Author: The Nation

By Tochukwu Ezukanma

Many Nigerians gloated over the invasion of the United States’ Capitol by President Donald J. Trump’s supporters because they subliminally found solace in it. The solace being that, if the oldest and most stable democracy in the world can be plagued by such political upheaval, we can justifiably excuse away the abysmal social and political standards, and political bungling, of our fledgling democracy. But, in that episode, there are lessons, not alibis, for Nigerians.

Despite the congeries that have been associated with civilization, civilization is most importantly about what the ancient Greek writers called, “taming the savageness of man and making gentle the life of this world”. Over thousands of years, different cultures and countries of the world succeeded, in varying degrees, in taming the savageness of man. Western countries are the most successful in this civilizing enterprise. More than the other peoples of the world, they evolved the most genteel and just societies, and made “gentle the life of this world”.

It is tempting to attribute this feat to the genetic superiority of the races that inhabit the West. However, as Harry Barnes rightfully noted, “All efforts to prove the superiority of one race or sub-race of man over another turned out unsuccessful”. It is not a race, but culture, cultural skills and attitudinal disposition that are most significant in determining human development. The differences in social accomplishment and human development between races, for example, White and Black, are more cultural and attitudinal than genetic. Race is strictly a physical matter that has no relation to intelligence and cultural attainment.

In every human soul, no matter how barbaric or civilized, lurk conflicting proclivities for savagery and civility History has demonstrated that even amongst the civilized, wealthy and materially efficient, savageness has sometimes triumphed in this duel between savageness and civilization in man. No wonder, Donald Trump, a billionaire, superlative achiever in business and politics and the president of the world’s oldest, greatest and wealthiest democracy can be a barbarian.

The election of Trump as president in 2016 was a backlash to eight years of Barack Obama presidency. The election of Obama as the president of America, a predominantly White country, with its entrenched and intractable racism seemed impossible and was an unpardonable affront to White Supremacists and other racist and ultra-conservative White Americans. Trumpism gave expression to some of the deepest instincts of these Americans. Trump is an epitome of White American implacable racism and hard-core conservatism. For a delusional narcissist that expects to always win, Trump alleges rigging each time he loses. So, quite naturally, to him, because he lost the November 4, 2020 presidential election, the election was rigged.

It was leadership as personified by Trump that awakened the dormant savagery in his supporters and channeled it to exceedingly disruptive ends. His supporters fenestrated their sense of demureness, respect for the law, reference for the popular will and democratic institutions; and desecrated the ultimate citadel of American democracy, the Capitol. They breached security, scaled walls, broke down windows and doors, entered offices of congressmen and senators, strewed official papers around, carted away artifacts, and planted pipe bombs. Their willful and ruthless destructiveness was repulsively redolent of the vandalism of the Vandals in 5th Century Europe.

Following the 2015 Nigerian presidential election, leadership, as personified by Goodluck Jonathan brought out the best in Nigerians. Many Jonathan supporters were ready to reject the election results and slug it out with the opposition. They were roiled and ready for trouble. It was the words of Jonathan that engendered the triumph of decorum over savageness in that inner duel among his supporters. With his concession speech, he restrained his crestfallen and agitated supporters, and stunned and sobered his overjoyed opponents. And, inescapably, peace reigned.

Is the lesson not obvious? It is all about leadership. The power, influence and consequences of leadership are so enormous and all-encompassing that it literally defines a people, nation or country. The words of a leader unleashed anarchy in America, a civilized, efficient and orderly country; and the words of a leader brought peace to Nigeria, a vast scene of confusion, renowned for its dysfunction and anarchistic propensity. By their words and actions, leaders shape the country: bring about peace or war, poverty and prosperity, rule of law or anarchy, etc. Invariably, Nigeria is in its present disgraceful state because of the irresponsible utterances and dishonorable actions of our leaders.

It is therefore high time we paid painstaking attention to the quality of men and women we elect to power in every stratum of our governments. We must carefully scrutinize them, meticulously pore over their education, mindset, credibility, patriotism, commitment to the collective good, etc. because the quality of a leader must invariably reflect on the people/country he leads. And for those already elected to office, we have to continually engage them: demanding accountability, responsibility, elevated morals and ethics, equity, and social justice.

The #EndSARS protest was very exhilarating because it was a major attempt, in a very long time, to hold the Nigerian power elite accountable. Lamentably, it was not sustained: it fizzled out once soldiers opened fire on the protesters. To expect a reformation of the Nigerian government, and subsequently, the transformation of the Nigerian society without loss of lives is quixotic. It is starry-eyed optimism and infantile naiveté. Just, as there cannot be birth without loss of blood, there cannot be national re-birth without loss of blood.

• Ezukanma writes from Lagos.

By Abdulrazaq Magaji

Finally, the end is here for Donald J. Trump. After weeks of stonewalling, Trump is quitting office in a blaze of ingloriousness. Trump has been in desperate shape since he lost his reelection bid last November, but that desperation gets more ominous as Trump limps out of the White House, lonely and naked, into a cold hostile world at noon today, Wednesday, January 20.

For one, Trump has been undergoing a series of political, financial, and legal setbacks long before the cataclysm that came with November 6. His business empire has been crashing as scared and bewildered partners who barely tolerated Trump’s toxic ways, have been in flight long before his political dreams blew in his face. Now that the legal impunity which shrouded Trump since 2016 is gone, the floodgate will now be open for prosecutors to begin to knock on his door.

