By Clarius Ugwuoha
THE just concluded US elections that threw up the Biden-Harris ticket is unarguably the stiffest of any election in recent times. In fact, the outcome of that election is still being challenged, fairly or unfairly, by the incumbent POTUS, Mr. Donald John Trump, at various courts in the US. Baring any upsets, the Democratic candidate, Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., would assume office in January 2021 as the 46th President of the United States.
We are here to foray US-Nigeria Relations under Trump vis-à-vis expectations under Biden Presidency. Under Trump-Pence, Nigeria and the entire African world arguably didn’t fare well. Trump didn’t make pretensions. Africa was not the centerpiece of his foreign policy. There was no African country in his list of itineraries as POTUS. His focus was on the Americas, Asia, United Kingdom and the disputed West Bank.
There was a certain drama about Trump’s alleged uncouth reference to Nigeria as a shithole, his suspected disdain for Abuja and, culpable complacence in the ENDSARS protests that rocked Nigeria with the attendant widespread abuse of human rights. Mr. Joseph Biden had spoken out through his campaign organisation, outraged by the Nigerian government’s response to the peaceful protesters.
Recently, Trump openly opposed the candidature of Nigeria’s Akinwumi Adesina in his bid for second term at the presidency of the African Development Bank, AFDB; and Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, in her bid to become the first black Director General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO. There were issues of tourist visa restrictions, visa bans of Nigerian nationals and others.
It was against these milieus that Diaspora Nigerians were perplexed that back-home, Nigerians’ collective empathy seemed tilted in the direction of Trump-Pence presidency. This is due to several facts, most of them sentimental and typecast: Notwithstanding secularism Nigeria prided itself with being deeply religious. The morally conservative country was scandalised by the Obama-Biden era of legitimation of Lesbians, Gay, Bi- and Transsexual and Queer, LGBTQ, rights, and approval of abortion, among other radical policies, which Trump firmly stood against. They had the disquiet that Biden would resurrect the spectre of Lesbian-Gay rights issues across the globe! The Muslim dominated North ruled by Sharia law and the Christian South, might be poles apart in everything but have near to zero tolerance for LGBTQ in common.
Trump moved US embassy to Jerusalem, and this struck a chord with the Christian Southern Nigeria. The moralizers had a field day. There were sessions of the Church of Satan with bold Biden-Harris endorsement being played in various sites. Trump was, by extension, cast in the mien of a messiah caught on the cross of Satanists, evoking public sympathy and support. Churches in Southern Nigeria held open vigils for last minute hitches to stall emergence of Biden.
The separatist agitators for Biafra in Southern Nigeria believe that a Trump second term would grant them independence from the stranglehold of Nigeria. There are memes and unconfirmed reports of Mr. Trump having sympathy for the Biafran seekers. These seem more sentimental and stereotyped as nothing concrete in his administration so far pinpointed leaning towards Nigerian separatists.
On security, Trump is known to be a hardliner against radical Islamic terrorism. This sentiment reverberates in Nigeria where the radical Boko Haram sect and ISWAP had devastated the Northern part of the country, created swathes of refuges, murdered hundreds of thousands in most gruesome manner and created a humanitarian emergency of mammoth proportion in the region.
This is not to insinuate that the Trump Presidency did much to contain the insurgency in the area. Only recently, it was announced that a US national kidnapped in Niger Republic was smuggled into Nigeria and kept by the radical sect. The commando style with which the US Navy seal converged on the site and spirited away the victim, told much of the prowess of the US military and gave Trump a certain leverage in the eyes of Nigerians.
The Trump administration Visa Ban for Electoral Offences in Nigeria is another key point. The mainly upscale politicians who have stoutly resisted electoral reforms and most of whom owe their lofty political offices to rigging, are the culprits. The masses are very content with this development which would stall further manipulation of the people’s will. The politicians who mainly stash their loots in the UK and US would not endure visa ban to these countries.
President Muhammadu Buhari is said to be uncomfortable with the Biden victory, despite openly congratulating the POTUS elect. This is due to fears of Biden’s fixation on the gross abuses of human rights perpetrated by the Nigerian government during the ENDSARS protects that rocked the country. Endorsed in his first tenure by Obama-Biden, who speciously believed he had capacity as a retired general to rein in on terrorism, President Buhari is obviously challenged in containing the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-Eastern part of the country.
Donald John Trump’s scorecard with Nigeria is not all austere. The US donated two hundred ventilators to Nigeria to assist her contain the COVID-19 pandemic, though there have been no visible cases necessitating the deployment of ventilators in Nigerian victims. US has also airlifted to Nigeria over twenty brand new military aircraft in the last five years, and close to twenty others are still expected including the dozen Super Tucanos, to bolster the Nigerian Airforce. This purchase approval was delayed by the Obama-Biden administration citing human rights abuses by Nigerian soldiers, gave a fillip to Trump’s rating in the country.
A Biden presidency is expected to be critical of Buhari and skeptical about sale of arms to the country due to the open acknowledgment of his campaign organisation of the wrongful crackdown by Nigerian forces on peaceful protesters. Weapons sale and military aid is exactly the major area Nigeria needed assistance in Biden era to contain the widely festering insurgency, including the menace of armed herdsmen in the country. The visa ban for electoral malpractices should be upheld in the emergent dispensation as it has instilled a kind of electoral prudence.
The Biden Presidency must sustain the hunt for wire fraudsters of Nigerian origin. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had beamed searchlights on wire fraudsters, locally styled yahoo-yahoo, leading to the repatriation to the United States from Dubai, of one high profile Nigerian suspect, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas alias Hushpuppi.
The Nigerian anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, must be strengthened and encouraged in its mission. They should liaise with the US Justice department and the FBI to fish out more and more transcontinental Wire fraudsters.
Biden Presidency is expected to be more serious with Africa in his foreign policy. The consequence of US lukewarm trade-relations with Africa is telling. China is fast overtaking the US in transnational relationship with Nigeria and Africa in general, using debt-trap as strategy. At the rate, Africa could become a vassal of China and this vassalage would endanger US-Africa relations in subsequent dispensations.
Biden should upgrade and sustain the US-Africa template of Prosperity, Security and Stability as enumerated by US Diplomat, John Robert Bolton. This ensures sustained and progressive US trade and commercial bond with nations in the continent to mutual benefits, Sustenance of the current onslaught against radical terrorism and foreign aid. This also avails Nigeria and Africa a viable alternative to the current Chino ties that seems predatory and unsustainable.
Ugwuoha, a social commentator, wrote via clarius.ugwuoha@yahoo.com
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