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Tag: America

  • America in ebullition

    America in ebullition

    The return of Donald Trump in triumphant relish to the power sanctuary of the White House from where he was virtually expelled four years ago is a defining moment in American and world history. It will be recalled that the real estate magnate did not go lightly. It took dark and dire warnings from the military echelons to dissuade him from staying put. But this did not stop him from encouraging a massive civil disruption which led to bloodshed and mayhem. One of the first things Trump did on getting to the Oval Office this past Monday was to sign an Executive Order granting state pardon to all those convicted of taking part in the uprising, a thousand, six hundred and sixty stalwarts in all. It is a deeply divided and culturally polarized America all against itself with the rest of the world looking on askance and perplexed.

       When applied to politics, ebullition is a condition of turmoil and turbulence leading to generalized disorder and deep anxieties. It was introduced to Nigeria’s pre-independence political lexicon by Adegoke Adelabu, a remarkable political prodigy of Nigeria’s pre-independence politics who was killed in a car accident about sixty seven years ago. He had titled his survey of pre-independence politics in Nigeria as: Nigeria in Ebullition.  Adelabu could well have been thinking about America in particular and the world in general in the Trumpian era of multi-lateral meltdown. Donald Trump has made it clear that it is America that matters to him most and not some bogus mythical order known as world order. The rest of the world must either key into this American neo-Exceptionalism and frenzied one-upmanship or seek the nearest exit door.

      Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the brainy American president and former university professor, who put the League of Nations together, must be turning in his grave. An ebullition either simmers down or it boils over into anarchy and chaos. An early indication of how things can shape up is the fact that a day after Trump issued his blizzard of executive orders eighteen states had already taken him to court to challenge the constitutional validity of the forfeiture of citizenship by birth which is enshrined in the American constitution. The Illinois Police chieftain has let it be known that people under his command will not be part of any attempt to forcibly deport illegal immigrants. A police officer who battled against the invaders of the Capitol on the 6th of January, 2021 and was subsequently injured was heard muttering about the fundamental injustice and unfairness of it all. How did God’s own country come to this sorry pass?

      History often unfolds in a neat symmetry and cruel symphony. Eighty year ago in the early summer of 1945, America emerged as the undisputed world leader and the greatest military power the world has seen up to the point. In terms of imperial reach and global influence, America represented the zenith of human capacity and aspirations. Not even the Roman Empire could hold a candle to it in scope and scale.  America’s might was further symbolically showcased by the fact that it was enacted against a background of apocalyptic carnage and the ruins of old Europe; the nuclear evisceration of Japan and the virtual obliteration of several German cities. Eighty years after in 2025, a haunting and hugely symbolic reenactment of America’s global dominance and grandiose superiority over other nations was beamed to the world as Donald Trump is sworn in as the forty seventh president in a ceremony marked by medieval pomp and postmodern pageantry. It was a very cold morning in Washington, and only the arctic blast that banished the celebrators to the inner sanctuary of the Oval Office spoke to the need for some caution and soberness.

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      But Donald Trump does not do things in half-measures. A master of hyperbolic bombast and factual exaggerations, he manufactures his own truth when acute truth stands in his way and tells his own story when faced by actual history without being incommoded. But you must give something to the old boy: his courage and indomitable will in the face of damning odds. Donald Trump reminds one of those great American heavyweights. No matter what you throw at them, they just kept coming until something gives. Last Monday as the man gave his underwhelming Inaugural Address, you focused on the hardened features to see if something would give way. Trump was wearing half a miserly grin and half a nasty sneer on a face already contorted and distorted by a paroxysm of rage and loathing.

       It was not hard to see why this moment of ultimate triumph was also the moment of ultimate despair. America’s democratic triumphalism was being enacted against a background of conflicting and confusing signals. The Middle East lies in ruins, its land blitzed into a millennial fiasco where former inhabitants could no longer recognize their own residence while their faith in the inviolability of their culture and religion has been contemptuously brushed aside by American munitions delivered by Israeli proxy. But unlike eighty years ago when America stood like a colossus unchallenged and unchallengeable, this time around there are loud external murmurs and internal grumblings. Inwardly, America is a deeply fractured and self-isolating polity. Equally interesting was the fact that the convoy of vehicles carrying aids and relief materials through the desolate and devastated streets of Gaza had barely reached their destination when Hamas started shooting in the air in a victory celebration. Something does not quite add up. Were these not the same fighters that the punitive and unforgiving Israeli fighting machine was alleged to have put out contention?

    The arctic stillness that mugged its waters last Monday morning suggested that even the nearby Potomac River felt like something was amiss despite the Trumpian razzmatazz. The ancient American political elite and their old ruling classes have suffered a stupendous walloping.  While reveling in martial glory and the political grandeur of liberal democracy particularly after its triumph over Socialist nations, the American ruling classes neglected and failed to act on what the average voters consider the most important needs of existence: food, shelter, medical care and quality education. The long list of Democratic presidents, hooked on fustian rhetoric and elevated platitudes about democracy and the inalienable rights of man, simply forgot the fundamental principle of liberal democracy: it is neither plausible nor possible on empty stomach.

      Neither can it be sustained or defended by a horde of medically afflicted, ill-educated, shelter-less and economically resentful rabble tottering on the edge of the abyss. Since democracy is a game of numbers, this déclassé combo of the barely educated bristling with religious superstitions together with the multi-racial underclass, constitute the most potent danger to liberal democracy anywhere in the world. This is a lesson taken to heart by China, Russia, leftwing rulers and the authoritarian Arab monarchies. You cannot pursue earthly military glories at the expense of your own people’s wellbeing and happiness. They will come for you eventually.

    Donald Trump, an astute salesman, celebrated con-artist and an implacable rebel against America’s established order, must have been listening in to the fierce rumbling from below while waiting for the opportune moment to cash in. The dramatic reprieve offered the old ruling class by a Joe Biden presidency turned out a damp squib with an exhausted, enervated and perplexed Joe Biden looking very much like a tragic victim of a cruel historic burlesque. Last Monday as a crestfallen and visibly distressed Joe Biden sat in the Oval office while Donald Trump, his bête noire, harrumphed his way through an inaugural address which gave the outgoing president scant regard or respect, it was clear that the new president has come to bury his old adversary rather than to cut him any slack.

       America has seen better times. This was not a normal succession order. It looked more like a churlish and victorious commander reading the riot act to the leadership of a defeated and utterly demoralized enemy force. Barack Obama sat as if transfixed, his legacy and two major victories together with the audacity of hope they revived for this racially, economically and culturally divided land in mortal danger. His no-nonsense wife pointedly stayed away.  America is in radical ebullition which may boil over into commotion and chaos. The array of antagonistic forces already ranged against Trump should be noted. What should also be noted is the fact that the current animus against the system is not driven by a passion for social and political justice but by a thirst for political vengeance and social retribution. 

      Trump himself in the dark paranoid furies and unforgiving trauma that drive him epitomizes this tendency. There is nothing in him or about him which indicates a grand vision of a better society or a better world and the intellectual and visionary wherewithal to bring this about. His core supporters are even worse. As American history has taught us, the imperative of a better and more inclusive society is never driven by unenlightened hobos and rural yokels.  This is the remit of visionary intellectuals such as the American Founding Fathers. Trump may end up inadvertently correcting some of the anomalies but at great social and political cost to the nation. That is just about it.

    In 1945, the League of Nations lay in ruins as the collateral damage of the Second World War. But the process of creative destruction and the decolonization project that went with the war threw up a slew of visionary statesmen who were to put together the rubric of what came to be known as the United Nations which has turned out a better, more inclusive and far more coherent version of the older body. Eighty years after in 2025, the United Nations is mortally wounded as a result of American unilateralism and contempt for civilized global norms. It will take a new generation of global statesmen to help repair the damage and to set the world and America on a new course.

  • In America, art is expensive –Uduh

    In America, art is expensive –Uduh

    Francis Maduka Uduh is a master sculptor. He is one of the foundation members of the Universal Studios of Arts (USA), Iganmu, Lagos. Suddenly, Uduh left the shores of Nigeria for America. But late last year, he reappeared to gather some of his art works in his studio for an onward transition to the US. He is enthusiastic about his zeal to retouch the works to suit his modern and contemporary needs and purposes. Edozie Udeze caught up with him while at it in his studio in Iganmu, Lagos

    Francis Maduka Uduh is one of Nigeria’s most notable sculptors. He is also one of the oldest and foundation members of the popular Universal Studios of Arts (USA) located within the precincts of the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. A few years ago, he travelled out of Nigeria. Now in the United States of America, where he still plies his trade, Uduh has remained conscious of the fact that Nigerian art must always be produced for world attention. Late last year, he returned to Nigeria where he attended a few exhibitions by his friends and colleagues in the visual art sector.

