to attack the capitol. There is some merit in these claims.

    The Democrats’ prime argument should not be that of incitement but that of criminal dereliction of duty. It is undisputed that Trump learned of the assault as it erupted. Yet he lifted not a finger to subdue the insurrection.  As commander-in-chief, he is possessed of great power and authority. He should have immediately deployed the National Guard for example. Instead, he watched the assault on television and did not nothing but smile and dance at the melee.

    When Congressional leaders and even Defense Department officials entreated him to deploy help, he refused to answer their calls. Eventually, the Defense Department yielded to Vice President Pence’s request to deploy when they could get no response from the president. This is the best evidence that he wanted destruction to be visited on the legislative arm of government.

    Had the attackers been a foreign force, such inaction would clearly be deemed a condemnable dereliction. Trump should not be given a free pass because those who launched the attack were American racists. Yet, while impeached by the House, it is unlikely he will be convicted by the Senate. The Democrats have only the slimmest lead in that body and not enough Republican senators are brave enough to openly buck Trump. He has intimidated them to the point where they have become whimpering little children frightened in the extreme by an abusive stepfather.

    There are very few people whose behavior can be commended in all of this. The ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are an exception. They showed uncommon political courage in bucking the party line and doing what was right constitutionally. By such action is a republic preserved for it requires a mixture of common decency and uncommon courage to sustain democracy in the long run.

    The only president to be impeached twice, Trump is leaving office with his status largely in tatters; but the political civil war he sparked will not end with his departure. Hopefully, that political war will mostly be limited to a leadership struggle in the Republican party. Senators Cruz and Hawley despise Trump. But they want to inherit his mantle so they pretend to be his most ardent supporters. VP Pence and Senate leader Mc Connell hate Trump even more but fear his political strength to the point of paralysis. They dream of his political destruction but will not openly move against him unless victory is assured and in politics such certainty is rare.

    Senator Romney and Rep. Liz Cheney, though staunchly conservative, have exhibited courage by directly opposing Trump and trying to return the Republican Party to its pre-Trump normalcy. This would truly be the lesser of multitude, compound evils. Lurking in the minds of all is the possibility that Trump could make a comeback in 2024. Some fear this. I welcome it. His return would fragment the Republican party as presently constituted. Without a doubt regarding the evil of which he is capable, rational Americans of all political persuasions, despite their ideological differences, would be forced to band together to halt the danger. In this way, Trump might be the unwitting midwife of a new political landscape that features as its most visible premonitory a consensus and unity built on a higher level of justice and tolerance than now exists.

    Meanwhile, COVID ravages the nation, claiming approximately 4000 lives per day. Trump cares nothing about the death toll for he is consumed by the imminence of his own ouster. President-elect Biden waits anxiously in the wings for his day to come, wondering what he has done to himself by taking on such a heavy burden at such a chaotic moment. From such stuff, either flawed but needed heroes or perfect villains are made.

     

    08060340825 sms only

     

  • Insurrection inside the Capitol – on the poisoned well of racism and White supremacy

    Insurrection inside the Capitol – on the poisoned well of racism and White supremacy

    Biodun Jeyifo

     

    I AM writing this piece nine days after the rightwing, fascist insurrection inside the Capitol, the building complex that houses the two arms of the American parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the last one week, more details of all that happened during the insurrection have come to light. There is a strong possibility that we are yet to have all the facts, all the details we will need to make a good assessment of what the effects and ramifications of the insurrection will be for the US itself and the rest of the world.

    But all the same, we know enough already to come to the conclusion that White supremacy and racism were at the heart of the insurrection. In other words, this means that while it was indisputably an insurrection of the fascist far right, it was also so tainted with racism and White supremacy that it brought to mind some of the worst moments of American history, moments in which racism and White supremacy not only tried to make the enslavement and oppression of Black people permanent but destroy America itself. This is the central issue that I wish to explore in this piece, this contention that racism and White supremacy are not only directed at Black people but also and necessarily directed at the American political and constitutional order itself. This is what I am invoking in the metaphor of the poisoned communal well in the title of this piece: everybody drinks from a community well.

