The Nation Newspaper

Tag: America

  • Shame on you, America

    Yuck, you suck, you suck like hell! The big, bad guy we all hate to hate has finally gone whacko. You finally stood up to us in your live image: America, your name is Trump, yes, Donald Trump. You didn’t cast your vote – no, for that would be the craziest election ever – you merely cast yourself in your true mould which is Donald Trump. The cyber age cowboy; half honcho, much bravura like a street college graduate!

    Gee, there you go – a scowling, swashbuckling 70-year-old with a shock of annoying hair. And aren’t you annoying? You are largely half-illiterate and you don’t even know it. Not because you are not about the sharpest mind around, but because of your limited world view and your awkward methods.

    Now how can it be that in your so-called election, the majority voice, the popular vote does not win at the polls but a college of about 600 people decides the fate of about 300 million people? Isn’t that a travesty?

    Now thousands of shell-shocked citizens are on the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Houston Texas and numerous other beautiful corners of this land, chanting “Not my president!” He ain’t my idea of a Prez either. Oh, what a calamity, America you are at war with America. Ah, America you are now confronted by your own very Jekyll and Hyde moment; a moment your soul is rent in two. Today, you are Hillary (America) Clinton and Donald (America) Trump – the very best of your system and the very banal and warped. You have chosen banality over rationality and you are gonna have to deal with it for at least four years. What a pity.

    You sure have a caper in your hands don’t you? I wager that if you are lucky, you might just get away merely bruised and dented, otherwise, you may just have suckered yourself into the beginning of the end of the American age. What an ominous coincidence: 9/11 and 11/9.

    Oh what a disgrace! How could you America, vote a president who is friend with that diminutive dictator? How could you vote a president who is a tax evader? I thought that was enough to disqualify anyone? How did the FBI split many hairs about the silly matter of private emails and allowed tax-dodging?

    Oh America, how did you trump (yes, trump) yourself so and blew a chance in a millennium to make history; to install a great woman POTUS; the first and probably the best of her kind. More baffling is the statistic that more women voted Donald than voted Hillary. And how could that be? Yet women speak of gender equality and here they fluffed a chance to take the number one seat on earth?

    Why did I think no American woman would vote Donald, the self-confessed p—sy-grabber and who is proud of it? To think that you, American woman voted a woman abuser; who can fathom the wondrous ways of the feminine gender? It’s true after all that bad guys win fair hearts; read fatal attraction.

    Well, so long as it isn’t a fated election for you, America. But you sure sucked it to the rest of the world, America-crazed world. If it were up to my country Nigeria, Hillary would have been president-elect last year not last Tuesday. You won’t believe it but some of us here shed a tear too for Hillary. For reasons not quite clear and rational to us, we are Democrats here.

    You burst the asses of our prophets and pundits here as well, showing them up as profit (eers) and junkies. And shall we say that American stupidity has its own uses too. Next time our prophets speak, we now know to cross-check with the Chinese monkey that predicted this Trump tragedy right… against 150 to zero odds.

    But hey Yankee, now that you’ve got everyone one’s monkey up, what are you gonna do? Ha, ha!

     

    Senate and the Magu travesty

    It will amount to a travesty of justice and a taint on the 8th Senate if Mr. Ibrahim Magu is not confirmed as substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). It is almost a year since President Muhammadu Buhari sent Magu’s name to the Senate.

    Not a word from the Senate and Magu’s acting status would soon elapse automatically, making his position a nullity. This is not acceptable. The Senate of the Federal Republic cannot choose and pick who to confirm or act based only on its own whims. We suspect foul play here.

    Magu is not without flaws of his own, but he is eminently qualified; he has done a damn good job of his extremely tough assignment so far. He should not only be confirmed, he should get a written commendation if our Senate were peopled by honourable men.

    So much to say yet, but let’s just note for now that the Magu matter is deeper than it seems and may well define this Senate’s life more than any other issue.

  • Who becomes America’s president?

    Who becomes America’s president?

    After months of campaigns, rocked with scandals and controversies, lewd stories and mudslinging, Americans will vote to elect their president tomorrow. WALE AJETUNMOBI, who participated in a U.S. Foreign Press Center Tour on campaign reporting, examines some of the issues that may influence the outcome of the historic election.

    The die is cast. All campaign trains have stopped.  Attention has shifted to the United States (U.S.) as citizens of the world’s most powerful nation and most advanced democracy go to the polls to elect President Barack Obama’s successor a new.  The eight-year reign of Obama, an Afro-American leader, has been eventful, bringing the U.S. out of its worst recession since the 30s.

    Four candidates are jostling to succeed Obama as he steps out of the White House next year. They are: former American First Lady and one-time U.S. Secretary of State Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Democratic Party; billionaire businessman Donald John Trump of the Republican Party; former New Mexico State governor Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Mrs. Jill Stein of the Green Party.

    In the past five months, the candidates traversed the length and breadth of the U.S. landscape, canvassing for support. The U.S. political atmosphere became tense, as candidates and their supporters held rallies. Although, four Americans are in the race to the White House, the race is clearly between the duo of Mrs. Clinton and Trump, representing the two largest political parties – the Democrat and the Republican.

    The run-up to the race has been filled with a plethora of mudslinging and lewd stories that shook the America’s 240-year-old democracy to its foundation. Trump and Mrs. Clinton took their rivalry beyond politics. They went personal, unsparing in their choices of words. Their tantrums blew open many of their secret dealings and ‘guarded secrets’.

    The Trump-Clinton clash drew unprecedented interference in the U.S. election by the Russia, America’s sworn opponent on capitalist system and foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of covertly deploying hackers to undermine the America’s electoral system.

    Giving credibility to the allegation at a state event, Putin praised Mr. Trump’s candidature, a development that was seen as an indication of possible alliance between the Grand Old Party’s (GOP’s) candidate and the Kremlin, a key economic and power player in the East and Europe.

    The discord between Mrs. Clinton and Trump got a breaking point, where both candidates abandoned the nucleus of their political campaigns and threw muds at each other. In the ensuing crossfire, the duo smeared their cherished names and characters. Their families and businesses were not spared.