    It was good to see him once again after a few years in the diaspora. From the exhibition scenes, Uduh was seen in his studio at Iganmu, Lagos, where he equally kept himself busy, trying to gather some of his old and new works together. But what was the idea of reassembling some of his works in his studio? A meticulous Uduh said simply “I am taking them to the USA”. It is obvious Uduh’s works, as unique and as peculiar as they are, are urgently needed in the US. From the look of things as he continued to reassess the works, some of them needed to be retouched or refurbished to meet up with the demands of the market forces abroad.

    “Yes, I need to retouch some of them to be able to meet the market demands abroad. Thereafter, they will be exhibited alongside other works already in my studio in America”. Uduh is a very busy and committed sculptor and he believes there is no piece of work that should be discarded. There is beauty in every art piece. All you need do is reapply and rework the surface to bring it back to life. As some of his works littered the frontage of his studio, Uduh looked from one to another, touching each tenderly, reappraising their worth and noticing what to be done to prepare them for the journey to America.

    “I didn’t disappear from the art scene in Nigeria”, he quickly responded to a question to that effect. Then his forehead creased somewhat as he reflected on the exigencies of his journey so far as an artist. “As an artist, I am active here in Nigeria as well as in the United States of America. An artist can operate from both ends. My art is alive in the US. It is one thing I have since chosen as a career. Wherever I am, my art is alive. I keep the studios alive as well. I am not missing on both ends. All I can say however is that now I am an international artist. Yes, I am, because I also practice in the US. My studio is there and I work producing pieces of art works every now and then”.

    His works mostly are human figures and images. The images are of timeless values. At times, he applies plasters and or fibreglass to produce amazing works. Uduh also loves woodworks and he does some from time to time. However, his fibreglass works are usually classical showing a man who is at home with what he loves most. Some are cast and some are woods, blended and trimmed to fall in place with the demands of market forces. “Now I live in Maryland, USA and I also exhibit my works over there. So far I have done solo exhibitions. I have also done joint exhibitions. So the work goes on. There is no break in transmission. Art does not go on break, so also artists themselves”, he said happily.

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    Here also in Nigeria since he left, some of his works have been represented in some certain group exhibitions. His works are well known because of the medium they represent. So even while in diaspora, his works speak for him at home. They remind patrons and buyers that Uduh is not far from them. He said, “My works will also be exhibited in the Universal Studios of Arts. It is a yearly exercise we do here and my works have to be there also. So even in my absence, my works speak for me all over the place. More than anything else, Uduh frequents his studios both in Nigeria and in the US.

    However, he does other jobs to make ends meet. “Due to high rate of bills I do other jobs when and where necessary to meet up. When it is time to be in the studio, I also do that. So it means I can now combine other jobs as the situation demands. For now therefore I will say I am 80% studio artist and 20% doing other jobs in order to meet up. I am an independent contractor so to say. Sometimes I work with other artists that have big projects. At other times I do other jobs like 8 hours a day or so. So it is, and you got to pay your bills”. Suddenly the smile on his face returned, making his forehead burrow a bit. As he shifted slightly on his chair, he perhaps remembered one or two scenes that could be compared to the local art scene in Nigeria.

    But how is the art scene in the USA?, he was asked so that a bit of comparison could help other artists who would want to now japa with ease or otherwise. “Well, I think Americans appreciate arts. They highly appreciate visual arts. But for me because I am new over there, I am yet to learn more about cultural changes. What I have known here, sourcing materials and all that is different from their own orientation. There are lots to be learnt about the way art works in their clime. And you got to do that to be able to fit in. So when I got there I started learning how to operate. For me it is not always good to be found in that kind of situation. But that is the way it is.  It is the way of life. Their own environment determines what you do, how you do it and the results you get. But generally, your life is tied to what you do. For me also, art is central to all – there maybe cultural differences, yet art is art.

    So Uduh began in earnest to learn the culture. Of course, each society has a culture that is good for them; that works for them. “USA is a country of laws and each law has to be complied with and obeyed to the full. You must obey the law. It is not like here where someone can escape from the law or refuse to obey it. So because it is a well regulated society, things work, people work within the confines of the law. So you cannot circumvent anything. And the visual art has to operate within the same laws regulating the society, within the culture of the country”. In USA you cannot just get into a car and begin to drive. “You got to attend proper driving lessons for a certain period of time before you are certified to handle the wheels.

    Uduh put it more succinctly. “You got to study the traffic rules of America. You got to attend an examination.  If you pass it, you will then be authorized to drive. It is not easy. All these are the things I did not know about while I was here. In the USA art is appreciated more based on what you do. Abstract art is known and better appreciated over there. In fact abstract art takes an upper hand. They have their own arts. They also have what you can conveniently describe as adventurous art. They love installations. Generally they also love something new, some kind of innovative art. Therefore I can say that America art is modern. That is one of the best ways to describe the way they value their art. Their art changes with time because art itself is dynamic”.

    As it is, arts over there is determined and controlled by the environment. And you got to follow it bit by bit to win attention and clientele. The art I know here is local”. It is what you know that influences your art particularly in terms of culture. But then for American artists themselves it is difficult also to live solely on studio practice. “It is not that easy. Anyway, if I was there from the time I graduated maybe by now I would have been a full time studio artist. But a lot goes into it in America. You have to be groomed for a long time before you are recognized. And once you are recognized the sky is your limit. Not matter the obstacles on the way as long as you are able to establish yourself as a studio artist you will overcome the world. Those ones do not have plan B”.

    “There are fests everywhere in summer. For you to participate, you have to first of all register your works and let the organizers know. When you sell your work you keep your money. It is only in Florida that you have warm weather almost all year round and it is where you have festivals of arts year in year out. People visit the place from all over Europe and parts of America. Artists, tourists, holiday makers come to rollick in Florida. From November onwards the place bubbles with life and activities. Then outdoor works and sales and social life generally become active .

  • Brains without borders: Nigerian scholars breaking ground in America

    Brains without borders: Nigerian scholars breaking ground in America

    From aerospace engineering and quantum computing to law, sociology, and human-computer interaction, these exceptional Nigerians, each equipped with a doctorate and driven by a profound sense of purpose, are not merely breaking barriers; they are building bridges with their innovation and intellect. United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU chronicles the inspiring journeys of Emmanuel Ahmadu, Wendy A. Okolo, Oluwatobi Lasisi, Deji Akinwande, Ifeoma Ajunwa, and Ibrahim Waziri—six brilliant minds redefining what it means to succeed on a global stage.

    Born into a life marked by constant upheaval, Dr. Emmanuel Ahmadu attended 16 different primary schools and 14 secondary schools due to family disruptions and financial hardship. Despite these formidable odds, he refused to let his circumstances define his future. His perseverance bore fruit when he gained admission to the University of Benin, where he studied Mass Communication. At the university, his story of triumph against the odds earned him national acclaim, and his achievements were formally archived in the university’s main library by the vice-chancellor—a move intended to inspire future generations of students.

    Once a young Nigerian facing immense educational instability—so profound that he had to sit for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) a staggering 17 times—Ahmadu has emerged as a globally celebrated mental health advocate and consultant whose work continues to inspire millions around the world.

    In recognition of his tireless dedication to mental health advocacy and youth empowerment, 2024 became a landmark year for Ahmadu. He was awarded two honorary doctorate degrees—one in International Affairs from Global Seminary University, New York, in partnership with GEPEA University, Portugal, and another as a Professional Doctoral Fellow from The Across Global Institute of Foreign Languages (AGIFL).

    Beyond his academic and honourary achievements, Ahmadu is the founder of R.I.S.E Global Voices Organisation, a platform committed to nurturing resilience, inclusion, self-care, and empowerment in adolescents and young adults. Through R.I.S.E and a network of school programmes, public engagements, and media campaigns, he has reached over 10 million youths across continents, offering them the tools and confidence to rewrite their narratives.

    His impact is pronounced in the United States, where he has taken on several leadership roles. At Cuyahoga Community College, he served as Student Government President and Vice President of the Joint Student Council Board. In these capacities, he championed mental health initiatives and linked students with essential support resources. His service and compassion earned him numerous accolades, including “Distinguished Student Leader with a Big Heart” and “Outstanding Mental Health Advocate of the Year.”