    I confess that this response from me derives from the fact that the deeply offensive racist images and tropes of the insurrectionists affected me as a Black person – which is precisely what racism hopes to achieve at the deepest level of subjective, individual experience. Here are some of these images and motifs: a hangman’s platform complete with a lynching noose; an oversize Christian cross reminiscent of the Burning Cross of the Ku Klux Klan’s White nationalist Christianity; both the battle flag and the secessionist state flag of the Southern Confederacy; and T-shirts with extremely perverse racist slogans, one of the worst bearing this endlessly anti-Semitic legend: “Camp Auschwitz – 6 million WE” [The “WE” stands for “Wasn’t Enough”] And of course, many of the audio recording that we now have of the uprising are of songs, chants and slogans of vintage racist imaginary.

    To the overflow of such racist images and motifs of the insurrectionists we must add the fact that all except one of the six states – Arizona – whose winning votes the insurrectionary mob wanted to take away from Biden and gift to Trump were states in which Black voters overwhelmingly tipped the electoral scales in favor of Biden and the Democrats. Indeed, it is impossible to overstate the Anti-Black racial affront of this motive force of the insurrection. This is because throughout most of American political history from Emancipation to the present, suppression of the Black vote has been an enduring project of White supremacy in both of the two ruling class parties, first with the Democrats when the party was dominated by Southern, so-called “Dixiecrats”, then later when the Republican party stopped being “the party of Abraham Lincoln”.

    But where one thing stands, another thing will stand beside it, as the late Chinua Achebe always reminded us. The most telling illustration of this truism or dialectic in last week’s insurrection inside the US Capitol was, in my opinion, this grim fact: after the insurrectionists set up their hangman’s platform and lynch noose, the person they went searching for to hang was – Vice President Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s loyal deputy, the man who, throughout the presidency of Trump had, as the saying goes, “carried water” for autocratic megalomaniac! “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”, they chanted in unison as they sought to break out of the accessible sections of the Capitol and gain entry into areas where they thought Pence was being hidden. And also this: they went looking for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, whom they also wanted to assassinate, one of them actually tweeting this search in real time as he informed fellow insurrectionists of how close they were to accomplishing their objective. And, of course and of course, beyond the two totemic cases of Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi, this much we now know of the intentions of the insurrectionists: they wanted to assassinate, kidnap and/or hold hostage as many Congressmen and women as they could lay their hands on. In other words, in the uprising race was deflected on to other indices of social differentiation – class, status and, above all else, power. This we must never forget for a second: the insurrection was fundamentally about seizure of power. Permit me to offer some reflections on this factor, at least to the extent in which, in my opinion, it played a crucial role in the insurrection.

    Although there have been “race wars” in America, they were not pitched battles in which all Blacks were on one side and all Whites were on the other side, the Civil War being the ultimate illustration of this fact. Typically, “race wars” in the US have taken the form of generalized riots in which, with their overwhelming numerical advantage, poor Whites slaughtered Blacks in as many hundreds or thousands as they could accomplish in periods of fomented, generalized breakdowns of law and order before order is manipulatively restored after a carnage. I draw attention to this pervasive fact of American history not to indulge in mawkish racial pathos or sentimentality but to give an indication of where things may have headed last week and, indeed, may still head if the greatest care is not taken by all progressive people in America in the months and years  ahead of us. In other words, last week during the insurrection, White supremacy and racism, expressed in a surfeit of racist images and motifs, sought not to overturn Biden’s victory – that was palpably impossible – but to cause a generalized breakdown of law and order in which Black people, together with their allies in the White community, would have been the target for slaughter.

    By no stretch of the imagination can Vice President Pence be regarded as an “ally” of Black people. Even Speaker Pelosi is not exactly a member of the radical, progressive leftwing of the Democratic party, the faction that is in alliance with the Black Lives Matter movement. Nonetheless, as we have seen, Pence and Pelosi were targeted, as indeed were all White and Black Congressmen and women. The lesson to draw from this is, I believe, crystalline clear: the racial order in America is much too complicated to be bifurcated by a solid line separating Blacks from Whites and separating Blacks and Whites from all the other racial and ethnic groups in the country. To draw attention again to our framing metaphor of this piece: everybody drinks from the community well.