    For several weeks during the campaigns, America’s polity was polarised. But the diatribe between the major gladiators only got their supporters excited. Millions of independent voters, with no attachment to either of the parties, were unmoved by the war of words between Mrs. Clinton and Trump.

    As advanced and sophisticated as the U.S. democracy is, the events leading tomorrow’s presidential election showed that America’s political and electoral systems have no immunity to primitive sentiments and inconsistencies, that usually colour the credibility of electoral processes, especially in developing countries.

    The Republican Party candidate said he would reject the whole election should the outcome turn out against his favour. As many watchers of the U.S. politics rightly posited, this is a “strange development” for a democracy seen as a superlative model.

    Trump’s apprehension, though unfounded, was informed by the supposed spotlight on his peculiar character by the America’s mainstream media establishment. He felt there was high-level conspiracy against his campaign, with the aim of given his main challenger an undue advantage. This ostensibly made the GOP candidate to raise allegations that the electoral process was being rigged against him.

    But there are key issues that would determine the outcome tomorrow’s election with a sharp division within the political class on what should be the “American Dream” in the 21st Century.

    These include immigration policy; gun control and homeland security; healthcare insurance; rising students’ loan debt; jobs and minimum wage; local debt; foreign policy; ties with Russia, Iran and China; climate change and clean energy, and America’s engagement in foreign wars.

     

    The ‘American Dream’ in focus

    The presidential election is predicated on two words – American Dream. These words were repeatedly cited throughout the campaign period by all the candidates jostling for Oval Office. To outsiders, American Dream could be seen as a mere patriotic expression. But for the American voters, these two words are the determinants of who gets their ballot.

    American Dream represents a set of ideals on which the U.S. founding fathers laid the foundation of the country. In appreciation of the country’s pronounced diversity, America’s forebears believed the continuous existence of Amrica would depend on two key values – freedom and prosperity.

    All citizens have convergent views about freedom, but opinion is divided about its prosperity. There have been growing anxieties, especially among White middle-class that sees America falling apart. The sentiment was largely informed by the decline in the number of white middle-class and the increase in the population of immigrants taking over available jobs reserved for citizens.

    About 37 per cent of white voters, who responded to a recent poll conducted by John Zogby, a renowned American pollster, believed American adults get jobs that pay less than the previous jobs. The polls’ results showed that people believed many American have not kept up with the cost of living, because of the static wages.

    “There is a real sense of fear among the white Americans. From 2005 to 2006, three out of four Americans said the American Dream is alive and well. But today, what we are hearing from many people in the white middle-class is that, ‘I am afraid of no longer being middle-class’ and ‘I am afraid that my children will not be’. This is a real fear”, Zogby told The Nation.

    Also, with the transformation of the U.S. economy in the last two decades, some Americans believe the country had lost its old manufacturing and information economy, without quickly replacing it with the next economy to catch up with its competitors. This has led to the fear that America’s prosperity is on the reverse.

    This anxiety is the basis of the Trump’s campaign. The GOP candidate believes America is losing its essence and needs a reset to attain its political destiny. He promised to make “America great again”.

    Clinton, on the other hand, believes American Dream is on course, citing the number of entrepreneurs inspired by the Obama administration, which brings about regular job creation and increased prosperity.

     

    Candidates’ immigration plans

    There is a report that, by 2042, America would be a nation of minority of whites and majority of non-whites. The rationality of this report is daily reinforced by influx of Latinos, Arabs, Muslims and people, whose beliefs and values, are in anathema to the ideals espoused by the U.S. founding fathers.

    The widening demography of non-whites, who entered the U.S. illegally, has got some Americans thinking and asking what happened to the immigration policy.

    Some voters agree with Trump on his plan to stop illegal immigration and initiate reforms that would shut the American door against Latinos and Arabs.

    Immediately Trump announced his plan to run for the presidency, he claimed Mexico had been sending “violent criminals”, including rapists, into the U.S, calling for the deportation of more than 12 million undocumented immigrants.

    If he wins, Trump said, he would build a wall against Mexicans entering the U.S. through its border with State of Arizona. He buttressed his plan when he met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, last August, saying Mexico would be made to finance the construction of the wall or be subject to penalties.

    After the meeting with Mexican President, Trump returned to Arizona to release his 10-point immigration agenda. He pledged to build a wall across the entire southern U.S. border, triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, require businesses nationwide to use e-Verify to determine the work eligibility of their employees, cut federal support to sanctuary cities, and restrict legal immigration, particularly the flow of guest workers.

    The Republican party presidential hopeful plans to end the U.S. policy of granting citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. His immigration plan has generated controversies, with many saying it would have negative impact on the American diversity.

    Mrs. Clinton’s immigration plan wants to ensure a comprehensive legislation that includes a path to full and equal citizenship for undocumented immigrants. She pledged to introduce omnibus legislation during her first 100 days in the White House.

    She promised to expand Obama’s executive actions that defer deportation and grant temporary work visas for nearly half of the undocumented migrants, despite Supreme Court’s ruling in June which upheld a temporary ban on one of them.

    The Democratic Party’s flag bearer would rather want humane immigration enforcement and detention practices that would spare children and vulnerable people from confinement in large facilities. She promised to create a new agency that would co-ordinate the immigration policy across all levels of government and help immigrants integrate into their communities.

    Last year, Mrs. Clinton supported Obama’s executive order to accept thousands of Syrian refugees into the U.S., but called for greater vigilance in screening the migrants. She warned against denying the refugees entry based on country of origin or religion.

     

    Climate change and clean energy

    Scientists have been buttressing the claims that the earth temperature is rising. They claim that the average earth temperature rose by 1.5°F over the past century, causing global warming, unstable weather condition and natural disasters. According to them, the global temperature is likely to rise to a threshold that could endanger the planet.

    To Trump the anxiety is uncalled for. He believes that climate change poses insignificant threat, doubting that humans are contributing factors.