Trump’s desperation since he lost his reelection bid is understandable. Last May, then candidate Joe Biden had pledged that, if elected president, he wouldn’t use his executive powers to pardon Trump of potential crimes. It was not the first time Biden said he would not go easy on Trump. Earlier in October, 2019, he said it was a mistake for President Gerald Ford to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, after 1974 Watergate scandal, adding that  pardoning Trump would send the wrong signal that some people are above the law.

Trump is not only losing a job he performed so poorly but, quite possibly, everything else, no thanks to his caustic tongue and toxic public image. At the last count, the New York City government, three banks, the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championship, and a real-estate firm that handled leasing agreements for the Trump Organization have signaled their intention to cancel partnership agreements. With two defamation lawsuits, imminent closure of many of his hotels and the repayment, within the next four years of more than $300/ million in outstanding loans which he personally guaranteed, Trump’s immediate future does not look promising.

Four years ago, Trump grabbed the headlines in a way the world could never have imagined. He won the presidency to become a major beneficiary of the opaque and inconvenient collegiate system that he had always dismissed as fraudulent. Even before he inherited the White House that thrust into an undeserved global spotlight, Trump had signaled that he was not only a political novice but one that was going to break all the rules. The world will remember Donald Trump as grandmaster of the filthy personal attack who reveled in excoriating friends and foes.

Indeed, the world was appalled when, in 2016, Americans replaced the charismatic, erudite  and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Barack Obama with an irascible and xenophobic demagogue. As president, only his own impressions, not facts, mattered to Trump! Because he was exceptionally self-conceited and opinionated, the Trump White House hardly got things done because it was constantly in crisis. Donald Trump was very comfortable with white supremacists, identified with them and spoke nicely of them!

Be that as it may, Donald Trump might have jeopardized a budding political career but if he escapes the slammer, he could still rise from the ashes of economic defeat and rebuild his foundering business empire. If this were still 2015, Trump could have, as he did in the past, exploited the lax enforcement of financial crime laws and fall back on dubious income generators such as money laundering and tax evasion. But this is not 2015: today, Trump is under investigation in New York State for alleged breach of tax laws. If he is lucky, the investigations will only deflate him financially, otherwise, he risks millions of dollars in fines or a criminal prosecution that could make him go into the record books as the first American president who left the White House for a jailhouse.

If all else fails, a desperate Trump may devise new means of staying afloat such as monetizing the loyalty of his xenophobic fans. To underline Trump’s desperation, one top adviser hopefully suggested that his principal could rake in “real money” by holding more rallies. For instance, it is suggested that Trump could make $150,000 by mustering 30,000 of his fanatical supporters to rallies at $5 per head. If truth be told, even the mere thought of monetizing the loyalty of his supporters reveals certain desperation since a $150,000 earning per rally, before payouts on renting a venue, travel, event staff and security, does not translate into “real money”.

Few hours after his inciting speech gingered his murderous fans to invade the Capitol, Trump suddenly realized he had foul-mouthed himself into trouble. So, he quickly distanced himself from the maddening mob. But the damage had been done and several damage-control measures popped up. One was for the president to pardon himself, an idea that was hurriedly jettisoned because it was not guaranteed to solve Trump’s problems. A self-pardon might constitute an admission of guilt that could open him up to more private lawsuits by families of victims of the January 6 mob action at the Capitol. In any case, a federal pardon, aside being a novel idea does not insulate Trump from being charged with state-level crimes.

The other option was for Trump to make a deal with vice president, Mike Pence, under which arrangement Trump was to resign to clear the way for the vice president to grant him a pardon. That was another hot potato because Trump had badmouthed Pence and he was not sure the vice-president had forgiven him to the point of honouring him with a pardon. It may be that Trump, the first president in American history without prior political experience, did not fully appreciate the differences between politics and business. In politics, winners and losers do not crush each other or perilously harm political traditions and institutions.

The end of the Trump era portends good and evil omen. For the world, it is good news to the extent that, with nuclear buttons at the disposal of a crotchety and venomous-tongued demagogue, the human race did not witness a major conflagration. Although the strange decision of the Republican Party to acquiesce to Trump blotted out America’s famed promotion of participatory democracy in the democratic backwaters of the world, Trump’s ignominious exit provides an opportunity for Americans to further strengthen political institutions to be able to serve as a bulwark to citizens (in) decision to reward third-rate intellects and demagogues with the most powerful office in the world.

And, where does Trump’s feebleminded effort to scuttle the November 6 United States’ presidential election result leave Africa? By calling the result of the election into question and vowing not to quit even if he lost, only Trump and his hangers-on believed he will depart the presidency in a blaze of glory! And budding despots elsewhere have been salivating since then.. In a continent that is not strange to underhand practices by autocratic leaders to perpetuate themselves in office, Trump’s delusions will only embolden more budding demagogues to stymie the growth of democracy on the continent by following Trump’s example. And when confronted, they will be right to point out that they are simply following the American example!

Four years of trepidation has ended and the world seemingly feels safer now that Trump has waddled himself out of the White House. How the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration clears the mess left behind by its predecessor and return America to normalcy in four years remains unclear; what is clear and, the question that will not go away in a hurry, is how Americans, two decades into the 21st Century, foisted a short-fused demagogue on a volatile world.

• Magaji <magaji778@gmail.com> lives in Abuja.