    I do admit that as a metaphor, a poisoned well seems more appropriate to a clan or a tribal community than to a modern, high-income, postindustrial country like the United States that happens also to be the richest nation on the planet. If that is the case, why invoke this metaphor in the first place? The answer to this question is perhaps the single most important point that I wish to make and highlight in this piece: the White supremacy of Trump and of last week’s insurrectionists is so tribal, so retrogressive that it seems to come from the depths of a racial psyche and memory that go all the way back to prehistoric ages. Please think of this again: they were going to hang Mike Pence! They looted stuff from the Capitol and took selfies of themselves carting their loot away. They expected every White person they encountered among the Capitol police and other law enforcement forces to be on their side, to be sympathetic to their cause. Those who weren’t were savagely beaten, one actually dying from the beating. They openly and brashly discussed all their intentions, all their plans in the rightwing social media of the Internet as if others, especially operatives of the security and intelligence services, could not “overhear” their chatter. Above all else they apparently believed that all they had to do was seize control of he Capitol and give the call and all true members of the Aryan race in America would rush to join them. And in whose name and under whose tribal overlordship did they make this call? Donald Trump, a charlatan among charlatans, a demented megalomaniac, the doyen of dysfunctional incompetents among the world’s rulers!

    We must of course not be complacent. White supremacy and racism are not always as inept, as brainless as Trump and his mobs displayed and performed it last week. As a matter of fact, the Republican party, since at least the time of Ronald Reagan, has perfected ways of courting and finessing White-supremacist electoral support to its political advantage. Against this background, Trump and Trumpism seem to be a throwback, a retrogression to a time of Western autocracy and fascism before Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco. In all likelihood, White supremacy in the months and years ahead will retreat from this Trumpian cliff edge. The hope is that before it does so it would not have caused catastrophes that would prove too intractable for American liberal democracy to manage and contain, without paving the way for true revolutionary change.

    Trumpism after Trump – has the decline begun?

    As quiet as it is kept, it has already begun: consequent to the insurrection in the Capitol of Wednesday, January 6, 2021, Trump and Trumpism are being openly rejected by powerful political and economic forces of American capitalism. The clearest, the most telling indicator of this trend is the announcement this past week of a boycott of the Trump brand and businesses by many major corporations in the top tier of Forbes’ Fortune 500 corporations. These companies have stated that apart from boycotting Trump’s own business operations, they will stop giving donations to any Republican politicians who had anything to do with the insurrection and/or continue to have anything to do with Trump’s lie that the 2019 presidential election was “stolen” from him.

    There is also “breaking news” that most of those who worked with and for Trump during the four years of his one-term presidency are finding it very difficult to find and land other jobs as they prepare themselves to exit federal government employment next week with Trump’s departure from the White House. The story about these Trumpian political officeholders and technocrats is that they are regarded as being too “toxic” to be taken up by corporations, foundations and banks. This is nothing short of a counterintuitive reversal because the usual thing for officeholders and professionals departing from a federal administration is to be easily relocated into comfortable positions in business, industry, foundations and commerce. More specifically, Republicans typically benefit more from this state of things than Democrats. Apparently, things are going to be very different with Trump and those who have stayed with him through thick and thin in the four years of a presidency that now seems like it lasted for a whole decade, a whole generation even.

    Did Trump overplay his hand by fomenting that failed insurrection? I think so. But what else could he have done, go quietly into the night? Would that have been Trumpian? At any rate, we must concede the fact that Trump still retains considerable control of the Republican party as demonstrated by the number – only 10 – of Republicans who voted for his second impeachment in the House of Representatives this week. Only time will tell how soon Trump will cease to be a dominant force in American politics and, more specifically, in the Republican party. The good thing is that, in my opinion, this will be sooner rather than later.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

     

  • Democracy under siege

    Democracy under siege

    Comment

     

    ADVERSE winds harangued the soul of electoral democracy penultimate week in the United States, widely touted as the world’s leading democracy, and in Ghana, rated a stable democracy in West Africa. In both cases, circumstances showed that it takes noble character on the part of power actors and keeping faith with existing laws to safeguard the political health of society.

