Politics: Buhari Us and You Get Trump(ed)
The United states of America is smarting from embarrassment from the election that brought Trump to their presidency. This is the worst outcome they would have hoped for in the last November election. A man who no one gave a chance at his run for presidency wins the seat to become the most powerful man in the world. To make it worse, Russia, the American arch enemy is taking credit for making him win. No one could have scripted this movie. Even during the cold war, this was a scenario America would not have imagined. For the next 4 or 8 years, Americans will be uneasy with a president who for all they know was planted by Putin. Look over your shoulder, America, your arch enemy Putin has one up on you.
But America had it coming. And I have little sympathy for her. Not that my sympathy matters or is needed. This is retribution for the United States of America. Which election in the recent history has America not tried to influence. In poor Africa, America went beyond influencing. When it could not get its way, it sent the CIA to decide, often leaving blood trails. The signs are all over the place of how American has tried to plant dictators or remove dictators all over the world depending on which one suited its national interest. And non dictators also.
In the Nigerian election of 1983 that produced MKO Abiola, it was after America met with Abiola that he dropped dead from drinking tea. And that was after the then maximum ruler, Abacha had also mysteriously died from eating apple two weeks earlier. Sounds mysterious eh? The hand of the American CIA was all over it. It was an irony. Abiola who had hoped American will save his presidency and install him ended up dying just a step away from Suzan Rice the operative who had just had a meeting with him.
Fast forward to 2015. You could see American hand again in the election that brought Buhari to power. Hilary Clinton, then Secretary of state openly meddled in the election. First was by refusing to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization even when evidence showed that this was one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world and had ties to Al Qaeda. The purpose? Damage the capacity of the Nigerian government to get the needed help to fight the organization. At the same time, she mounted the pulpit to call the President of the country an ineffective president based on the same Boko Haram. Boko Haram was the hot button issue of the 2015 Nigerian election!
But the worst was to come. America denied the president the access to buy weapons to prosecute the war. The Nigerian government was forced to go cash in hand to buy weapons in the black market as the US made sure the government would not get arms from credible nations. And yet when the kidnap of the Chibok schoolgirls happened, America lampooned the government’s ineffectiveness at fighting the terrorist organization. How more meddlesome is this. The US government was clearly working for a regime change in Nigeria.
To cap it all, one of the US president’s closest aides, David Axelrod was sent to advise the opposition party as consultant. It was his social media strategy that made it possible for Nigerian youths to prefer voting in majority for a 71year old man over a much younger incumbent that could have appealed more to them. As the opposition used social media to brand the president, sometimes manufacturing lies and propaganda meant to sway the unwary. The result: Buhari the opposition candidate won a landslide, propelled by youth and social media. And when he won, the US and UK showed openly that they were happy to have installed him.
Two years down the line, I dare them to tell Nigerians that they helped us make a better choice. We are saddled with a President with little clue of the dictates of modern government. Next time the US wants to interfere in our elections, it should do a bit of home work. Or stay the hell away and allow us make our choice. And live with it.
And it serves Hilary Clinton right that she got served a dose of the medicine she was dishing to us in the third world. Same with Obama. Don’t get me wrong. I like Obama. And in a logical world, I would have loved to see Hilary Clinton win. She was a better candidate. But she helped make the world that chose a Donald Trump over her. And when Obama is done with his presidency and realizes that he is after all an African, we should ask him how he came to install a man old enough to be his father in Nigeria and allowed same to happen in America against his will. I guess in Trump’s case, it was not for want of trying. Putin just played a fast one on him.
America thinks that as the only super power, it can install who it wants as president anywhere in the world. Or remove anyone it does not trust. But it is realizing too late that it can also be served the same poison. Russia is back again courtesy of Putin and he has ,by installing Trump had the last laugh on America. This is the end of the era of a unipolar world. American days of being the only super power is dead. Welcome Russia. Welcome China. A new era of cold war that is fought in cyberspace has begun. And Russian just fired the first direct shot at the US.
But sadly this will not be the end of this movie. Both in Nigeria and the US. Buhari has been acting a horror move in Nigeria since his installation. With recession, inflation, naira collapse and murderous herdsmen as sub plots. We await the unfolding Trump movie as he is sworn in tomorrow. It promises to be an embarrassing time for America. I will be watching, popcorn in hand! For no matter how Obama tries to hide it, he knows that by tomorrow, he is leaving the US and the world in dangerous hands.
(This story was frist publsihed in 2017 on LinkededIn/collinsonuegbu)