    “I consider climate change to be not one of our big problems,” Trump said during a campaign before the GOP primaries.

    In May, he outlined his energy reform plan, pledging to lead the country toward total energy independence while accounting for “rational environmental concerns” like clean air and water. His proposal called for expanding domestic production of oil and gas, voiding the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and rejecting the 2015 Paris climate deal.

    Having led the Obama administration’s 2012 establishment of a global initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, Mrs. Clinton believes the U.S. must lead the global effort to reduce global warning and atmospheric pollution.

    As president, Mrs. Clinton said she would aim to making the U.S. the world’s clean energy superpower when she announced her two proposals to fight climate change. The plans include installation of more than half a billion solar panels by the end of her first term, and the generation of enough renewable energy to power every U.S. home within 10 years.

    She also vowed to fight Congress Republicans’ effort to undo President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which set carbon emission limits across the U.S.

     

    Gun control and internal security

    Against the backdrop of increasing gun violence in the U.S., Homeland Security and gun control became topical in the campaign. Each candidate has divergent views on how the U.S. government should strengthen internal security. Interestingly, both Trump and Mrs. Clinton agree that home-grown terrorism and gun violence must be curtailed.

    Mrs. Clinton unveiled a multi-pronged plan to defend the U.S. homeland against local criminals and terrorist attacks.

    She said: “I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets. We may have our disagreements on gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few things.

    “If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. You shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. If you are too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.”

    Trump openly supported gun control but opposed restriction on assault-weapon sales. This earned him an endorsement from the National Rifle Association (NRA).

     

    Foreign policy

    Despite its enormous military might, the U.S. is faced with a growing set of international challenges. The rise of emerging powers in the Middleeast and Southeast Asia provides new opportunities for partnership. It also creates potential challengers to the U.S. influence and interests globally. This is why foreign policy is at the heart of this presidential election.

    Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy seeks to cooperate with emerging superpowers, such as China and Noth Korea on a range of international challenges, including climate change, while keeping competition within acceptable limits.

    She believes America should strengthen the NATO alliance and improving the energy security of European states, many of which rely on Russian natural gas. She wants tougher measures against Putin and wants the Russian president punished for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    On Iran’s nuclear programme, Mrs. Clinton supports a multinational agreement with Tehran to stop its nuclear programme, noting that the U.S. must ensure compliance.

    “We should anticipate that Iran will test the next U.S. president. They’ll want to see how far they can bend the rules. That won’t work if I am in the White House,” Mrs. Clinton said.

    Trump criticised the nuclear agreement with Iran and said he would renegotiate it if he is elected. He openly praised Putin’s brand of leadership and said he would enjoy meeting the Russian leader.

    Trump faulted the U.S. military tactics in Iraq. He also said the U.S. had nothing to gain from the battle to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS. He said the Obama administration timed the attack to boost Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy.

     

    Hobson Choice before the voters

    Personal character and integrity of Mrs. Clinton and Trump became germane issues in the throes of the campaign. It is believed that many Americans do not trust any of the candidates. They have expressed misgivings and reservations about their characters and mindsets.

    Having been on the power corridor for more than 20 years, some believe Mrs. Clinton had used her influence to curry undue international patronage for her personal business. As the Democratic Party candidate laboured to put down the controversies generated by the Clinton Foundation’s international engagements, her e-mail scandal broke out and threatened to rock the boat of her campaign.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team initially concluded that it would not institute a criminal case against Mrs. Clinton, but faulted the Democratic Party’s candidate for “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information. Mrs. Clinton denied that none of the e-mails sent via the private server was classified.

    A few days ago, the FBI said it had strong evidence of wrongdoing against Mrs. Clinton in the e-mail scandal. This has cast a slur on her integrity, giving voters reasons to doubt her candidature to the U.S. presidency.

    Trump’s albatross remains his volubility and unpredictable temperament. In the past few months, Trump made uncharitable comments against women, African-Americans, Hispanics, war veterans and Muslims.

    Last month, Washington Post released a 2005 clip in which Trump used offensive words to qualify female genitals and boasted about molesting women. Many voters believe Trump’s ‘abnormal’ character and utterances are unbecoming of candidate for the U.S. presidency.

    But tomorrow, American voters are caught between the devil and the deep-blue sea; they are faced with Hobson Choice to elect one of the two imperfect candidates.

     

    Who would the Swing states favour?

    The Swing states are states that can switch in favour of either Democrat or Republican, because both parties of almost equal following in those states. Latest polls have shown that states, such as Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia have the power to swing in tomorrow’s election.

    Neither Trump nor Clinton can boast of significant lead in these battleground states. Both candidates suffer in approval ratings. Only one-third of Americans think Mrs. Clinton is honest and trustworthy; 35 per cent of voters think Trump is dishonest. About 57 per cent of voters say they don’t share Mrs. Clinton’s values, while 62 per cent disagree with Trump’s values.

    Substantial number of the voting population believes Mrs. Clinton has the right kind of temperament and personality to be a good president. Trump is at disadvantage.

    To win these swing states, both candidates have channeled their campaign funds to hold rallies and woo undecided voters.

     

    Likely effects of demographics on poll’s outcome

    In previous U.S. elections, race and gender played key roles in determining the outcomes. These demographics have always been a huge dividing line in the U.S. election. The clash between Trump and Mrs. Clinton is no different, as 17 per cent of Hispanics and three per cent of black people back Trump, according to recent polling. This could prove significant in this election, because Hispanics account for more than one-fifth of the population in four key swing states.

    Education is another major demographic division in the race. Among high school graduates or those with a lower level of education, Trump has the backing of 44 per cent, compared to Clinton’s 36 per cent support. States of Georgia and Nevada have a high proportion of people failing to graduate from high school, and this may prove to be battlegrounds for the Democratic Party.

     

    To be continued

     

     

  • What message will America send?

    What message will America send?

    In November 8, 2016, America, the Beautiful, will make a choice of leadership and priorities. Will the choice be “Morning in America” or, as one insightful Washington Post columnist puts it with a foreboding imagery, “Mourning in America”? Whatever her choice, America will send a message to an anxious world.