    Chaotic scenes erupted in the Ghanaian parliament late Wednesday, January 6, after a member of the legislature and minister of state from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) tried to seize the ballot box during a vote to choose the parliament speaker. The backdrop to that encounter was the December 7, 2020 general election in Ghana that left the country with a hung parliament: the 275-member legislature split at 137 seats apiece between the NPP and opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), while the remaining single seat was picked by an Independent. NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, was returned in that election for a second term as the country’s president with a narrow margin of 51.59 percent of the votes over NDC candidate and former president, John Mahama, who polled 47.37 percent.

    In the bedlam witnessed in the Ghanaian parliament and broadcast live on national television, soldiers entered the legislative chambers to break up a scuffle between rival lawmakers during the vote to choose their speaker, few hours before Akufo-Addo was scheduled to take his oath on Thursday. Television footage showed the parliamentarians in partisan square-off, some with clenched fists in the air after the NPP topshot tried to seize the ballot box while votes were being counted during the balloting held overnight Wednesday, from which Alban Bagbin of opposition NDC emerged parliament speaker. The ensuing clash in which the parliamentarians pushed and shoved one another lasted until the army stepped in, reportedly at the invitation of partisans. The incident was widely condemned as shameful across Ghanaian political spectrum and beyond.

    Few hours earlier that same Wednesday, supporters of outgoing American President Donald Trump had stormed U.S. Capitol in Washington to obstruct the constitutional process of Congress certifying the results of the country’s November 3, 2020 general election that threw up President-elect Joe Biden as winner. Following the November poll, the Electoral College had formally voted on December 14 to confirm projections of Biden’s victory with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s  232 (270 are needed to win the presidency). In line with American law, members of Congress had met January 6 to tally and certify the electoral votes. Historically, both the voting by the Electoral College and Congress certification of those votes were largely ceremonial steps that hardly attracted public attention. But with Trump having refused to concede the election despite losing multiple lawsuits across U.S. states by which he alleged poll fraud, besides other failed manoeuvres to overturn the poll results, those ceremonial layers of the electoral process assumed unusual significance in ascertaining the final score line of the 2020 poll.

    The unruly mob of Trump supporters invaded Congress sitting, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence who under American law is also the Senate president, and momentarily scuttled its vote tallying and certification proceedings after a standoff with security agents in which five persons were reported killed. Prior to that session, Trump had pressured Pence in private and openly to leverage his position and abort the results certification, but Pence declined to play ball, prompting the mob’s recourse to obstructing the whole process at suspected instigation of Trump. Although Congress reconvened later same day to finish collating the electoral votes and eventually certified Biden’s win, the celebrated credential of America as the world’s beacon of democracy got so badly defaced.

    The experiences in Ghana and the U.S. proved the point that the behaviour of power actors ultimately determine a country’s political character, and that political systems are only as good as the people operating them. Ghana, for instance, is widely regarded a stable democracy in volatile West Africa because the country has conducted eight general elections since its return to democracy some 30 years ago, and power has smoothly alternated between centre-right NPP and centre-left NDC. The recent scuffle in parliament that incurred momentary intervention by the military marked “history wrongly being made,” as an incoming member put it, adding: “We need to bow our heads in shame.”

    The case of the U.S. is even more illustrative. The Trump effect on its political culture showed that where a typically decent system falls under the hand of a roguish actor, that system itself would likely become roguish – if only for the duration the rogue actor holds fort. Some people would argue that Trump is only the face of the racist underbelly of America, backlashing against demographic shifts that have become the reality of that historically liberal society. Even then, he is nonetheless at odds with established norms of his country.

    For us in Nigeria, lessons to pick include: (i) Voters have the onus to make well-reasoned choices as would prevent their country falling into the hands of errant leaders who could set back rather than advance the journey of nationhood, and (ii) We must build up our institutions to have capacity to checkmate rogue power actors, just the way U.S. institutions were able to contain Trump’s deviance.

    (iii) it is good people who help institutions rather than the other way. But for good men, democracy could have taken a different turn.