    Ahmadu’s expertise is also recognised at the federal level. He serves as a Peer Reviewer and Judge with the U.S. Department of Education, evaluating grant programmes such as the School-Based Mental Health Services (SBMH) and Mental Health Services Professional Demonstration (MHSP). Additionally, he plays an active role on three committees of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), focusing on advocacy, education, and public engagement.

    Capping an extraordinary year of achievements, Ahmadu was awarded a special distinction in December 2024 by the London Graduate School in the United Kingdom and inducted as a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants (FIMC).

    Ahmadu shares excellence with Dr. Wendy A. Okolo, a pioneering Nigerian-American aerospace engineer whose trailblazing career reflects both technical brilliance and an unwavering commitment to diversity in STEM. Born in Nigeria in 1989, she began her academic journey at Queen’s College, Lagos—one of the country’s most prestigious girls’ secondary schools. Driven by a passion for flight and engineering, she moved to the United States to pursue higher education, earning her bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2010. While at UTA, she served as president of the Society of Women Engineers, laying the groundwork for a lifelong dedication to mentorship and inclusion.

    In 2015, at just 26, Dr. Okolo made history as the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UTA. Her groundbreaking doctoral research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Atilla Dogan, focused on formation flight—a technique that explores how aircraft can save fuel by flying in carefully calculated formations, much like migrating birds.

    Her professional journey began with internships at Lockheed Martin, where she contributed to NASA’s Orion spacecraft program, working on both systems engineering and mechanical design teams. She then joined the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, conducting cutting-edge research in control systems design and flight dynamics.

    Currently, Dr. Okolo is a respected aerospace engineering researcher and associate project manager in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. At NASA, she leads interdisciplinary teams focused on the System-Wide Safety Project, a critical initiative that seeks to ensure the safe integration of unmanned and autonomous vehicles into national airspace. Her work centers on flight dynamics, vehicle controls, and intelligent health monitoring systems—technologies that are shaping the future of aviation and space travel.

    Dr. Okolo has garnered numerous accolades. She is a recipient of the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal, the NASA Ames Researcher/Scientist Award, and the Black Engineer of the Year Award for Most Promising Engineer in Government. Notably, she was also the first woman to receive the NASA Ames Early Career Researcher Award—yet another historic milestone in her already impressive career.

    Beyond the lab and cockpit, Dr. Okolo is a vocal advocate for equity in science and engineering. She has been honored with the Women in Aerospace Award for Initiative, Inspiration, and Impact, and is a highly sought-after speaker on the global stage. Her forthcoming book, Learn to Fly, offers practical advice for students pursuing STEM careers and underscores her belief that the sky is not the limit—it’s just the beginning.

    Okolo’s journey of resilience is similar to Oluwatobi Lasisi’s. She is an accomplished user experience researcher and human-computer interaction specialist whose work sits at the intersection of advanced technology and human-centered design. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Mississippi State University, she has built a remarkable career by making complex systems more intuitive, accessible, and aligned with real-world user needs. Her academic journey, which began with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Nigeria, evolved through rigorous graduate work focused on requirements engineering and user-centric recommender systems. Her doctoral dissertation, titled “Beyond Algorithms: A user-centered evaluation of a recommender system in requirements engineering,” reflects a research philosophy rooted in empathy, inclusivity, and measurable impact.

    Currently serving as Design Research Lead at IBM, Lasisi is playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of quantum computing platforms. She leads UX research initiatives for IBM Quantum, applying mixed-methods strategies to understand developer workflows, usability needs, and the broader user experience. One of her major contributions has been the launch of the IBM Quantum Feedback Program, which significantly streamlined participant recruitment and accelerated design iterations by over 60 percent. Her leadership on the IBM Quantum One-Experience project has been particularly influential, as she conducted extensive user studies and transformed feedback into actionable insights, directly informing the development of a unified platform for quantum learning and research.

    Before her transition into the quantum space, Lasisi honed her skills in various roles that combined technical expertise with strategic vision. As a graduate research assistant at the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) Lab, she contributed to studies in interface design, human factors, and HCI theory. In parallel, she worked as a software developer at Mississippi State University’s Social Science Research Center, where she maintained applications for public safety and behavioral intervention programs using technologies like Sails.js, AngularJS, and PostgreSQL. Earlier in her career, she served as Head Business Analyst at Guaranty Trust Bank in Nigeria, managing a team responsible for the development and maintenance of enterprise banking solutions. Her leadership there drove the adoption of Agile methodologies, reducing delivery times and enhancing software quality across mission-critical platforms like internet banking and credit card systems.

    Lasisi’s contributions have been widely recognised. She is a multi-year recipient of the Grace Hopper Celebration scholarship, a Tapia Conference scholar, and a participant in the CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women. Her team’s project was awarded Best UX/UI design by the FedEx HCI Class Challenge in 2018, further affirming her ability to lead in both research and applied innovation. She also holds a range of professional certifications, including the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner, and certifications in UX design and quantum computing.

    A lifelong learner and mentor, Lasisi is an active member of several professional communities, including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-W), and the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). Through these networks, she continues to advocate for inclusive research practices and the representation of women and underrepresented groups in STEM.

    What sets Tobi apart is not only her technical competence but her unwavering commitment to designing with people in mind. Whether she’s refining the usability of a quantum computing interface or mentoring a young researcher in HCI, her work consistently reflects a blend of intellectual rigor and heartfelt purpose. In every project she touches, she strives to ensure that innovation does not leave users behind—but rather brings them forward, empowered and engaged.

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    Also distinguished is Dr. Deji Akinwande, a Nigerian-American engineer and academic whose groundbreaking work in nanoelectronics and two-dimensional (2D) materials has positioned him as a global leader in his field. He currently holds the prestigious Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where his interdisciplinary expertise extends to courtesy appointments in Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering.

    Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria, Akinwande’s early years were shaped by a strong academic foundation at Federal Government College, Idoani. His curiosity for science and engineering was evident early on and continued to flourish after he returned to the United States in 1994. He began his higher education at Cuyahoga Community College before transferring to Case Western Reserve University, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and applied physics. His master’s research pioneered new methods for near-field microwave imaging, setting the tone for a career defined by innovation.

    Dr. Akinwande earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he studied the electronic properties of carbon-based materials under the mentorship of renowned scientist Dr. H.-S. Philip Wong. His doctoral research, completed in 2009, contributed to the field’s understanding of nanomaterials and was later captured in the co-authored textbook Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Device Physics—now a standard reference in the domain.

    In 2010, Akinwande joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin and rapidly became a leading figure in 2D materials and flexible nanoelectronics research. Among his most celebrated innovations is the development of the world’s first silicene transistor, a milestone recognized by Discover magazine as one of the top science stories of 2015. He also gained international acclaim for his work on ultra-thin, transparent graphene electronic tattoos, a novel technology capable of non-invasive health monitoring.

    His pioneering research has earned him numerous honors, including the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, and the African Academy of Sciences. He is also the recipient of the Friedrich Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

    Beyond his research achievements, Dr. Akinwande is a dedicated educator and mentor. He has supervised a diverse group of graduate students, many of whom have gone on to become faculty members at institutions around the world. He also plays an active role in the broader scientific community, serving on editorial boards of major journals and contributing to leading international conferences.

    Equally remarkable is the story of Dr. Ifeoma Yvonne Ajunwa, a trailblazing Nigerian-American legal scholar, sociologist, and author whose influential work bridges the worlds of law, technology, and ethics. A respected voice in contemporary discourse on the future of work and digital rights, she currently serves as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, where she also holds the role of Associate Dean for Projects and Partnerships. In addition, she is the founding director of the AI and the Future of Work Programme, a pioneering initiative exploring the social, legal, and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

    Her academic path is a testament to her multidisciplinary brilliance. Dr. Ajunwa earned her BA from the University of California, Davis, followed by a JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law. She went on to pursue advanced degrees in sociology at Columbia University, where she obtained both an MPhil and a PhD. Her scholarly development was further sharpened through a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

    Dr. Ajunwa’s research focuses on the ethical governance of workplace surveillance technologies, data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the broader implications of AI on labor rights. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including the highly competitive NSF CAREER Award and the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Association of American Law Schools. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Her thought leadership has not only informed public debate but has also influenced policy; she has testified before the U.S. Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on issues at the intersection of technology and workers’ rights.

