Trump and Biden: How Nigerians Are Voting

By Emmanuel Aziken

With the dominant influence of the United States in the world, it is understandable that many are concerned about next Tuesday’s presidential election.

Dr. Rueben Abati on Friday asked President Muhammadu Buhari to caution the United States to ensure democratic ethos are observed in the election!

The omens are indeed cloudy. On one hand, is the incumbent, Donald Trump who has captivated with his inclination to conservative values.

On the other hand, is the Democratic Party flag bearer, Joe Biden, 77 who should he win would become the oldest person to be inaugurated into the office of President of the United States.

Mr. Trump on his part is 74 years. In effect, the youths in America have been left out and would indeed envy the agitation of Nigerian youths for political expression.

Mr. Trump’s conservative policies even if he does not live by them have found traction with many Nigerians. Many in Nigeria like Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the Vanguard columnist, Ochereome Nnana among others have through their social media platforms projected the Trump candidacy.

Their inclination is understandable. They are still unforgiving of the alleged conspiratorial roles of the last United States Democratic government in which Biden served in forcing the Goodluck Jonathan administration out of office in 2015.

Despite being a black man, Mr. Barack Obama as president was quite disdainful of Nigeria and showed it in his policies. His actions were allegedly inspired by President Jonathan’s stiff opposition to the homosexual agenda in many of the policies of Obama administration. 

Whether for that or for other reasons, President Obama was said to have declined offering the Jonathan administration the needed military platforms to confront the Boko Haram insurgency.

Even more, Dr. Jonathan’s efforts to get the military platforms in the public market were frustrated by Obama.

The Trump administration on the other hand has been more result-driven and less apolitical in its dealings with the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Trump has dealt with Nigeria by putting US interests first.

That does not remove from the claim that he lamented after one meeting with Buhari that he never had a more boring session in his life!

Trump has been quoted as saying worse about others and believing all that have been credited to him would cast him as a buffoon!

But can there be a buffoon as president of the United States?

The narrative of the liberal left media that is now fully in bed with the Democratic Party, however, is to cover the economic and diplomatic triumphs of the Trump administration.

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration had steered the economy to unparalleled successes with unemployment and other economic indices at admirable levels.

Even beyond the mimicry that has been made of his foreign policy initiatives, Mr. Trump’s resort to bilateralism as opposed to multilateralism has seen quiet successes in breaking the Middle East conundrum.

Perhaps, no president in US history has quietly touched the Middle East as President Trump has done.

Whereas most United States presidential candidates always promised to set up the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Mr. Trump did not just promise, but went ahead and did it, breaking the rhetoric of his predecessors.

Mr. Trump accomplished this objective and at the same time won peace between Israel and some Arab states.

Between the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 and 2017 when he came in as president, Israel could only boast of diplomatic relations with two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan.

However, under President Trump, Israel has established diplomatic relations with two Arab nations, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, UAE. There is also word in diplomatic circles of an imminent agreement between Israel and Sudan!

Mr. Trump has achieved in the diplomatic arena through his resort to bilateralism in engaging countries one on one and not the multilateralism that had ensnared the Middle-East peace process of yore.

Even more, many Arab states are also not unmindful of Trump after he reversed Iran’s influence in the region with the assassination of Qassem Solemani at the beginning of 2020.

Unfortunately for Nigeria, it is this inclination to bilateralism that has made Mr. Trump object to Nigeria’s candidate for the World Trade Organisation, WTO, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who favours the multilateralism of the European Union.

Of course, Mr. Trump’s handling of COVID-19, which he calls the China Disease, has been less than hands-on. After falling to the disease and recovering following world-class treatment, Mr. Trump knows better.

For many voters, his handling of COVID-19 will cloud their decision on who to vote. It would be sad for the many good things that have come out of the administration.

However, win or lose, Nigerians who endorse his conservative platform are enthused by the handsome majority that has been enthroned on the Supreme Court that will hinder any attempt to redress the ideological victories of the past four years.

Many other Nigerians for the simple reason of Mr. Trump’s pro-Israel stance are also opposed to him. Opposition is strongest in Nigeria’s Muslim North where hatred for Trump started from his first days in office after his chorus of Islamic terrorism.

A leading voice in the Nigerian-American community, Dr. SKC Ogbonnia, reviewing the developments with your correspondent said that the enthusiasm for Mr. Trump in parts of Nigeria does not reflect the feeling of the community. But win or lose, America will never be the same after Mr. Trump!

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