  • Oluwakemi Ogunkoya: Life is a bed of lessons

    Oluwakemi Ogunkoya: Life is a bed of lessons

    Oluwakemi Ogunkoya is a leadership development strategist, Management Consultant and author. For close to a decade, she has conducted and facilitated high impact workshops across Africa, North America and Asia.

    In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talked about the ability to help corporate organisations enjoy seamless leadership transitions and executive onboarding to eliminate deficiencies which invariably minimise their costs and let them focus on growth.

    TELL us about the things that you are working on at the moment?

    2020 was quite an interesting year for many. It forced us all to think out of the box and think of creative and innovative ways of living and serving our clients. One of the ways, which we evolved  in my organisation, Rellies Works was through the delivery of virtual programmes and services. Currently we are working on consolidating our in-depth e-learning leadership development programme for our clients.

    Also, another big project we are working on is on consolidating a project very close to my heart,  The Lead Africa Now Initiative. Here we raise visionary leaders across the African continent, through capacity building, mentorship, fellowship and much more. I also just got accepted into The Forbes Business Council, where I joined phenomenal leaders like Dr Sam Adeyemi, Olakunle Soriyan, Lanre Olusola,  Janet Adetu and Remi Duyile on the council, I am honoured to have been invited to such an exclusive group of global leaders, I am particularly delighted with the opportunities this platform will bring to our organisation, Rellies Works and that of our client companies. We shall continue to drive the agenda for transformative and effective leadership development in the corporate scenes and beyond in Africa and globally.

    What has been the experience as a Leadership Development strategist?

    The experience is certainly a great and fulfilling one. The joy and fulfilment of being able to turn around the fortunes of individuals and organisations by developing self leadership competence, helping them embrace a wholesome leadership lifestyle and creating a leadership culture that invariably significantly improves business metrics and lasting transformation.

    Tell us about some of the memorable moments?

    A lot of memorable moments I must say, but one of the freshest memories was launching my new book, The Leadership Guardian in the middle of the pandemic, and pulling off a great summit in the same year; The Leadership Guardian Virtual Summit– themed Preserving the future of humanity through effective leadership which was termed the best online event of the year 2020. In fact, a week rarely passes and reference is not made to the event and I honestly do not take such commendations for granted. I received calls from all over the world with people asking “Kemi, you guys didn’t pull that up in Nigeria”, some have actually compared the event to a CNN production.⁣

    Together with my team we set out to raise a higher level of consciousness for the importance of visionary and effective leadership, I was privileged to have  a great array of exemplary leaders at the event. The event was a great success and huge transformation for attendees, that is truly one of my fondest memories.

     What are some of your business challenges?

    All businesses have their challenges and the training industry is not excluded. Top on the list for me is  Keeping up with workplace learning trends especially in today’s fast-paced “VUCA” (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous”  world, the L&D industry is evolving quickly. therefore programmes and resources (human and otherwise) need to be constantly re-evaluated and upgraded for relevance.

    What or who inspires the things you do?

    I am driven by impact; that process of taking people from what they never thought possible towards achieving the greatest and grandest vision of themselves gets me out of bed every day. I always say that you cannot become better at what you do unless you become better at who you are. So, getting people to that point, where they understand the place of self, appreciate who they are, realise what their purpose is… getting them to that point of 360 degrees transformation in the personal lives, career or business, that ignites my fuel.

    What are some of the other things that occupy your time?

    Confession time… I am a workaholic, therefore work takes a lot of my time,  however, thankfully I know how to integrate other areas of my life. Other activities that occupy my time include; spending time with my family, watching documentaries or tennis, reading, playing board games, swimming, visiting family and friends and having a quiet time.

    What would you consider as the turning point in your career?