    In 2023, Dr. Ajunwa published her debut book, The Quantified Worker, with Cambridge University Press—a timely and critical examination of how emerging technologies are reshaping the workplace. She is also co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Governance and the Law, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Beyond academia, she serves on advisory boards for leading technology companies and is a founding board member of the LaborTech Research Network.

    And there is Dr. Ibrahim Waziri, whose remarkable journey from Nigeria to becoming a leader in cybersecurity in the United States, is a powerful story of perseverance and determination. After earning a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Electronics and Computer Engineering from the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, in 2009, Dr. Waziri sought to expand his horizons by pursuing further education abroad. Guided by mentorship and his own relentless drive, he advanced to earn a master’s degree in Applied Engineering from Georgia Southern University. His academic journey culminated in a Ph.D. in Information Security from Purdue University, a testament to his unwavering commitment to excellence and intellectual rigor.

    Dr. Waziri has made significant strides in the field of cybersecurity. As a Senior Consultant in Federal Cyber Risk at Deloitte, he works closely with U.S. federal agencies to address cyber threats, strengthen security protocols, and ensure that critical systems remain protected. In addition to his consultancy role, Dr. Waziri also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity at Marymount University, where he imparts his extensive knowledge to the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

    Significantly, these achievers come from every corner of Nigeria—North, South, East, and West—proving that brilliance knows no region. Their stories are a testament to the nation’s untapped potential and a powerful reminder that Nigeria’s greatest resource remains its people. 

  • In America: 2024, shaping up like 2016        

    In America: 2024, shaping up like 2016        

    This essay was first published in The NATION on January 16, 2024.           

    January 6, 2024, marked the third anniversary of the terror unleashed on the U.S. Capitol by a frenzied mob grimly resolved to cancel – pardon my employing the locution du jour – one of the most hallowed traditions of the American political system: The peaceful transfer of power to the winning candidate.

    In light of what happened to America under Donald Trump’s debauched presidency, it can be said that the tradition had remained in place mainly by default.  When it was put to a severe test for the first time the previous year in recent memory, it came out so bruised and battered that few will now cite it with confidence as an American tradition.

    Call it the Trump Effect: the erosion of values, the corruption of institutions, the suborning of the machinery of government, the capture of government and its underlying processes, the use of terror or threat of terror as an instrument of governance, demeaning high officials of the state by the use of coarse, vulgar language, utter disdain and disregard for the rule of law, and even common decency.

    On January 6, 2021, American lawmakers convened in the Capitol to affix the final seal on the election of Joseph R. Biden as the 46th President of the United States.  His opponent, Donald Trump, would have none of it.  He had laid the ground for an insurrection by leading millions of his Twitter followers to believe that the only way Biden could win – or Trump lose – was if the vote was rigged.

    Trump lost; ergo, the election had to have been stolen. The legislators were in effect convening to consecrate a theft, he declared.

    “Show strength” and “stop the steal,” he exhorted them as they stormed the Capitol. “That’s the only way you are ever going to take our country back.”

    For the next 187 minutes, America and indeed a global television audience watched in horrified disbelief as a surging, seething, murmuring, bilious crowd, men and women, veterans and enlisted persons, scrambled up the ramparts and raced up the steps to the landing, belting out blood-curdling imprecations, smashed windows and doors and impaled police officers with flagpoles and just about any object they could weaponise.

    There was no mistaking the grim resolve, the murderous frenzy with which they went about their mission.

    When they bellowed “Hang (Vice President) Mike Pence” over and over again, they were not posturing or grandstanding. They had erected a scaffold on the grounds, a noose dangling ominously from it.  Trump would say later that it was a pity they didn’t hang Pence.

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    From a private room in the White House, Trump watched the proceedings with glee, according to a former staffer. Not even the pleas of the First Lady and his oldest son could move him to try to restrain the demons he had loosed on the Capitol.

    As they slunk away, the insurrectionists performed one final act of obscenity:  They plastered the chambers with excrement.  That is the kind of company Trump keeps.

    You would think that this assault on every good thing America claims to stand for would call forth a groundswell of denunciation and recrimination.  Perhaps civil society was too stunned for words, too traumatized to make a concerted move?   Perhaps the outrage, then muffled, would gather momentum and translate into an insistent demand for an accounting, for justice, and yes, for punishment.

    You would think that the character who masterminded this brazen assault on the political and moral values on which America’s claim of exceptionalism rests would have by that very act disqualified himself from ever seeking any elected office.  And if he tried to muscle his way into the local School Board, he would be disenfranchised even if, unlike Trump, the fellow was not also standing trial on 91 criminal charges in various courts across the country.

    Civil society could find no coherent voice, no rallying point.  Even President Joe Biden, newly vested with political and moral authority, could not employ it to change the narrative.  He had consumed this precious capital in pursuing a bogus bi-partisanship and continued to do so even as Trump blockaded his legislative agenda at every opportunity.

    Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had at first blush placed the blame squarely where it belonged, would declare that he would vote again for Trump if Trump secured the Republican nomination.

    Even before the insurrectionists dispersed, the shock, the horror of the siege was already dissolving.  With ample support from his ultra-right confederates, Trump wasted no time recasting the events of the day Trump as an excursion, and a patriotic one for that matter.

    And the new narrative has taken such a hold that, if you had not witnessed the insurrection as it unfolded and had no access to their iterations and reiterations across the media, you would have entertained some doubt about whether it transpired. 

    The police who lost six of their officers to the mob were being as denounced as bullies and human-rights abusers. The insurrectionists were cast as freedom fighters and patriots, and as tourists who just took a day off to check out the attractions and delights of Washington, DC.

    And even among those who witnessed it, many could be forgiven if they now doubt the evidence of their own eyes.  Such has been the slickness, the intensity of the recasting.

    If reality is so susceptible to manipulation at this stage before the full coming of Artificial Intelligence, wherein lies the future of society, of civilization?

    But it is not a sober, remorseful, penitent Trump that has achieved this improbable feat.  It is the good old foul-mouthed, race-baiting, misogynistic Trump, only more venal, more saturnine, more demagogic, and more sociopathic, driven by grievance and a lust for vengeance, not merely on those he says have corruptly employed the machinery of virtually on all institutions of state to persecute him.

    In frenzied speeches before fevered crowds, he has characterized not just those institutions but the entire American establishment as illegitimate, and doomed. And it is the singular mission of his second coming to dismantle it.  Perhaps he will refashion it after his own image later, but he is not letting on.

    That is how we came to the conjuncture where, almost all of a sudden, the principles and ideals on which the United States founded and nurtured a political system that has been the envy of much of the world for centuries increasingly count for less and are now held with little conviction.

    The Rule of Law became the rule of Trump, which could mean one thing one day, another thing the following day, and yet another thing the day after; in short, Trump’s caprice.  Trump tied up the judicial system in knots, the better to emasculate it.  The doctrine of “separation of powers” was exposed as the elaborate fudge it always was.

    It is early yet in the Election Year, and 2024 is not 2016.  Trump’s lock on the Republican nomination is so tenacious that it is almost inconceivable that he could lose it.  But it is not inconceivable that President Biden, whose support has slipped significantly among younger voters and minorities, could lose the race the way Hilary Rodham Clinton lost it to Trump in 2016.

    If that happens, Biden’s blank cheque underwriting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal war in Gaza is sure to be cited as one of the reasons.

    A Postscript

    In the end, the presidential contest was between Donald Trump and the incumbent vice-president, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden having dropped out of the race less than three months before the poll, following his dismal showing in a televised debate with Trump.

    Trump ran with seething contempt for everything on which America’s claim to exceptionalism rests.  Contending with Trump’s shameless lying and demagoguery was the easy part. Harris had also to battle against two deeply entrenched obstacles:  race, and misogyny. 

    The backlash that followed the election of the first Black president of the United States, Barrack Obama perfuses the polity still. America was not about to repeat the mistake. And America still cannot reconcile itself to a woman president.

    The twice-impeached Trump, and a convicted felon to boot, won handsomely.

    But let no one weep for Kamala Harris.  She ran a spirited, graceful race.  Not for her the coarse, vulgar abuse, the casual cruelty that undergirded Trump’s campaign.

    The real loser is America and its claim to exceptionalism.  The outcome of the election has rendered that claim vacuous through and through.  It can no longer be said that some things simply cannot happen in America.  Nothing in its founding documents and hallowed institutions, it is now obvious, inures it against a hostile takeover by a desperate reprobate and syndicated con artist.