    For 240 years, American democracy has presented to the world an enviable resilience. For many, if not most of those years, she has struggled with her own demons—forced enslavement of Africans, disenfranchisement of women and freed slaves, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor, and police profiling of minorities.

    Official and quasi-official acts of discrimination, these have placed an indelible blot on an otherwise outstanding story of democratic governance in which the ideal of “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” is the ultimate goal.

    It is this pledge, deliberatively and deliberately embedded in the American experiment that stands it out and recommends it to the world as a beacon of hope for a humanity that needs to see itself as one, even in the face of evident divisions of race, gender, language and ideologies.

    The need is crucial and unassailable if the world must combine its forces to combat the most dangerous enemies of its kind, whether natural or contrived. It is unclear how long the world, as we know it, is programmed by nature to last; but it is clear that by our own (in)actions, we could dangerously accelerate the imminence of that natural order.

    America has sought to present itself as a bulwark of democratic governance with an abiding interest in protecting the downtrodden across the globe and spreading the good news of freedom and justice. It has not always been perfect, especially in reconciling its interests with those of the nations that it proclaims to protect. This accounted for its cold war practice of protecting and supporting dictators whose loyalty she could count upon even as they oppress their citizens. Yes, mistakes were made. But America has also made important contributions to those nations.

    As a land of immigrants, America has been welcoming to citizens of other countries as they seek better lives for themselves and their dependents. Many of the poor countries of the world across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia have a lot to be thankful for the better lives that their citizens have found in America not only on account of the huge amount of remittances they receive, but also in terms of the opportunities for professional advancement that the United States provides.

    Such is the case with Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, a Nigerian medical doctor, who received his medical degree at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and relocated to America.  He and his colleague detached a 23-week old foetus from her mother’s womb, removed her tumour and then placed her back in the womb. The baby thereafter developed normally in the womb until she was born again at 36 weeks, literally answering Nichodemus’ question in our lifetime.

    But what message will America send to the world on November 8? Anyone who has been watching the United States’ presidential campaigns for at least the past 15 months cannot but be concerned about the gutter level of political discourse in the foremost democracy that the world looks up to. The nativism and ultra-nationalism of one campaign is a dangerous recoil from the world, with far-reaching consequences. If Brexit sent a chilling message to Europe, the whole world can expect “Amerixit” to be a damning catastrophe. It is not a coincidence that the only world leaders that have embraced Trumpism are dictators from Asia to the Middle East. No doubt, African dictators will soon join the fray.

    “Amerixit” in Trumpism is not just a withdrawal from the world. It is also a dangerous reversal of the enduring message of hope enshrined in The Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

    This was the America that welcomed the Irish, the East and Western Europeans, the Jews fleeing from the Holocaust, Latin Americans, Caribbean, including Cubans and Haitians, and yes, Africans. It was the America that welcomed President Obama’s father. At more than 50% approval rating two months till the end of his presidency, clearly, that immigrant-friendly America is worth preserving. On his part, the president has at every opportunity reminded his fellow citizens that only Native Americans have a claim to America as original indigenes. Everyone else is an immigrant.

    Surely, there is a broken immigration system which needs fixing. Reasonable leaders in both parties, including former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, have at various times risked their political capital to deal with a comprehensive reform only to be rebuffed by die-hard nativists in their party. Now this latter group has a champion in Trumpism. And it seems clear that with a Trump presidency, immigrant-friendly America is doomed.  That prospective message should alarm the world.

    Trumpism is not just anti-immigration; it is also dangerously anti-diversity. A good number of commentators have identified a dark side in the “Take Back Our Country” and “Make America Great Again” campaign slogans of Trumpism as a not-so-veiled resentment against the “other” who happen to be non-white.

    The former Speaker, John Boehner, a Republican himself, saw through this rhetoric when he observed during an interview that there are not enough white men to propel a candidate to the White House. And of the population of white men, Trumpism cannot count on the support of many college-educated men. Nor can he count on the backing of suburban white women with college degree who resent his macho personality and evident demeaning of women.

    Some of those independent observers who see the trouble with Trumpism also have problem with Clintonism. They reference the scandal about the candidate’s use of private server as Secretary of State, a practice that is unsupported by long standing policy. They also cite the rumoured problem with Clinton Foundation. And the much talked about untrustworthiness of the candidate bothers a good number of people for whom this last issue is an umbrella that shelters the others. It is untrustworthiness that births the email saga and the Foundation rumour.

    Certainly, Clintonism has not done a good job of setting the record straight, and therefore much of the rumour and innuendo have been self-inflicted. The email issue should have been settled early on in the campaign with a straight-forward “I am sorry. I made a mistake.” When she finally made this declaration, it was apparently too late. But we know that the FBI decided against prosecution because it considered it a “careless mistake” that was not intentional. The eleventh hour reopening of the investigation will most likely end with the same conclusion. But this matter has undoubtedly given a lifeline to the drowning campaign of Trumpism.

    The truth, however, is that between Trumpism and Clintonism, there is no good ground for comparison. On the basis of policies, Clintonism is right on target regarding education, the economy, security, foreign policy, and yes, immigration. While Trumpism has pivoted to the worst extremism of his party, Clintonism has remained at the centre of discourse and practice where the American people increasingly find themselves.

    And on the matter of character flaws, there is also no comparison. No candidate in modern American history has ever matched Trumpism’s appeal to the worst instincts in humanity with regard to the words that flow therefrom regarding women, immigrants, people of other faiths, and inner city. That many Republican leaders have distanced themselves from that rhetoric and refused to endorse the candidate is instructive.

    With only four days to election, what message will America send to the world? For Lincoln “elections belong to the people… if they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” Trouble is, with America’s stature, the blister may spread, and infect the whole world.

  • America and the Trump challenge

    The difference between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two contestants for America presidency is clear. Nothing brought the difference home more vividly than their final appeal to the electorate after their last week final debate. Clinton advertised the record of her achievement in public service along with her manifesto: “…You know, I’ve been privileged to see the presidency up close and I know the awesome responsibility of protecting our country”, Clinton intoned with confidence.

