After their most divisive campaigns ever, Americans went to the polls Tuesday. They chose controversial businessman Donald Trump as their president.
The new president has his job well cut out for him. The battle is over; the war lies ahead. The main headache is how to unify a country torn apart by xenophobia, its cherished values desecrated.
Trump knew what the majority of American voters wanted. He gave them a song: “We will make America great again”. Many were sold out to the sentiment. They plunged headlong into the emotion. Reason was thrown out of the window. Ah; the limits of intellect.
Suddenly, experience, an age-long asset, became a liability that had lost its weight on the scale of credibility. Morality lost its place. Many felt the race was over, with all the salacious expose on Trump’s denigration of womanhood – he joked about grabbing women’s bodies. Besides, some women went public with how the Republican candidate harassed them sexually.
TV reality show contestant Summer Zervos cited a 2007 incident. She claimed that Trump kissed her , touched her breast and tried to get her to lie down with him on a bed during a job hunt. “He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest to put space between us and I said, ‘Come on man, get real’. He repeated my words back to me, ‘Get real’, as he began thrusting his genitals,” Zervos said.
She was in tears. Beside her was celebrity attorney Gloria Allred at a Los Angeles press conference. “I wondered if the sexual behavior was some kind of test and whether or not I had passed,” she said.
Trump denied it all. He said he could vaguely remember Zervos as one of the contestants on “The Apprentice” over the years.
The Washington Post published a video account of a woman who claimed that Trump put his hand under her skirt. To American voters, it was all bunkum. Not even the sudden appearance of a video with the candidate surrounded by some women dressed like strip dancers hugging him and he grabbing them excitedly below the waist could sway the die-hards. They said so with their votes.
Before the election day, many had demonstrated that they would either sink or swim with Trump. At a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, a woman wore a T-shirt with the inscription, “Trump can grab my… “ , with an arrow pointing to her crouch.
Trump promised to build a wall to stop Mexicans crossing into the United States. Mexico, he said, will pay for the job. He never hid his disdain for Moslems and would send back home Africans as well as other immigrants.
The bookmakers were right not to have given Trump much chance. It turned out that they were wrong. Damn wrong. But that is the beauty of democracy. The majority carried the day.
I wonder the kind of greatness President Trump will bring back to his America in a delicate world that requires so much wisdom, political deftness and intellect. Racism? Empty machismo? Misogyny? The future seems to be so uncertain in the hands of a president who seems to be unprepared for this all-important job. America is likely to be isolated in a world that looks up to it for leadership. The business Trump has promised to protect is likely to suffer in the stifling environment. The stock markets were down immediately the news broke that Trump had won the election.
Perhaps Clinton would have made it if there was no “official conspiracy” as seen in the FBI’s suspicious probe of her emails, an exercise that portrayed her as careless and unreliable. There was no problem with the probe, but the popular thinking was that the timing was wrong, thrown in when the polls showed that she was set to win. It was a blow below the belt.
Some Americans launched a protest. They burnt the American flag and screamed: “He’s not our president.” Nigerians were laughing at them. They should have understudied the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), they said. There should have been an Elder Godsday Orubebe storming the hall to stop the announcement of the result of the election and screaming like a hungry hyena: “Jega, you have been compromised. We no longer have confidence in you!”.
The election, said a cynical fellow who claimed to have followed it all, ought to have been declared “inconclusive” as soon as Trump won in Florida. A Clinton supporter should have rushed to court to obtain an injunction barring the authorities, their agents, officials, privies or whosoever has any business with the results to stop the announcement henceforth. Thereafter he would have proceeded to another court of competent jurisdiction to obtain a perpetual injunction stopping Trump from ever running again.
Millions of Nigerians stayed up all-night, glued to their television sets. It was as if a Nigerian was on the ballot. They were eager to be part of history.
Many were battling to draw a parallel between the American experience and the Nigerian situation. One would have said they were miles apart, but for Trump who dragged it all into the gutters. Even before the first ballot was cast, he had sworn that he would only accept the result on one condition – if he won. Besides, he alleged that there were plots to rig the election for his opponent.
As the polls got underway, Trump went to court to challenge the extension of voting in Nevada. Too late, many said. In Nigeria, a serious candidate would not have waited for voting. He would have several weeks or months earlier rushed to court to stop his opponent for some inconsequential or perceived errors in the opposing party’s primary election.
There were no incidents of ballot box stuffing or snatching. The lists of voters were not doctored. Besides, when computers malfunctioned in Utah, nobody cried that they were being manipulated. In Nigeria, that would have been a major issue. The other time when former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife could not be accredited early, PDP chiefs alleged that using the card reader was all part of a grand plan to rig the election. “How could the machine have malfunctioned when the first family were set to be accredited. Na wayo,” they cried.
Some Nigerians were even grumbling that the American election was dull. One said:”What kind of election is this o? It is very boring. No Trump rice. No Clinton salt, no recharge card. No Ankara. No fish. People are just waiting on long queues; no ‘see and buy’ cash and no ECOMOG. Na wa o.”
Others were busy imagining what would have been on the minds of prominent Nigerian politicians if the stage had been here, with the news channels churning out the results. In the social media, there were flashbacks to the 2015 general elections. “As we speak now we are winning in 23 states and we have 64 per cent while the APC is winning in 14 states and has 36 per cent. The results are subject to confirmation… . However, we are certain of what we are saying because we have information from our agents in every polling unit nationwide. No one must test our will by attempting to change these results… .” That was the Jonathan Campaign spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode when it was as clear as the day that the PDP was losing the battle.
There were suggestions about what some prominent Nigerians would have said. “All the bad things said about Trump were exaggerated” – Dr Goodluck Jonathan. “Trump is already winning. Rig this election and rig your life” – Nyesom Wike. “We will hold Buhari responsible if Trump fails” –Fayose. “I have no money to refund to Clinton. I have spent everything on publicity” – Raymond Dokpesi.
Prof Wole Soyinka was said to have promised to tear his green card, should Trump win. That brought back memories of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who directed somebody to tear his PDP card publicly. “E bami ya welewele” (shred it well), he told the fellow as the small crowd of his supporters sang a dirge for the party. Will the Nobel laureate carry out his threat or listen to those who are saying he should never bother about this “American wonder”? He does not need to.
Clinton has conceded defeat. She has congratulated Trump. She has praised her supporters, telling them all not to be discouraged and to see themselves as members of the American team. Obama also said Americans should not see themselves as Democrats or Republicans but Americans. That is the spirit.
But the question remains: What kind of president will Trump be? May God bless-sorry, a slip-help America.