    Something tells me that America will rue its unwisdom.

  • America’s seniors to face higher Medicare costs in 2025

    America’s seniors to face higher Medicare costs in 2025

    America’s seniors will see higher Medicare costs in 2025, as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announces a 6% increase in Part B premiums.

    This change will impact millions of seniors enrolled in the program, which covers services like doctor visits, outpatient care, preventive services, and medical equipment.

    Starting in January 2025, the standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B will rise from $174.70 to $185.00, a $10.30 increase.

    Additionally, the annual deductible for Part B will climb from $240 to $257.

    CMS attributes these adjustments to projected price increases and higher demand for medical services, in line with historical trends.

    The agency notes that these changes are necessary to manage rising healthcare costs.

    This increase follows a rare drop in premiums for 2023, when Part B premiums decreased by over $5—a temporary adjustment.

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    For seniors already receiving Social Security, the higher premium will be automatically deducted from their benefits starting in January.

    Those not yet drawing Social Security benefits will need to pay the new premium directly.

    Meanwhile, Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays and inpatient services, remains premium-free for most beneficiaries, thanks to payroll taxes paid during their working years.

    Only a small fraction—about 1%—of enrollees pay a premium for Part A coverage.

  • Weep not for America

    Weep not for America

    Unlike many Nigerians, I was not in any way excited about the just-concluded presidential election in the United States of America, right from the beginning. I knew that many of us in this part of the world anticipated a Camara Harris victory. I also knew that many of us would weep louder than the bereaved if Donald Trump eventually triumphed. In our minds’ eyes, including many of the pollsters in America, Trump could never have won. I don’t blame such people, after all, it is said that people see what they want to see.

    Now that the election has been won and lost, many of us are not happy with the result. I can understand if Americans are sad. But what is our own, such that we have to now remind the Americans and the world what they know: that Trump is an ex-convict? How can an ex-convict be the world’s Number One Citizen? Story!

    Democracy is about numbers. In terms of both the popular votes and the Electoral College, Trump, the Republican Party candidate, clearly trumped our favourite Harris of the Democratic Party. With 74,333,299 popular votes (50.7 per cent), he defeated Harris who had 69,857,510 (47.7 per cent). And, in terms of the Electoral College, Trump had 295, 25 more than the required 270, while Harris had 226. This was clear shellacking.

    So, come January 20, 2025, Trump would be sworn in as the 47th president of God’s own country, barring unforeseen circumstances.  He would be the first former president to return to office in more than 130 years, and, at 78, the oldest person ever so elected to the office.

    Let me state that I have never admired Trump until now that he has won and outsiders are complaining more than the Americans. If that is the choice of America, what is their own? Those who have the locus to determine their leader have spoken; let us respect rather than query their choice.

    After all, when we hold our own elections here, flawed as they usually are, and Americans tell us they are flawed, we tell them to mind their business. Why should their election give us sleepless nights? Why do we find it uncomfortable to live with the result of their polls simply because we don’t like the man, Donald Trump?

    Many of us don’t like Trump because he called blacks people from ‘shithole’ countries. Please, tell me, which of our attitudes present us differently? When I was a child, Nigerians merely went abroad, notably to the United Kingdom, to study or for vacation. They never went there with the intention of staying put.

    Then, we had good schools, good hospitals such that a Saudi Prince once came for treatment at our then prestigious University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. Now, no water. No light. No road. Nothing that can make life comfortable. And, we think the solution is in running away to other countries that were transformed by people who made all the sacrifices that make their countries better today.

    Many Africans and blacks generally are ready to take any risk to travel to America, even if to go and be washing plates or corpses there. Many have died on the Mediterranean Sea and still counting, in their desperate bid to get out of their countries. As a matter of fact, people go to church for special prayer to facilitate their travelling abroad to live. So, if their countries are not what Trump said they are; why such desperation to ‘chicken out’ or ‘Japa’, as we now call it in Nigeria? Even our leaders prefer going abroad for medical treatment, to gifting us good hospitals. Our doctors are leaving in droves, yet no one seems to care.

    We are angry with Trump instead of with ourselves. A Yoruba proverb says ‘eniyan buburu mo; eni to maa so fun lo nwa’ (a bad person knows; he is only waiting for the person to tell him so). Do we need anyone to tell us that our continent is ‘shithole’? If our continent is not ‘shithole’, why are we leaving it for what we ourselves call ‘greener pastures’? Is it because God has not designed us for good life comparable to any elsewhere?

    And why do we have to be so hypocritical about some of these things? Those who are wondering what Trump forgot in the White House that he wants to return to take should ask the question again now. The fear of our people in America is so palpable that pastors have had to treat many of their prayer requests to escape Trump clampdown specially.

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    That is for the churches that are saying their own publicly. I want to believe that market would be booming for the Moslem clerics and ‘Babalawos’ too this time around. ‘Ki lo de’? Because one country held election and elected the candidate of their choice! Why should Nigerians catch cold simply because a Trump MIGHT sneeze? Are you not confirming his statement that you are from ‘shithole’ by so doing?

    Again, why should we be angry that the Americans want to take charge of their country? Even here in Nigeria, how much space are the Igbos yielding to other tribes in the southeast? At every election cycle, the Yorubas in the southwest generally, and Lagos in particular, are apprehensive of Igbo ‘takeover’ of Lagos. Both tribes take whatever they consider as reasonable measures to protect their heritage from falling into the hands of the other tribe.

    If both the Igbo and Yoruba are these passionate about their heritage, why would anyone complain that majority of American voters have voted for a man with an agenda that is dear to their hearts? Mind you, some 23.8 million of migrants (about 10 per cent of the U.S. electorate) have naturalised, meaning they can vote, according to the Pew Research Center. At the rate even Nigerians are leaving their country in droves, the figures can only become more frightening if the brakes are not applied, with the possibility that it is only a matter of time for America itself to be like some of those countries whose citizens are now seeking refuge in the U.S. (If you like, keep luxuriating in the belief that America (like Lagos?) is ‘no man’s land’). The owners of America have taken over their country.

    We need someone to let us know the limits of some of our actions or inactions. Sometime ago, some Nigerians in Canada protested because they were sleeping in the cold outside. Are their compatriots not sleeping under bridges and in other open spaces right here at home? If there is no longer space for you in a foreign land, do you now have to protest as if it is their responsibility to provide for you, whatever happens? Yes, you may say they have some rights under international law. Fine. Then let your country apply the principle of reciprocity. Simple. At any rate, didn’t Nigerians send Ghanaians away when economic crunch came, and vice versa? Isn’t there xenophobia in South Africa? So, how come we want to insist that governments of far away countries provide for us what we cannot insist our home government should make available?

    Some years ago, a colleague of mine and I went to interview one of the governors in the south-south. We were stunned when the governor said he only gave ‘okada’ riders in the state a short notice, with January 1 of the following year as deadline, to leave the state capital. The governor said on that day, he drove himself round the state capital and, lo and behold, there was no single ‘okada’. He said he could not believe his eyes and decided to repeat the inspection the next day; thinking may be the ‘okada’ riders were off the roads because they were in New Year mood. The second day, nothing. Third day, nothing. That was the end of ‘okada’ in that era.

    Guess what? None of the ‘okada’ riders protested. All they did was put their motorcycles in the next bus coming to Lagos. It was in Lagos that they raised hell simply because the state government banned them from plying certain routes, even though they were free to ply others. So, why are we like this?

    May be it is the Trumps of this world that are the divine instruments to wean us off our lethargy about where God designed us to be. When Trump tightens the noose, Britain stops people from bringing their entire families to the United Kingdom just because one member of the family is there as a student, etc., then, we would be compelled to know how to demand and insist on good governance at home instead of how to ‘Japa’.

    The way some of our pastors even celebrate this exodus is the most annoying. They do it in a way that would make one think that God made a mistake in making us Nigerians. Instead of praying for God to do whatever it would cost Him to make Nigeria great again; they do it in a way that makes it look like God has given up on Nigeria. 

    A man emerged victorious in an election in which he defeated his challenger by over four million votes; an election which by many standards was free and fair; one in which there was no snatching of ballot-boxes, one devoid of violence, one in which no election official was accused of altering election results despite the fact that the polls took days to conclude, and some people are still complaining about the outcome!