    “I have made the cause of children and families really my life’s work; I will stand up for families against powerful interests, against corporations. I will do everything I can to make sure you have good jobs with rising incomes, that your kids have good educations from preschool through college. I hope you will give me a chance to serve as your president”.

    But from Trump, came a message of fear and of divisiveness: “We’re going to make America great. We have a depleted military. It has to be helped. We have the greatest people on earth in our military. We don’t take care of our veterans. We take care of illegal immigrants, people that come into the country illegally, better than we take care of our vets. That can’t happen… We are going to make America strong again and we are going to make America great again”.

    Perhaps the difference between the two also brought out the major weakness of democracy, the new god worshipped by more than half of the nations of the world. Free and fair elections, the hallmark of participatory democracy which often involve group bargaining or ‘a do or die’ approach – a euphemism for outright rigging as we have in Nigeria, sometimes throw up a nightmare. Here we have the experience of 2011 when we ended up with a Goodluck Jonathan who turned up to be a scourge of our nation. But even America, the home of democracy is not immune to this phenomenon. The process threw up a George Bush who did not know his left from his right and ended up committing America to two avoidable wars that turned Afghanistan and Iraq into failed states and foisted terrorism on the world.

    Writing for the New York Times back in 2008, Ian Kershaw, a professor of modern history at Sheffield University, and the author of Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution reminded us how skilful politicians in the mode of Adolf Hitler proved adept at using democratic structures to erect forms of authoritarian rule and went on to advise on the need for international cooperation to restrain potential “mad dogs” in the world before they bite. Back then, he had Vladimir Putin of Russia and the late Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela in mind. That was long before the emergence of Donald Trump, a creation of disgruntled, racist, Islamaphobic, college uneducated white workers and their Tea Party that ignited what many have described as a civil war in the Republican Party. His emergence with is message of hate has sent fear down the spines of many in the world especially Western Europe with greater stake in who becomes the next American president.

    We must understand where Europe is coming from. The horrors of the Second World War foisted on the people through the follies of a mad man are still fresh. Unfortunately, there are just too many parallels between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, credited with the slaughtering of 11 million people including the six million Jews incinerated in a gas chamber.

    Let us start with the environment. There is a frightening parallel between the social dislocations in Hitler’s 1929 Germany and Donald Trump’s 2007 and 2008 US. Just as the defeat and humiliation of Germany in the First World War and the great economic depression provided a fertile ground for Hitler to exploit the misery of his compatriots for political power, Trump has tried to exploit the political divisiveness within the Republican Party following the loss of power to Barak Obama, international terrorism and economic insecurity, fallouts of George Bush misadventure and bad policies. But for Trump, the scapegoat is Obama. Lying without shame and sounding like Hitler before the Jew final solution, he says ‘we have problem in this country. It is called Muslims. We know our current president is one, he is not an American…They have training camps where they want to kill us; we want to take our country back’.

    Like Hitler, Trump does not believe in political parties. Just as Hitler used Nazism as springboard to take over power, Trump hijacked the Republican Party to secure the party’s presidential ticket. Just as Hitler didn’t believe the party needed to serve the people, Trump after using the party to achieve his aim, assaulted the core values and the soul of the Republican Party. Like Hitler, he humiliated the real leaders of GOP. And just like what Hitler did to his party leading members, Trump has attempted to stop Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest ranking Republican from getting re-nomination ticket.

    Hitler had a ‘barstadisation’ policy for children born in Germany but of non-German parents. He believed they were inferior to German children and cannot be given citizenship because citizenship was by blood of the Aryan race. Trump like Hitler is against the Fourteenth Amendment which confers citizenship on all children born in America. Trump wants all such children deported.   Reminded of his constitutional limitations, he says because the constitutional process is too slow, he would explore other methods if he wins.

    Both are against freedom of expression and the press is their whipping dog. If Trump like Hitler has his ways, the state should control the press and use it as instrument for propaganda. Both have no regard for the famous declaration of Thomas Jefferson, the American founding father and the principal author of American declaration of independence (1776) that “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the later”.

    Trump’s ‘I am the only one who can fix America’ is not markedly different from Hitler’s delusion that he was ordained to protect the Aryan race. Just as Hitler blamed the Jews for most of the problems and evils in Germany as well as the world, Trump blames China for unemployment and Obama perhaps for stopping two wars. He then broke into lamentation: ‘Our country is in serious trouble, we used to have victories, not any more”.  How can Trump have victories when there are no more wars, if one may ask? Trump like Hitler, engages in rabid nationalism bordering on fascism.

    And finally, Trump and Hitler did not believe in democracy. For Hitler, ‘democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people’s true value’.  His plan as reflected in his ‘Mein Kampf’ was to “destroy democracy with the weapons of democracy”. In other words, secure power through democracy and then become a dictator because for him “One works best when alone” – a rejection of participatory democracy. Trump like Hitler probably wants democracy as a means to an end. There can be no other more compelling argument than his current attempt to undermine the foundation of the democratic process by insisting he will only accept the outcome of the coming election if he wins.

    As Matt Brundage has also reminded us, had “Hitler, the quintessential anti-democrat, who ascended to power as swiftly succeeded in World War II, he would have foisted his views and policies on an unprepared world”. American voters on November 8 have an opportunity to save their country and mankind from a dangerous man whose belligerence and ignorance may lead to Third World War.

  • How next U.S. president will emerge

    How next U.S. president will emerge

    Many democracies across the world are fashioned to reflect the United States (U.S.) presidential model. How many of those democracies have constitutional technicalities that almost made the U.S. presidential system a flawless model?

    Presidents and Vice Presidents are elected by popular votes in a presidential system. But, the U.S. model is complex. According to the U.S. Constitution, America’s presidents and vice presidents are not elected by citizens’ votes alone. After the popular votes, the contenders for the U.S. presidency will need to go for another election at the Electoral College.