    I remember those days when I had to jump out of bed with a bang in my chest. My alarm will go off, but I still wanted more sleep, snooze to the rescue. I wanted more sleep not because I didn’t sleep at night, but because I wished my night was prolonged and I didn’t have to spend another day on my desk. I have been privileged to work in the banking industry, Oil & Gas, Professional services to mention a few. At some point, I realised I wanted more than my job experiences offered, I felt that strong urge of enhanced transformation, I started to give an ear to my inclinations: transformation from the core, something that I had done so effortlessly, The adventure began, Why am I here on earth? What am I suppose to be doing? What thing would give the highest sense of fulfilment, I realised I could apply myself more, I cast my mind back to a time where I felt at my creative best and It was during my days as an intern in a top finishing school, where I trained teenagers and some executives on personal transformation. I began to put the pieces together, and the light bulb came when I attended a seminar by Jack Canfield, a leading transformation coach in America, I knew that helping people achieve life-long transformation through leadership development was what I wanted to do, and then the journey began, and it has been a phenomenal journey ever since, I have worked with over 90 organisations and close to 5,000 executives, with hundreds of individuals across various industries in Africa, North America and The Middle East.

    Did you feel like quitting at any point?

    At the initial point quitting crossed my mind a couple of times, you know how as an entrepreneur you are excited about starting out, and the real knocks begin to rare its ugly head, but as I continued to develop the requisite skills and knowledge of managing and growing a business, moving beyond just passion towards understanding the fundamentals of business development and consolidating on my purpose and vision, the journey has become clearer and the journey more exciting and rewarding.

    What are you looking forward to in the next few years?

    Quite a lot is in the offing, My PhD is one of the many things I look forward to over the next few years. I also look to creating a viral footprint in the adoption of lifestyle leadership principles through the various expression of what I do.

    What advice do you have for young people who want to come into the sector?

    The human capital development space is quite challenging and most people will fall at some point and that is normal, just ensure that you fail forward. Only those with the biggest ambition, motivation, and grit will stay and excel. Beyond a high aspiration, anyone who wants to be successful in this space must be able to communicate value and results rather than merely selling services. People care about the results, not just your accomplishments. You also have to be a thirsty learner. You cannot be a casual or passive learner, we live in a VUCA world where everything is changing by the minute, if you are not learning and adapting on the go, you will be left for dead. Success in this space is also hinged on how you are able to build and maintain relationships, not just revenues; therefore, proficiency in relationship management is a vital skill for success in the human capital development space. Also, the ability to manage and deploy resources effectively; time, money, people, tools, and materials are one that every successful trainer cannot be without.

    How did COVID 19 Affect you last year?

    The Covid-19 Pandemic was quite an unexpected turn, we had to shut our office and start engaging all stakeholders virtually; employees, clients and prospects.  We had to adapt to the new normal and adapt quickly to the new changes. Learning to wear face mask for long hours, using sanitizers, staying away from social gatherings, conducting our leadership trainings online, helping organisations equip their leaders on dealing with change , was quite a challenge, but as we know the only constant thing is change , therefore adapting to change is key to not just surviving but also thriving

    What key lesson has life taught you?

    Life is a bed of lessons, I usually say. I learn every day, but one major lesson life has taught me is, opportunities will  come to you sometimes draped in challenges , but if you are unprepared or unable to spot opportunities when they arrive, you will lose out on them , therefore it is important to keep investing in self-development and enhancing competence.

    Who or what do you consider as the greatest influence in your life?

    My mum, Mrs Fiyinfoluwa Adenike Ogunbanke  has been the greatest influence in my life, she taught me life principles of faith, love, fairness, discipline, courage, resilience and so much more. My mum has been a great reflection of strength, and beyond teaching me how, she has been a living example of all the principles she taught me. I am always grateful and she always will be a great source of motivation for me.

  • Classy adire casual wear

    Classy adire casual wear

    By Yetunde Oladeinde

     

    A splash of bright colours. But there are times when what you need to achieve a subtle effect is a combination of bright and dull colours.

    That is exactly what happens when you blend the adire fabric in a unique way. The fabric is indeed evergreen and flexible no matter the design.

    In a recent collection by Ade Bakare, the seasoned designer churns out some creative pieces in casual outfits for ladies with class.

  • WHO team in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

    WHO team in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

    Our Reporter

    A global team of researchers arrived yesterday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty about whether Beijing might try to prevent embarrassing discoveries.

    The group sent to Wuhan by the World Health Organization was approved by President Xi Jinping’s government after months of diplomatic wrangling that prompted an unusual public complaint by the head of WHO.