    Even if Trump ends up failing, that should be the business of the Americans; let them stew in their own juice. After all, how many times have we made wrong choice at the polls ourselves? Heavens have not fallen. As a matter of fact, some of our failed leaders have had several attempts to re-sit and repeat; but they kept failing. That is why many of our people found themselves abroad. So, why should it be news that Trump failed if he did?

    At any rate, when a man survives four known assassination attempts on his way to a particular goal, as Trump did, (two during the recent presidential campaign), you need to watch such a man. Chances of getting to his destination are high. If the bullet of the July 13 attempt that hit his right ear had happened to Harris, those of us in this part of the world would still have been condemning Trump for it, with or without proof. Well, that may be because of his past record of violence, though. But because it happened to Trump, we have since moved on.

    All said, it would be wishful thinking that most of these countries would perpetually keep their gates open to whosoever it may concern. It is only a matter of time for a wealthy man in the midst of six wretched-of-the-earth to chair the league of the poverty-stricken (olowo kan laarin otosi mefa; oun ni alaga won).

    Americans have made their choice. Let no non-American weep for America over Trump’s victory. Let them weep for their home countries instead.

  • Let’s help America by sending election observers

    Let’s help America by sending election observers

    •  By Alade Fawole

    With over 60 countries across all continents, comprising half of global population, holding national elections in 2024, the largest ever in any single year, it is no exaggeration that Time magazine dubs it “The Ultimate Election Year.” By end of the year, these periodic rituals would have been enacted in countries that boast of being liberal democracies as well as in those classified rightly or wrongly as autocratic and authoritarian states.

    The United States set to hold its own presidential and legislative polls on November 5, and it is unquestionably the most important and most consequential for Americans and also for the whole world. As a global hegemon, wielding the dollar as global reserve to control international trade and with 800 military bases spread over 80 countries in all the continents on earth, the hubristic claim that when America sneezes that rest of the world catches cold has a ring of truth to it. Whichever way the elections go, whoever wins between incumbent female Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump wins, the results are bound to excite opposite emotions domestically in a largely divided America but much more so across the globe. The world is waiting and watching with anticipation, possibly praying silently for either of the candidates for what their foreign policies would be.

    Since everyone is so concerned about the US elections, it is imperative in my view that the world should take more than casual interest in how they are conducted. America needs to be helped! And no better way than to constitute and deploy election observer teams from different countries and regional groupings, and interested civil society NGOs from across the globe to observe the processes and thereafter issue comprehensive and unbiased election reports. Unless America can convince the world that its own elections are free, fair and credible, its characteristic hubris and contempt for other countries’ elections would ring hollow.

    I confess that for reasons entirely personal, I have never been a fan of foreign election observation or monitoring. But elections observers from the US and EU in particular have always insinuated themselves into election observation with predetermined agenda and the worldview they want to project to the rest of the world, their reports often reflecting the biases and prejudices of their funders. For example, America has rejected the validity of the results of Venezuela’s recent election because Washington’s Trojan horse did not win. Had the opposite been the case, The White House would have promptly decked it with legitimacy, and his first foreign visit would have been to Washington D.C. to thank the enablers!

    We, here in Nigeria, are used to arrogant foreign election observer teams voicing conflicting views on our election processes and outcomes. For example, the EU election observer team which could only visit a very small number of polling units across the nation during the 2023 election, with little substantiation, proceeded to give a damning conclusion. The Nigerian Bar Association on the other hand which monitored the elections in all the polling units across the country gave a glowing report.

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    On its own part, US election observer missions, usually comprising officials from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Republican Institute (NRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), are government-funded and with close ties to the US intelligence community, whose personnel are fully embedded. Any election that fails to satisfy their preconceived notions is promptly delegitimized, and the ensuing government de-marketed in the eyes of the world by the issuance of damning reports and made a candidate for punitive Western sanctions intended to induce its subservience to foreign will. Latest evidence of foreign intimidation is Washington’s daring act of international piracy, hijacking and impounding Venezuela’s presidential jet from the Dominican Republic, a sovereign national asset, to punish President Nicolas Maduro’s courageous refusal to hand over sovereign control over the country’s natural resources to Uncle Sam.

    It is high time African nations, particularly the African Union, ECOWAS and other regional organizations and civil society groups on the continent, constituted and sent election observer missions for the November 5 presidential and Congressional polls. I advocate this not because America frequently meddles in other nation’s business but because the coming election is bound to be the most consequential in history, one to which the world should pay close attention because of the implications it portends for world politics and global order. It is bound to be pivotal, being a transitional election regardless who wins. If Kamala Harris wins, it will be intra-party transition from the Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. If Trump on the other hand emerges the winner, it will be a transition from incumbent governing party to the opposition. The stakes are simply too high: it is a zero sum contest; the campaigns are already the most scurrilous, incendiary and toxic ever. It promises, in the Nigerian parlance, to be a do-or-die election!

    Jokes apart, there are lingering reasons the rest of the world should help America. In recent elections in the past decade or so, there has been widespread accusations regarding cynical gerrymandering and prejudicial redistricting in favour of parties and candidates in some states, intentional voter suppression, over-voting, voting by unregistered and ineligible immigrants, manipulation of mailed-in ballots, rigged vote counting, resurrection of age-old Jim Crow regulations, and even foreign meddling. Allegations that Russia plans to meddle in the 2024 elections have resurfaced.

    But much more importantly is the outcome of the election. Candidate Donald Trump has vowed post-election bloodbath if he loses, and his supporters have equally threatened a civil war as well. Will there be a peaceful handover of power on January 20, 2025 regardless who wins? The world will have to help America to not dissolve into a needless bloodbath, and one way is for credible international observers to ascertain the real and authentic outcomes of the polls, regardless the winner. If the election is even remotely thought to be not free and fair, the dangers to liberal democracy across the globe would be immense, giving autocracies and dictatorships the opportunity to gloat that America is a bad advertisement for liberal democracy.

    The rest of the world should go out there to ensure the US gets it right, so we can collectively legitimize or delegitimize the results as the case may be. We need to look closely to detect any electoral malfeasances, ensure the process is free, fair and in accordance with US law and international best practices. The stakes are so high and we must not be deluded that the US can be trusted to do things right. In my opinion, the European Union, that busy-body that insinuates itself into elections in Africa, should be in the forefront. The United Kingdom, though no longer an EU member, having recently ousted the Rishi Sunak government in an election, definitely has valuable lessons to teach their trans-Atlantic amigos about peaceful, credible and non-acrimonious elections. The African Union, ECOWAS and other groups should help America by sending observer teams. Experienced and knowledgeable election observers that readily come to mind are former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, Bishop Hassan Kukah and Professor Attahiru Jega.

    •Fawole, a retired professor of International Relations writes from Ikire, Osun State.

  • Terrible signals from America

    Terrible signals from America

    By Zayd Ibn Isah

    The build-up to the forthcoming elections in the United States of America has once again exposed the country’s deep fault-lines. Tensions have reached fever pitch between the two major political parties of this foremost democracy, and the present state of things is ominously reminiscent of W.B. Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming,’ where the falcons can no longer hear the falconer.

    As the Presidential candidate of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump’s second foray into American politics has been unsurprisingly marred by crises and controversies, what we are witnessing now is anarchy in ‘God’s Own Country.’ And yet, no one could ever have correctly predicted that an assassination attempt would be made on the 45th American President. As it is, only time will tell if this significant event will be the last straw that truly breaks the camel’s back.

    At the weekend, Donald Trump narrowly escaped death during a campaign rally at Butler, Pennsylvania. If the assassin had not missed his target by a mile, Trump would certainly have met the same fate as other assassinated US leaders like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.

    The gunman who fired shots from a semi-automatic AR-style rifle has now been identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Although Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper present at the rally, one wonders how an event of such magnitude could have unfolded in America of all places. If this had happened in Nigeria or another third-world country, many would have been quick to say that such a thing would never have happened in America. Now that it has happened, what do we call it?

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    If anything the political crisis in America has demystified some of the widely held beliefs about America. The US is often referenced when discussing our country’s shortcomings in meeting 21st-century standards. I won’t blame us for such references. America is one of the oldest democratic countries in the world. In fact, the US President is unarguably the most powerful person in the world. As such, it is normal for a developing country like Nigeria to be encouraged to borrow a leaf from America’s book on democracy and governance.