    Electoral College, as the name may have implied, is not an institution, but a group of representatives (electorals) from all the federating states. America’s founding fathers ostensibly foresaw a situation where an unpopular candidate may find his way into the White House. “American founding fathers feared the rule of the mob and feared about democracy,” John Zogby, a renowned pollster, said of the Electoral College.

    Zogby, senior partner at John Zogby Strategies, said the purpose behind Electoral College as is to give every constituency an opportunity to have input in the selection of who becomes occupant of the White House. He said it is a form of check and balance in the electoral process to prevent election of a “dangerous candidate”.

    In the U.S., there is a total 538 Electoral College votes. This number is determined according to constituencies represented in the Congress. The representatives of these constituencies may automatically become the electorals or each party may nominate loyal members as electorals.

    Each state has two senators. Membership of the House of Representatives is varied, because it is based on population and size of a constituency.

    For any candidate to be elected president or vice president, he must garner 270 majority out of 538 Electoral College vote.

    Does that mean the popular vote is meaningless?

    Winning popular votes during the presidential election is not enough to declare a candidate as winner, but it puts such candidate in a position to win the Electoral College votes of the state. For a candidate to win electoral votes in a state, he has to win the state during presidential election.

    In his analysis, Zogby said: “New York State, for instance has 29 Electoral College votes. A candidate does not have to win the majority of the popular votes to win New York; if that person just wins the total votes cast, that person gets the full 29 electoral votes. It is the same way in almost every state. There are couples of states that are different, such as Nebraska and Maine. It is because they are very small states.”

    How Electoral College works

    Traditionally, Republican and Democratic parties put together a slate of electorals in each state. These are loyal members and people that could be counted on to support their candidates. According to the U.S. Constitution, one month after the presidential election is held, the electorals of the winning party in each state go to the state capital to cast their Electoral College votes for the president and vice president.

    Each electorals will cast ballots for the president and do the same for the vice president. This is regarded as the official election to the U.S. presidency.

    Can any electoral change his mind?

    There is possibility an electoral may change his mind and vote against the party’s directive. Although, the electorals are chosen on the basis of long time loyalty to the party and trust, but America’s founding fathers wanted in the system to run a final check and ensure Americans did not elect somebody too dangerous.

    The electorals are deemed as responsible people and can ultimately make the decision on behalf of their constituencies.

    Zogby said: “It is impossible that electorals may go to the state capital to cancel out that state’s votes. This has not happened, but individual electorals vote according to their conscience. When people cast popular votes on election day, they vote for candidates in each party as a single ticket.

    “But, electorals, technically, will cast two different ballots. It is technically possible to elect the president from one party and vice president from another party. It depends on who each party chooses as electorals in the first place.”

  • Ayade to legalize hawking in Cross River

    Ayade to legalize hawking in Cross River

    The Cross River State governor, Prof Ben Ayade, has sent a Hawkers’ Right Bill to the State House of Assembly in a bid to legalize hawking in the state.

    Ayade, in an interaction with reporters in his office in Calabar said it is insensitive for a government to ban hawking without any alternative.

    According to him, such amounted to the infringement of the right of the hawker.

    His words, “I have just sent the Hawkers’ Right Bill to the House of Assembly, to provide a right for hawking. You cannot tell a man not to sell his goods because he does not have money to rent a store. And you tell the man not to steal? Just provide a regulatory framework; there should be reflective outfits, there should be a minimum age of 18 to hawk, you will have a time frame when you come out so that you don’t constitute nuisance. But to prohibit hawking is to tell a man I don’t want to give you food, and I don’t want you to steal. It is unfair. They have right to seek and determine how they chose to live within the ambits of the law.

    “Cross River would the first state that would officially recognize hawking. The core mandate of a leader should be the social security of his people. If a man choses to hawk, if you are government that is sensitive and understands the real principle and objective of the law, then you will know that the hawker has a right. Governance is about how you protect the weakest in the society and that is why even with the way things are, Cross River is still doing tax exemption for the poor.”

    The governor also said the expansion of his new government by engaging about 800 appointees was deliberate to ensure many people were empowered financially.

    He announced that he was going to announce 300 more appointees next week.

    Ayade said he would rather spend four years paying salaries to reduce hunger and quit as governor than spend money on projects and politicians.

    The governor also said the Presidential System adopted from America was not the best in running the country.

     

  • Race, politics and economics in America

    Race, politics and economics in America

    Here, quoted at considerable length, is the lead story in The New York Times (Late Edition) for November 25, 2008, titled RACIAL BARRIER FALLS IN DECISIVE VICTORY.

    “Barrack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

    “The election of Mr Obama amounted to a national catharsis – a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr Obama’s call for a change in the direction and tone of the country.

    “But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.”

    In his victory speech the previous night, in Grant Park, Chicago, President-elect Obama was            no less expansive.

    “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy,’’ he said, “tonight is your answer.”

    “It has been a long time coming,” he added, “but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

    Three months later, on the night of Obama’s Inauguration, some 20 House Republicans gathered      at a steakhouse across from the US Capitol to lick their wounds – they had also lost control of the House and the Senate – and, more to the point, to plot how to ensure that the Obama presidency would fail.

    They came out of the working dinner vowing to fight Obama on every issue, to be united and unyielding in their opposition; in short, to “take back the country” – their country – at the earliest opportunity.

    Far from sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics” as The New York Times had declared, the election of Barak Obama entrenched it, consecrated it, and invested it with the kind respectability Jim Crow could not muster even at its most benign. Far from taking great pride in Obama’s oft-repeated assertion that only in America is his story possible, they are ruing how it  came about and saying, never again.

    The election upturned what white, middle-aged Americans without a college education had always regarded, and profited disproportionately from, as the natural order of things.  This is the group that globalisation and technological innovations left behind, the group that once thrived on high-paying jobs that have disappeared and will never return.