    Scientists suspect the virus that has killed more than 1.9 million people since late 2019 jumped to humans from bats or other animals, most likely in China’s southwest. The ruling Communist Party, stung by complaints it allowed the disease to spread, has suggested the virus came from abroad, possibly on imported seafood, but international scientists reject that.

    Fifteen team members were to arrive in Wuhan yesterday, but two tested positive for coronavirus antibodies before leaving Singapore and were being retested there, WHO said in a statement on Twitter.

    Read Also: Who is a vital witness?

    The rest of the team arrived at the Wuhan airport and walked through a makeshift clear plastic tunnel into the airport. The researchers, who wore face masks, were greeted by airport staff in full protective gear, including masks, goggles and full bodysuits.

    They will undergo a two-week quarantine as well as a throat swab test and an antibody test for COVID-19, according to CGTN, the English-language channel of state broadcaster CCTV. They are to start working with Chinese experts via video conference while in quarantine.

    The team includes virus and other experts from the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan, Britain, Russia, the Netherlands, Qatar and Vietnam.

  • PTF: message of another lockdown fake

    PTF: message of another lockdown fake

    By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

    The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 pandemic has debunked a message claiming that another lockdown had been declared by the task force.

    Its National Coordinator, Dr. Sani Aliyu, in a short video message released yesterday evening, advised the public to ignore the message, describing it as fake news.

    According to him, the PTF had its established channels on communicating its messages to the public. He indicated that the said fake information never emanated from any of the task force’s trustable channels.

    Read Also: 30 minutes COVID-19 test kits for hospitals, says PTF

    “We are aware of a fake message that has been going round on WhatsApp that we have declared a lockdown in the country. That is absolutely not true. I call on the general public to please ignore this message and continue with their normal activities,” he said.

    The Nation gathered that reports had been going round during the week, claiming that the PTF, in consideration of the virulent nature of the escalating second wave of the COVID-19 infection, had inevitably declared another lockdown in the country.

  • Amotekun operative dismissed for killing man in Ibadan

    Amotekun operative dismissed for killing man in Ibadan

    By Bisi Oladele, Yinka Adeniran, and Segun Sowunmi, Ibadan

    The Oyo State Security Network Agency codenamed Amotekun has dismissed one of its personnel Kazeem Afolabi for killing a 21-year-old man in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

    Commandant of the agency Col. Olayanju Olayinka (retd) said in a statement yesterday that the corps took the decision after investigation showed that Afolabi shot the victim against Amotekun’s protocols.

    Tosin Thomas was shot dead at Mokola Roundabout on Wednesday evening when the corps was called to intervene in an armed robbery attack.

    The Amotekun team comprised a leader George Idowu and seven officials.

    The statement read: “At about 10pm on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, operatives of Amotekun got an alert of a purported armed robbery operation at Total Filling Station, Mokola, Ibadan.

    “On arrival at the scene of the alleged crime, it turned out that it was not an armed robbery operation, though a crowd had gathered.

    “The Team Leader, sensing no immediate danger to anyone at the scene, immediately proceeded to speak with the station manager. While he was with the manager, he heard a gunshot.

    “As it turned out, one of his team members, by the name Afolabi Kazeem, who felt sufficiently threatened by the crowd, which included some hoodlums armed with cutlasses and other dangerous weapons, opened fire to supposedly scare away the crowd. Unfortunately, his shot hit one Mr Tosin Thomas who was subsequently confirmed dead.

    “The Corps has found that Afolabi Kazeem with Ammunition Number AM031849 acted outside the Amotekun Corps’ protocols.

    Read Also: ‘Miyetti Allah’s call for inclusion ploy to infiltrate Amotekun’

    “For this reason, he has been summarily dismissed from the Corps and handed over to the police for prosecution. Also, his Team leader, George Idowu, is being thoroughly investigated and will face all necessary sanctions.

    “We want to reassure members of the public of our internal mechanisms for dealing with erring officers. We will continue to train and retrain our officers on best practices and rules of engagement.

    “The Corps deeply regrets the loss to the Thomas family, and we are already in touch with the family.”

    The police command said it received a complaint on the killing of the 21-year-old.