    But while we are encouraged to do so, we should not lose sight of the fact that America is a country and Americans are human. They are flawed people often blinded by narrow interests and liable to disagree on even the clearest of issues. They are not infallible at all. No country in the world is perfect. Even now, following Donald Trumpʼs revelation in a social media post that the assassin’s bullet only pierced the upper part of his right ear; and President Joe Bidenʼs public condemnation of the heinous act against his rival, many Americans have begun stirring up conspiracy theories to drive the narrative that the entire assassination attempt was staged.

    While this case is still being actively investigated by the relevant authorities, I think it is ultimately telling that not everyone in America believes that someone genuinely wanted Donald Trump dead. This exposes just how deep the divisions run in America that even clear facts are subject to scrutinising doubt and rude dismissal.

    In the hours following the attempted assassination, I have taken my time to read comments on social media from Americans about what they think of their country in the wake of the attack which claimed one life. No American has called their country names like “zoo.” Trump’s loyalists are not threatening fire and brimstone if anything happens to him, although they are quick to tear down anyone who thinks the assassination attempt was a staged affair. Although emotions are high, it is safe to believe that true Americans are surely disappointed by the unfolding events, even though the love for America trumps all, no pun intended. Now, this is how you define patriotism.

    There are many lessons that we, as Nigerians, can learn from this American incident and its aftermath. One is that the love for our country should supersede our primordial sentiments. We can disagree on several fronts, but always do so with love for the country we call home. Secondly, we should not give up on our country and its nascent democracy.

    If America, with a democratic system that dates back to 1776, can still be struggling to get on its feet, yet its citizens trust its process, why shouldn’t we trust ours while engaging our leaders constructively? Our institutions should be allowed to get it right, even as our leaders should always be held to the highest standards. People who consistently proclaim that Nigeria is beyond redemption are not only destroying hope for our nation, but hurting our image even worse than certain criminal elements.

    This does not mean that no one should criticize government policies or draw attention to undeniable realities. Rather, our criticism should always be fair and constructive and our mind-set should not always be rooted in unyielding pessimism. Nigeria will work in our lifetimes. Nigeria will work for all of our good. And the Nigerian Dream will require all of us to stay awake with our eyes on the same goal: the restoration of Nigeria’s glory in all ramifications.

    At this point, one would wish African leaders would serve America a taste of their own ‘travel advisory’ medicine in the face of the crisis in the country. It is now obvious that the country is no longer safe for foreigners there. But away from this, another lesson to be gained from the unfortunate incident is the realization that harmful rhetoric can sometimes guide or galvanize dark intentions. It is yet to be ascertained the motive which drove a young man to seek Donald Trump’s death, but one can only imagine that he must have harboured a deep hatred of the Republican candidate before putting his nefarious plans into motion.

    I don’t believe any sane Nigerian would wish for our beloved president to be harmed. But the world is a cruel system of things, and the best way around this is to never be surprised, but to always be on the alert. Henceforth, the Department of State Services must always be on the lookout for certain inflammatory outbursts capable of inciting violence to destabilize our democracy. Freedom of speech is not an avenue to spew vicious hate. The democracy of our nationhood supersedes any individual or group, and nowhere is that democracy firmly invested than in the constitution, the citizenry and the captainship of Nigeria.

    For all our divisions and differences, we should always gravitate towards the strongest pillars of our unity as a nation, because these strong pillars and foundational truths are the very things that will ensure Nigeria never fails, and that we will keep getting closer to the realization of the Nigerian Dream.

    •Isah can be reached via lawcadet1@gmail.com

  • Makers of modern America

    Makers of modern America

    Ford. Rockefeller. Carnegie. JP Morgan. These are names that remain institutions in America and elsewhere, pioneers who had neither inkling nor a knowing in their bodies that their acts would change America and the world forever.

    We know of Ford automobiles and Ford Foundation, which has educated and still educating scores of Nigerians in American institutions. We know of the Rockefeller Foundation, the one that is doing wonderful things for humanity. We know of many a library all over America that wouldn’t be without the institution called Carnegie. And we certainly know of Chase Bank and General Electric, two institutions that wouldn’t have been without JP Morgan.

    The Ford that we hear of today was the surname of a man named Henry, who broke into the automobile industry in America and began mass production of cars. His adventure was met with stiff opposition from the umbrella body of auto manufacturers in America, a body of men who knew nothing about mass production of cars, men whose cars were beyond the reach of the masses, men who were in business to cater for the needs of the affluent and nothing more. They sought to frustrate Ford and he chose to fight and to the court he dragged them and he beat them to their game and opened the gate for mass production of cheap cars and better pay for auto workers.

    At the time Ford won this battle, an older man, John D Rockefeller, lost the battle for the control of the oil industry in America. He first ran from the battle by evading being served court summons. He eventually chose to face it and defend Standard Oil, a company whose control of the kerosene business made him billionaire in the early 1900s. Chevron and ExxonMobil are two of what used to be Standard Oil. His efforts at defending this monopoly crashed with a resounding thud.

    Rockefeller didn’t just lose that battle, he also lost his quest to frustrate the bid to electrify America. He wanted everyone to still be using kerosine to battle darkness at night. But, a rival, JP Morgan, saw electricity as the future of the world and bought into a company founded by Thomas Edison, a scientist who designed Direct Current. His home in New York was the first private residence to have electricity and his father laughed at him for installing something meant for festivals in his home. With time more homes bought into the vision and electricity began to spread and soon it was time for electricity to go national in America. The Niagara electricity project was to be awarded to make the whole of America have access to electricity and Morgan wanted the contract.

    Ordinarily, it should have been easy for a company he co-owned, Edison General Electric, to clinch the contract. But before this contract was announced, an employee of the company named Nikola Tesla designed an alternative power source known as Alternative Current. Edison wrote off the design, which he felt was unsafe. Tesla resigned and against all odds got an investor for his new design and his design became a competitor in the Niagara contract. Morgan wasn’t amused and tried to muzzle them out. To save his invention, Tesla renounced his claim to any huge money for the patent and more investors came into the company to shore up its capital base. And when the winner was announced, it went against Morgan.

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    Morgan, a major force in America’s stock exchange, threatened the winner with a law suit over patent. He wasn’t sure of winning but he knew the company had no war chest for court battle. The winner bowed to him and he got the deal. He removed Edison’s name from the company and executed the contract and became bigger. His General Electric adopted Tesla’s Alternative Current in place of Edison’s Direct Current and till this day, Alternative Current thrives.

    In July 2003, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning incorporated Tesla Motors, a tribute to the inventor and electrical engineer behind Alternative Current. In February 2004, billionaire Elon Musk joined as the company’s largest shareholder.

    Andrew Carnegie, on his part, was in charge of the steel industry and it was his enterprise that revolutionised buildings in America and helped to build multistoried structures around the country.

    Of the four of them, Ford, was the youngest and operated at a time when their own stranglehold on America was beginning to ebb. At a point, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan teamed up in “buying the White House” by sponsorship of a Republican candidate to defeat a Democratic Party candidate who promised to checkmate their hold on the American economy. So huge was this influence that Morgan was borrowing his country money to bail it out of financial trouble. In the second term of the president they installed, tragedy struck when an aggrieved worker shot and killed the president, the third time an American president was killed. His deputy was installed and thus began the loss of their stranglehold on America.

    Of all of the trio who ‘bought’ the White House, Morgan was the first to die. After his death, Carnegie and Rockefeller started giving out a chunk of their wealth. While Carnegie was building libraries across the country, Rockefeller started a foundation that was helping humanity. He outlived Carnegie and was able to give out more and he even put in place machinery for the giving to continue after him.

    The tales I have just recounted here are in a docu-series titled “The Men Who Built America”. It’s an interesting take on where America was and where these men and others were able to take it to the enviable position of the number one in global relevance. The series is frank. It gives credit where deserving and points out flaws of these makers of modern America whose exploits began after the Civil War.

    From the docu-series, we see that Cornelius Vanderbilt, a retired soldier, who was in control of the rail system, was the one who began the revolution, but old age and death sidelined him. His attempt to break Rockefeller’s Standard Oil by asking for more money to transport its kerosene across America led to the laying of pipes across the country. Rockefeller’s diversion into gasoline, which used to be wasted during kerosene production, coincided with Ford’s mass production of cars and helped to make better cars. Facts such as these are elaborated in this docu-series of no mean importance.

    My final take: Nations are not built by saints and trailblazers often don’t know their own worth. Leaders, be it in business or politics, don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be bold, bold to take decisions and bold to restrategise if their plans backfire. Those are my takeaways from “The Men Who Built America”, a tale of men whose pioneering efforts we benefit from to this day.

