When I started this column in January 2021 to replace my earlier one of Global Economy and politics , I had an apprehension that the defeat of the 45th US President Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential elections and the emergence of his successor Joe Biden, will impact the world far more culturally, and quite negatively for African values than ever before and I have not been disappointed. I titled this column then, New Cultures and Politics and I am excited at the rate at which my apprehensions have been proven right and almost clairvoyant. Take a look at the issues that have arisen in the one year of the Biden presidency and you will see what I am talking about. Of course the pandemic has not helped and has indeed aggravated matters but Biden is a pandemic president and political beneficiary while his predecessor was a pandemic and political victim. But again look at the emergence of race as the main cultural decider of what is acceptable behavior, Black Lives Matter emergence, Cancel Culture, Critical Race theory, the rewriting and questioning of history, LGBT issues and the emphasis of that especially on EU values and you can come along with me and my proven fears in choosing the title of this column a year ago. Early in December 2021, I took an unannounced leave from this page and I am happy to be back at what I love dearly in spite of the vicissitudes of life and its attendant risks. I say happy new year belatedly but with hope for a thrilling new year on this column, New Cultures and Politics.
You may wonder why American politics or European ones should arrest my attention so much. This is a hangover indeed from colonialism, globalization, and the simple reason that information technology has made the world a global village. That too explains why the English Premiership and all its clubs are on the fingertips of Nigerian school children both boys and girls because of the dream of becoming professionals so they can lift the quality of life for their families like the African heroes playing at the 2022 African Cup of nations in Cameroun have done for their families because they play in Europe and abroad and earn enormous amount and hard currency consequently. More pungently, American and European values which are changing rapidly in this Biden era and post Angela Merkel EU, are exportable materials diplomatically, politically, globally; and most nations including Nigeria and Africans swallow them hook line and sinker with the major line of resistance being China and Russia which look with disdain on Western values and democracy. Especially now with the dominance of gender politics, protests, de policing and the relegation of family values to the back ground in both the US and the EU.
It is necessary to look at the pattern of political and democratic succession in some nations, in the light of the political culture that threw up a Biden in the US and threw a Trump in to the dustbin of history. We shall also look at a democratic U turn in Germany where after a decade and a half the party of long time German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now in the opposition. Naturally we shall compare these, with the much expected news that the Jagaban has thrown his cap into the ring to engage all comers in his quest to become Nigeria’s president in 2023. And he announced this in the presence of the leader he hopes to succeed if he wins the 2023 Nigerian presidential elections .Quite predictably I take on the Jagaban succession bid first because I am excited about it.
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Let me start by saying that the Jagaban is not a stranger to succession politics. Indeed he is adept at it and has managed governorship succession very successfully in Lagos state. In fact the only governor that strayed got his finger burnt to a one term governorship. He also has experience in presidential succession as it is an open secret that he ceded that ambition to be in the presidency albeit as a Vice President to the present incumbent. Obviously the Jagaban knows his onions politically and has immense network nationally and in that wise he resembles the late MKO who won the militarily rejected June 12 elections. More importantly the Jagaban paved the way for the present incumbent who had lost the presidential election twice till the Jagaban put his neck out for him and he won. I do not see why he cannot reap where he has sown so amply and diligently .The only stout opposition I see for now is the man in the state house in Port Harcourt. He is about the only one who can boast a similar control and achievement in his state although for not as long as the Jagaban has done for a long time in Lagos state .Whether the Jagaban will contest on his own leadership formula or adopt the legacy of the present incumbent president is for him to decide and let Nigerians know.
Let me now borrow a leaf from the succession politics in the US from the Obama presidency. Joe Biden, Obama’s Vice President wanted to succeed him but the party wanted Hillary Clinton, who was picked eventually as the Presidential candidate but lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. Obama did not want a quarrel with his VP and coaxed him to a press conference in the White House to announce he would not compete with Hillary. But Biden is an old fox and he insisted that whoever would contest on the platform of the party should contest on the Obama legacy which he knew will not jell with the American electorate then. Hillary of course contested on that legacy and lost .Ironically a volatile Donald Trump and a devilish pandemic helped Biden to the presidency in 2020. But it is apparent that the present President Joe Biden is a worn out version of the one that snared Hillary into the trap of campaigning on the Obama legacy and predictably losing the 2016 US presidential elections to Donald Trump.
Similarly in Germany the electorate have not forgiven Angela Merkel for allowing in 2015 about a million refugees from the Middle East into the EU nations and giving them quota on how many to take . In addition Merkel – dominated EU threatened to stop financial aid to those member nations like Greece and Hungary which refused the refugees quota and built fences at their borders instead. The new coalition government in Germany now is more radical than Merkel’s government and is quite pro climate, pro LGBT rights and is very ready to dispose of the use of fossil fuel and replace it with clean energy. Germany’s elections are usually transparent and clean but the change political outlook, culture and environmental values and disposition are so vast and in a very new direction such that one can talk of a revolution in political perceptions. It is such changes that nations with strong leaders but supposedly scant regard for human rights in China, N Korea and Russia fear so much that they only allow controlled elections. It is such fear that is making Russia very ready to invade Ukraine which it will do sooner than later because the west has not read the handwriting on the wall to see the failure of diplomacy and the absence of deterrence in a world in which the balance of terror has shifted in favour of Russia and China given the way the US fled Afghanistan recently like a frightened dog with its tail between its legs ‘.
Nature it is said abhors a vacuum and the same applies to global political culture and power mongering . The west is about to learn a hard lesson on war from new Czar in Russia’s new empire – building Kremlin when he consummates his visible strategy of geopolitical control with the invasion of Ukraine .