Running on empty

Last week, in an almost unimaginable turnaround, the 45th President of the United States, who was frustrated by the voters in his re-election effort four years ago, was comprehensively voted back in to be the country’s 47th President.

The story of his profile, as a man and as a politician, is well-known:

Trump responded with defiance and anger, threatening anyone and everyone who criticised him, promising a dictatorship and to bring retribution against these “enemies within.”

To those who objected to the man, the politician and his methods, all of this meant that he was unelectable, being a “threat to democracy.”
Last Tuesday, American voters disagreed.  Not only did they give Trump the twin triumph of Electoral College dominance and the popular vote, but they also gave him the Senate, with the House at the time of this story still uncertain.

Economic discontent is being cited as being responsible for last week’s political earthquake. Perhaps Kamala Harris’ support of reproductive rights, or gay rights.

But no one factor is capable of explaining it, because some of the emerging data is conflicting.  In some cases, for instance—on the same ballot—some women voted Trump for President, rejecting the Democratic candidate Kamala, only to vote for the Democratic candidate for Senate who was white.  In some cases, women voted for Trump but also supported reproductive rights.
Keep in mind also that ahead of the election, racism and sexism in America were being widely flagged around the world as issues that would determine November 5.  Was America simply not ready for a female leader, as in the case of Hillary Clinton?

Is a black woman, no matter how eminently qualified, a dream too far for now and the foreseeable future, and was Kamala punished—perhaps thrice—for being female, black and then both?

It is worth noting, particularly for Trump’s supporters in Africa who somehow feel that they have a reason to gloat, that following Kamala’s concession speech, some African-Americans immediately began to receive terrible racist messages.

So, what does this election mean for Nigeria?

First, let us remember that Americans in Nigeria were able to vote. Being abroad does not automatically deny an American of that fundamental right, and a US citizen with dual citizenship can vote from overseas. This partly means that Nigerians with American citizenship also voted, in the US or abroad, if they wanted to.

Nigerians abroad, on the other hand, automatically forfeit the right to vote.  This is because the Nigerian political establishment resents the thought of a Diaspora vote.  In 2011, it was  dismissed in the House of Representatives.

In 2017, Ms Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who was at the time President Buhari’s special assistant on foreign affairs and the Diaspora, announced that the government had begun a business development initiative targeted at attracting up to $35bn in annual Diaspora remittances.
In 2019, she also announced, as Buhari sought re-election, that Nigerians in the US were setting up a $3bn “Diaspora Investment Fund” to be “driven by Nigerians in America.”

I responded: “What Nigerians in the Diaspora need is a level and secure playing field. If the government genuinely wants to encourage investment, it should work at establishing a favourable investment climate that will attract Nigerians home and abroad, as well as foreigners, beginning with security.  What Nigerian governments have done, particularly since 1999, is to encourage pockets of diaspora support for their political agendas, while deploying lip service to the rest.”

In July 2019, the government also set up a Diaspora Day, by which it said it would recognise the contributions of Nigerians abroad to Nigeria’s development. Diaspora Day then typically disappeared.

It was no surprise that the DIF idea disappeared as soon as Buhari was re-elected but re-surfaced recently with the announcement that the Bola Tinubu administration plans a “$10bn diaspora fund.”

The point is that the Nigerian vote, not just the missing Diaspora component, has no meaning. Over 140 countries around the world practice and stress the importance of the Diaspora vote, but not Nigeria.  Since 1999, every candidate running for the presidency in Nigeria has pledged during campaigns to correct this; each of them ignored that promise as soon as the election was over.

A lot of people, including this writer, are aghast that Trump won the 2024 US presidential election, just as it was ridiculous that he insisted he had won in 2020.  But we accept the verdict of the people because the system in place is installed to work and has demonstrated its credibility over time.

This is what Nigeria must learn from this election but which, under Mr Tinubu, may be no less than a contradiction in terms: trust in government.  If one had to identify the most pressing problem confronting Nigeria, it is that nobody trusts the government or government institutions, particularly when it comes to elections.
Two months ago, in an excellent report called ‘All Roar and No Bite: Exposing Nigeria’s Paper Tiger Election Laws’, Premium Times noted that in the 2023 elections which brought Tinubu to power, various persons and institutions, including the electoral commission had all “seriously violated” the law.

Quoting the Centre for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (CCIJ), it said, “…A temporary INEC staffer transporting ballot papers was shot and killed by an army unit on election day; the INEC itself awarded a contract to print election materials to a company owned by a governorship candidate, raising questions about conflict of interest and the potential for corruption; a former president, his attorney general and justice minister openly displayed their ballots in a system that is supposed to protect voting in privacy; political parties blatantly disregarded laws requiring financial disclosures; and journalists were attacked and harassed while covering the election in a clear violation of press freedom.”

These infractions, which would subsequently extend to the judicial system, have been decried by various election monitoring groups in the past two decades.  If they are not corrected, it means that the 2027 elections, three years away, have been rigged already.

It is unclear how you ask the goat to protect the yam, but this problem explains why Nigeria lacks international or multilateral respect, particularly when it comes to democracy and human rights.

Think about it: last week, Nigeria was one of the first countries to hurry into line to congratulate Mr. Trump.  But we do not even have an ambassador in Washington, DC, or anywhere, as they were all recalled 14 months ago: the diplomatic equivalent of “fuel subsidy gone,” without a plan.

Steadily, we are walking into the deep end of the pool: last week, Nigeria suffered her 10th national grid collapse of 2024.  This fuel tank is almost empty.