  • America, the anxious

    America, the anxious

    America gave the world a new type of nation-state. It is a befitting irony that as the nation-state paradigm itself begins to unravel at the seams, much of the rest of the world would enter into a contradiction with the most successful expression of nationality—and nationalism—that the modern world has witnessed.

    As a rampant Republican presidency and a refulgent nation continue to confound friends and foes alike, there is a profound anti-American animus abroad. The global liberal intelligentsia are still reeling from what they considered the shocking and inexplicable defeat of the democratic standard bearer in the just concluded presidential elections.

    In much of Western Europe, particularly in France, America’s foremost bete noire, the atmosphere is of funereal gloom and depression. Famously, The Mirror of England wondered how fifty eight million people could be so dumb.

    A lot of this hysteric mush boils down to pride and prejudice on both sides of the divide. It is the jaded arrogance of the old world contending with the blithe contempt of the new. In many respects, it is also the return of the repressed. Four years ago when George W Bush controversially prevailed over Al Gore despite losing the popular vote, many saw a plutocratic conspiracy to crowd out America’s democratic masses from political contention.

    This time around, it was clear that it is the son of the older Bush that has connected with the electoral mystery that is Middle America. Why then must the rest of the world feel it has the right to legislate the destiny of America for Americans? And having conceded that crucial point, why would middle Americans be so blatantly contemptuous of anti-American sentiments abroad? Is this brilliant rallying to the star-spangled banner a heroic defence of American core values against the tired cynicism of Europe or the reflex circling of the wagons by a nation under global siege?.

    The case from abroad is arguable enough. As the most powerful and militarily dominant nation the world has seen, and as the richest society in human history, America should lead the world to a more humane and civilized society. This can be done by a more multilateral approach to global issues, less belligerence abroad and a political conservatism that is at once compassionate, conciliatory, less conflictual and more consensus seeking.

    The American riposte to this stinging indictment is equally telling and bespeaks a mutual misapprehension of historic magnitude. The way to a more humane and civilized world is not through liberal flip-flopping or paying protection money to diseased despots but a proactive policy of exemplary retribution which is as retroactively punitive as it is harshly pre-emptive. There must be no dialogue with “the axis of evil”. The nations so branded must be militarily subdued and pounded to submission.

     That it is this Samurai code that has found resonance with the American moral majority, particularly after the spectacular siege of September 11, 2001, is no longer contestable, whatever the consternation of the rest of the world. When it was reported that there was a record turn out in the last presidential elections, many were the tele-pundits  who thought that the real owners of America were on the march to reclaim their nation.

    Alas, it turned out the other way round. The quiet Americans had turned out to validate the machismo mantra of the son of George Herbert Walker Bush. The world may never be the same again. Is this then the new face of an empire that has been in denial for a long time, or the evidence of a sharp divergence between European democracy and the American mutant?

    America was founded on the ruins of feudal Europe. It was a bold and brilliant attempt by revolutionary visionaries to create humanity anew. When George Washington, its first president, declined another term which could have turned him into a new type of king and the American presidency a monarchical institution, he set America on the path to becoming a radical democracy and the first truly revolutionary society the world has seen.

    This may seem a moot point, but when set within the context that succeeding revolutionary attempts to create humanity anew have often ended up with the founders dying on the throne or mutating into senile and murderous despots, the issue becomes clearer. Take a sample: Lenin-Stalin, Mao, Tito, Castro, Yong, Neto, Cabral, Mugabe etc.

    The dictatorship of the revolutionary vanguard, rather than transforming into a genuine democracy, often becomes a historic nightmare: the privatized rule of the paranoid patriarch or the protocol of berserk elders.

    George Washington might have been responding to the push and pull of a truly modern society, and the republican zeal engendered by the fact that that at that point in time, there were more lawyers in America than armed soldiers. Whatever it was, it set America on the path of a nation in which institutions and institution-building were more important than the cult of the exceptional individual.

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    The military would never dare to take over power in America, and neither would a putative tyrant survive for very long in the White House. The democratic institutions and a vigilant civil society would take care of that. The system may occasionally creak at the joints, there may be a murmur of muted disorder as new and unenvisaged historical realities intrude, but the over-ride gear prevails and America reverts to its default settings.

    The anarchic obverse of this sterling coin is the triumphalist and naïve optimism it breeds, the belief that the nation can even afford to live dangerously, and that everything would be alright eventually. Worse still, every American voter considers himself or herself to be a miniature monarch, a mini-sovereign entitled to determine the destiny of the nation.

    In periods of strive and anxiety, this may turn the presidency itself into an agenda-driven, divisive platform rather than a subtle mechanism for aggregating contending national interests. But again, this is part of the irony of the American dream in which a man’s destination is more important than where he is coming from, in which anybody can technically aspire to the greatest positions in the land without being thwarted by the circumstances of birth. What is important is how far you can push yourself.

    When it works, the American dream is a glorious advertisement for egalitarianism and the democratic empowerment of the gifted and driven individual. When Benjamin Franklin, the Philadelphia publisher and inventor of genius, arrived in Paris as the ambassador of the new nation, he affronted not a few members of the chic Parisian elite with his brashness, his brazenness, his boundless vivacity, his spontaneous bonhomie and his obvious refusal to be fazed by the frigid norms of a frozen feudal fiefdom.

    It was then sniffily observed that it was only in America that such a man could become an ambassador. It was meant as a despairing put-down, but it was also a stupendous compliment to the American dream. As it was in the beginning, so it is beginning to look in mid-day.

     Till date, the French political circles never tire of inveigling against American brashness and vulgarity, their aversion for the finer points of taste, political sophistication and diplomatic savvy, while the Americans are openly disdainful of the cloak and dagger elusiveness and unreliable political somersaults of the European political elite in general, and the French in particular.

     In a memorable diplomatic bust-up, an American secretary of state once famously dismissed his British counterpart as a duplicitous bastard while the Whitehall mandarins eternally wring their hands about the global disaster of having diplomacy conducted by American boys’ Brigade.

    This perilous background of mutual misperception explains the current European –and global—anxiety about the direction of the American nation, and it is a function of a divergent trajectory as the impact of globalization and America’s unrivalled dominance finally hits a world in denial. The American success is predicated on relentless and often manic competition: competition among individuals, competition among institutions, competition in which humans become unfeeling automatons and cyborgs on auto-pilot.

     Even eating is a competition. You do not eat a sandwich but you grab one and ram it down to go back to work. In restaurants, you are asked whether you are still “working’ on the stuff. Compare this with the epic feast of pounded yam eating in Things Fall Apart, the stupendous orgy of consumption at a Yoruba ceremony or the elaborate twenty-four course meal of the French, and you begin to sense that there is no freeloading in Uncle Tom’s cabin.

     Yet if this neo-Calvinist ethos with its harsh protestant Puritanism has produced the richest society the world has seen, it can also turn a nation into a hard and unfeeling monad. America is by far the richest country in the world, but it is far from being the happiest society. The competition and work ethics criminalize poverty, and the poor are looked upon with a mixture of disdain and pity.

    There is a Victorian prudery abroad which often provokes its own sexual pathologies, and there is a zero-tolerance for filth and squalor which often induces an obsessive neatness and primness in public places. A reflex hostility to theocracy prevents a sustained dialogue with Islam and often hardens into a puritanical contempt for the thieving fascist clerisy that dominates the Middle East. Yet no one remembers that Islam itself started as a revolutionary doctrine, a new covenant between the ruled and their rulers. A new, bible-thumping fundamentalism of the self-righteous right is in danger of unleashing on the world a technological dark age and new march of modern crusaders.

    Blissfully unaware of the danger to itself and the menace it constitutes to the global order, America romps on in rampart militarism. Honed by competition, relentless training and ceaseless self-surpassing that has turned its military into the supreme fighting machine of the epoch, buoyed by an embarrassment of riches beyond the compass of human imagination, America carries all before it in a triumphant swing which would have made the Romans wince in envy and admiration. It is a shining city on the hills, and there is no room for doubts, or for the old world philosophers of gloom and prophets of scarcity.

    Perhaps we are witnessing the stirrings of the first truly post-modern society, a post-primate order in which ordinary people achieve the extra-ordinary. Perhaps it is a prelude to a catastrophic unraveling. Whatever it is, America—and George Bush—should pause momentarily and look back at the old empires of history. If they cannot do this on their own, let them import philosophers from the old world.    

     First published in 2004 (Excerpts)