    Middle-aged white Americans without a college education live for the most part amidst sad reminders of halcyon days, in decaying towns piled with rutted heaps of abandoned mills and manufacturing plants.  The average family now has to work two jobs just to keep afloat. Access to credit, more than anything else, is what sustains the average American in the illusion of well-being

    Although the economy has made a significant recovery during Obama’s tenure – more than nine million jobs have been added since he took office — the really significant gains have gone to  speculators in the casino economy, many of whom go home with $10 million in bonuses alone at the end of each year.

    And now as reported recently by the Princeton economists Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case, “something startling” is happening to middle-aged white Americans, the foot soldiers of the Republican Party, the constituency of the TEA Party and Donald Trump.

    Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, and unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, driven by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse.

    In contrast, the death rate for middle-aged blacks and Hispanics continued to decline during the same period, as did death rates for younger and older people of all races and ethnic groups.

    Middle-aged blacks still have a higher mortality rate than whites — 581 per 100,000, compared with 415 for whites — but the gap is closing, and the rate for middle-aged Hispanics is far lower than for middle-aged whites at 262 per 100,000.

    The least educated also had the most financial distress.  In the period examined by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case, the inflation-adjusted income for households headed by a high school graduate fell by 19 per cent.

    In 2014, according to another analysis, among 25- to 54-year-olds without college degrees, blacks and Hispanics were much more positive than whites: 67 per cent of African-Americans and 68 per cent of Hispanics responded “much better” or “somewhat better,” compared with 47 per cent of whites.

    Those figures represent a reversal from 2000, when whites were more positive than blacks, 64 per cent to 60 per cent. (Hispanics were the most positive in nearly all years

    What used to be considered the peculiar pathology of black society in America has now caught up with the white underclass.  The resentment of that class is what Donald Trump has been exploiting.  It has served him well, at least to the extent that it has helped consolidate his base.

    Given the foregoing you can expect a hardening, not a softening of the racial rhetoric, especially on the right.  The world glimpsed something of this on live television and raw video last week showing the gruesome killings of two black men by police officers during more or less routine encounters — one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the other in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

    There was yet another in which a black man shot and killed five officers in an ambush and wounded nine more people at a peaceful demonstration by whites and blacks against the Lousiana and Minnesota killings.

    Hundreds of blacks have died at the hands of white police officers during routine traffic stops over the years, and in situations that posed no grave danger to the public or to the officers.  In almost every case, juries have absolved the police, saying they acted in reasonable fear for their lives, even when the police team had the lonely suspect on his back or belly, fully restrained.

    You do not have to act suspiciously or be in the “wrong” place to warrant the brutal attention of law and order.  The tennis star James Blake, a gentleman of the first class who would make an outstanding diplomat, was waiting in a hotel lounge in downtown Manhattan last year, for a cab to convey him to Flushing Meadows, venue of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships.

    Suddenly, two cops jumped him, guns drawn, pinned him down on his back and handcuffed him.  They said he matched the description of someone who had been reported snatching cell phones, or whatever.  The whole thing could have ended fatally.

    Couldn’t they have called him to a corner and interviewed him? He is, by the way, bi-racial, with a black father and a white mother, like Obama.

    The movement Black Lives Matter was launched to call attention to the casualness with which the police take black lives.  Its goal was to remind the police and a generally complaisant public that black lives need to be protected with no less vigour than white lives and Asian lives and Hispanic lives.

    Now, in a reversal not unusual here (remember, “Affirmative action” is “racist”), they are   calling the movement and its anthem racist.  Leading the pack is former New York Mayor Rudi Guiliani, he of the hyena snarl, who had condoned the racist excesses of New York Police officers in the bestial degradation of Abou Louima, a Haitian immigrant, and other serious misconduct.

    Of course, all lives matter.  That much is implied in the name and agenda of the movement.   But the police continually act as if they believe that some lives are more expendable than others.

    That is the issue. That is why it is necessary to remind them and those who think and act like them that Black Lives Matter.

  • Ooni Ogunwusi in historic tour of America

    The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, got a royal farewell when he left the country last week with his beautiful wife, Yeyeluwa Wuraola Ogunwusi. Amid pomp and fanfare, they arrived the United States of America penultimate Thursday, accompanied by the Ooni’s siblings and entourage of about 80 people, including prominent Yoruba monarchs like the Orangun of Ila, Oba Wahab Adedotun; the Timi of Ede, Oba Munirudeen Adesola; the Ajero of Ijero, Oba Adewole Joseph; the Olubaka of Oka-Akoko, Oba Yusuf Adeleye, among others. Also on the trip with the monarch were kingmakers, chief priests and his traditional guards.

    According to Comrade Moses Olafare, the Director of Media and Public Affairs at Ooni’s Palace, Ooni Ogunwusi travelled to the U.S. on a two-week visit to attend the 2016 annual Odunde Festival believed to be the largest gathering of the blacks in America. The Ooni is also scheduled to receive the White House Ambassador of Peace Award on June 22.

    On Friday, June 10, he was a guest at the United Nations Population Fund Building in New York. He also visited the African burial ground, Manhattan, New York, where many African slaves were said to have been buried alive in the early 18th Century. He was honoured with the presentation of the historical city of Newark and hosted to Colombia University town hall meeting at Lerner Hall, Broadway, New York.

    Other programmes lined up to mark the Arole Oodua’s historic visit to the US included a grand reception at New Jersey on June 11, put together by Ife Ooye in North America, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA) New York on June 13, a symposium at Howard University, Washington DC, on June 15 and Oduduwa Economic Development/Transformation Leadership Summit at Gaylord Hotels, Maryland on 16th June.

    He will also pay a business visit to HERSEY Chocolate factory for bilateral talks with the American biggest chocolate company, with a view to perfecting the markets for the newly unveiled cocoa plantation in Ife Kingdom. The visit will be climaxed by the annual convention of Egbe Omo Yoruba in Dallas, with a royal dinner organised by the Ajilesoros at Husto, Texas on June 25.

  • Dark days in America

    Dark days in America

    YOU know that adversity has well and truly come to the forest when the pawpaw fruit tree takes the floor at a gathering of the denizens and demands to be counted as one its stalwarts.