    Spokesman Olugbenga Fadeyi, a Chief Superintendent said the complaint was filed by one Alamu Timothy at the Mokola Police station.

  • Soldiers beat up VIO personnel for impounding colleague’s car

    Soldiers beat up VIO personnel for impounding colleague’s car

    By Gbenga Omokhunu, Abuja

    Soldiers stationed at the Kugbo checkpoint on Thursday beat up five officials of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS), popularly called VIO for impounding a vehicle belonging to their senior colleague.

    The incident took place about 2:15pm.

    The senior army officer lodged a complaint at a military unit stationed at Kugbo opposite Mechanic Village that his car had been impounded by the Nyanya Command of DRTS.

    Read Also: Soldiers impound 78 motorcycles

    The Nation gathered that the driver of the impounded vehicle, who admited to not having a valid driver’s licence, had warned the VIO officers not to arrest the vehicle because it belonged to a military colonel.

    Military officials later pounced on VIO personnel, who took over from their colleagues who impounded the army vehicle, beating them mercilessly.

    The VIO officers scampered into the nearby hills and bushes for safety.

    All efforts to speak with Brigadier-General Sagir Musa, of the Army Public Relations, on the incident were futile as he did not answer the reporter’s calls.

     

     

  • Between school resumption and COVID-19

    Between school resumption and COVID-19

    By Kazeem Olalekan Israel

    SIR: It is disturbing that as a country, we are still lost in the debate of school reopening despite the fact that we are in the 21st century. It needs to be made known that the fact that we are debating school re-opening shows governmental inefficiency and, it exposes, yet, again, the hypocrisy of this ‘change’ government, because, academic activities should not have been suspended if it were to be a government that is prepared for governance.

    With the evident failure of successive governments in the country to massively invest in the educational sector which would have prepared us for a time like this, it is going to be easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for this country to sustain any form of virtual learning because there are no such provisions on our campuses before this time.

    Indeed, the woes that hampered Nigeria’s progress are not unconnected with our resolve as a people to keep quiet when we need to jaw-jaw and take decisive actions in terms of governance and our blind loyalty to party politics. Sanity is now being slaughtered on the slab of party affiliation and our people now throw dangerous narratives all in the name of political correctness to justify governmental failure.

    It is not a gainsaying that government exists for the state and not the state for the government. Ironically, this government has neither for once been responsive nor responsible and all efforts to bring it to account has always been futile most especially with the activities of those conceited around the rocky height as sycophants.

    The call for school reopening is an attempt to endanger the lives of both students and staff on our campuses because, as it stands today, there is no safe haven that could serve as shelter for us against covid-19 except for each and every one to take necessary precautionary steps which include but not limited to avoiding crowded place(s). And, in reality, there is no higher institution of learning in the country that can boast of not having over-crowded lecture theaters to the extent that students now have to sit on bare floor while receiving lectures. This is not to talk of inhabitable halls of residence.

    In fact, it is not in doubt that the call for school reopening poses serious threat to both staff and students on our campuses and all assurances in the contrary by this government cannot be trusted, because this is a government that has failed to fulfil its electoral promises with the people. This is also a government which underfunds education and promotes policies of privatisation and commercialisation which is not unexpected from an anti-poor capitalist government.

    So, in order to avoid a situation whereby we would be made guinea pigs, we must resist every plan to expose the citizens to danger of contracting covid-19 which school reopening poses. In fact, we must start an increased agitation for shutting down of public places while government makes provision for palliatives.

    This is not a position against the dire need for resumption of schools, rather, a call to focus attention on how quality of education has been in jeopardy for decades and begs for fixing. The ASUU drama has been a pointer. We are in a delicate dilemma between choosing to resume physical classes amidst unguaranteed safety from the ravaging pandemic and a virtual class that would obviously lack technical know-how cum qualitative resources. The former is looking suicidal while the latter is further guaranteeing mass failure or poorly-baked graduates.

    However, the both conditions point to a common thing or cause, that is, a terribly underfunded education, and this is where Nigerian students should choose their fights wisely.

    • Kazeem Olalekan Israel, Ibadan.