    You know that it is a dark era in American politics when the prohibitive front runner for the Presidential ticket of the Republican Party –hereafter the GOP, as in Grand Old Party – is the foul-mouthed Donald Trump, his immediate challenger is the venal Ted Cruz, and the other contestant whom it would be courteous to call a challenger is the robotic Marco Rubio.

    These three of the four candidates still standing are spawns of the extreme right wing that has seized the heart and soul of the GOP over the past three decades, ably supported by a string of ultra-conservative think-tanks, so-called evangelicals, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, a posse of millionaires determined to use money to bend the political   process to their will, and a Supreme Court that is for all practical purposes the high council of the GOP in judicial robes.  They are creatures of the people who produced Sarah Palin and similar aberrations.

    Now the very forces that created them are aghast and flailing desperately to block the frontrunner and promote one of the other two main contenders the least of three evils.

    Trump outscores Cruz and Rubio in notoriety and villainy, but both seem cut from the same cloth.

    Take Cruz first.

    In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was prosecuted for stealing a calculator from a store. The crime carried a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors mistakenly treated Haley as a habitual offender. The judge did not detect the error, and sentenced Haley to a jail term of 16 years.

    The mistake was eventually discovered and Haley sought relief.  Ted Cruz, then solicitor-general of Texas, would have none of it and petitioned the Supreme Court to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years.

    “Justice Anthony Kennedy’s interjection during oral arguments was telling.  “Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?” he asked.  Haley was subsequently released. But by then, he had spent six years in jail.

    New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks cited this case in characterising Ted Cruz as “a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace.” Cruz’s behaviour in the Haley case, he wrote,”is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.”

    Until he was sandbagged in one debate by Chris Christie, the New Jersey Governor who has since dropped out of the race, Marco Rubio, the first –term U. S. Senator for Florida with the razor- thin résumé, carried on as if he was running against Obama, whom he addressed in the most disrespectful terms and accused of the heinous crime of trying to “change” America.

    The election, he said repeatedly, was about who was ready to serve as commander-in-chief from Day One, as if being the son of a bar tender and a hotel maid, a circumstance he always brought up, was the ultimate preparation for that supreme office.   That is how far gone he is in his delusion.  Though running a distant third, he has even urged Cruz to get out of the race and leave him to face Trump.  He says he is the only Republican candidate who can beat the likely Democratic candidate, Clinton, in a presidential election.

    It is to these two, Cruz and Rubio, that the GOP establishment has turned for salvation.

    They are pouring tens of millions of dollars into television advertising across key states, portraying Trump, for whom there is no sympathy in this corner, as a figure without any redeeming value.

    They had looked on with glee as Trump challenged President Barack Obama’s American citizenship, claiming that the people he had sent to Hawaii, Obama’s homestate, had come up with findings that would shock everyone.  He never released the alleged findings, and the news media did not challenge him to produce them or shut up.

    They had looked on approvingly as their ranks obstructed one Obama initiative after another, treated him with the utmost contempt, cast him as a Moslem terrorist-sympathiser, threatened to impeach him for “treason” and sought to de-legitimise him in every way inconceivable – all in an effort “to take the country back.”  They did not stir when First Lady Michelle Obama was portrayed in their media as first cousin of a chimpanzee that escaped from a zoo in Oklahoma.

    While all this was going on, Mitt Romney, President Obama’s opponent in the 2012 presidential election, would only say that he would not have used the language of Obama’s calumniators.  The calumny itself apparently sat well with him.

    In that election Romney actively sought and revelled in Trump’s endorsement, lauding the property developer as one of the most successful businessmen in America and as someone who has created thousands of jobs.

    Now, irony of ironies, it is the same Romney leading the Stop Trump brigade, denouncing Trump as a phony and a fraud, and as morally unfit to lead America.

    Romney apparently does not realise that he is one of the elite the movement conservatives have rejected to embrace the Trumps and Cruzes and Rubios – the voters whose minds they had poisoned with their racist rants, their homophobia, their rejection of science, their craven bid to disenfranchise African American and Hispanic voters, and their perversion of Holy Writ.

    Romney has little following and even less credibility. The health insurance scheme he instituted as governor of Massachusetts was so successful that it served as the template for what has come to be known as Obamacare.

    Yet, sensing the undercurrent of reflex opposition to Obamacare from the GOP camp, he vowed in 2012 that if elected president, he would repeal it in his first day in office.  Such is the cynicism, the utter lack of principle that drives those who created and now seek desperately to  ditch the monsters haunting and threatening to devour them.

    For all I care, they can stop Trump and foist either Cruz or Rubio or any other demagogue on the American electorate in November.  The centre has shifted from under their feet.  Long live their distemper.

  • WHO raises alarm as Zika virus spreads “explosively”

    WHO raises alarm as Zika virus spreads “explosively”

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is “spreading explosively” and can infect as many as four million people.

    THE WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan, said this at a meeting on Friday with the agency’s executive board in Geneva, adding that the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.

    She said that to help determine its response, WHO would convene an emergency meeting on Monday, because the level of alarm was extremely high.

    Chan told the Geneva gathering that in 2015, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it was now spreading explosively.

    She stressed that as of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region.

    She recalled that WHO was criticised in 2015 for reacting too slowly to West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 10,000 people, and it promised to cut its response time.

    “We are not going to wait for the science to tell us there is a link with birth defects.

    “We need to take actions now,” Chan said, referring to the condition called microcephaly in which babies were born with abnormally small heads and brains that have not developed properly.

    Chan promised a quick action from the WHO, stressing that this has become urgent because there is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes.

    “An estimated 80 per cent of people infected have no symptoms.

    “Much of the effort against the illness focuses on protecting people from mosquitoes and reducing mosquito populations,’’ she said.

    Meanwhile, WHO Assistant Director, Bruce Aylward, said there was no confirmation yet in the area of vaccines.

    He said there were no indications if there had been some work done by some groups looking at the feasibility of a Zika virus vaccine.

    Aylward said it would take six to nine months to confirm whether Zika was the actual cause of the birth defects, or if the two were just associated.