Failed Promises
Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Donald Trump will be remembered for the wrong reasons. Buhari ordered the slaughter of flag waving, anthem singing, protesting Nigerian youths at the Lekki tollgate. Trump strutted, pouring scorn on voices of reason, while COVID-19 ravished America, claiming more than 200,000 American lives.
Buhari was ushered in on the promise of CHANGE, many Nigerians jumped in on the bandwagon; we failed to ask:” Change in which direction?” After five years Buhari and his All Progressive Congress (APC) party are driving Nigeria into extinction.
Four years ago Trump promised to make “America Great Again”, his brash, take-no-hostage demeanor found many lovers. Sadly, many of those did not survive the consequence of their choice at the polls.
Americans have yielded to Bernie Sanders’ plea in April to, “come together to defeat the most dangerous president in modern history”. Joe Biden has won convincingly, Trump as projected has discredited the process, attempting to stripe bare one of America’s most cherished values, the sanctity of the people’s will.
Former President Barack Obama said of Trump’s decision not to concede defeat: “We’re not above the rules, we’re not above the law, that’s the essence of our democracy.
“I think we were in a circumstance in this election in which certain norms, certain institutional values, that are so extraordinarily important, had been breached. That it was important for me, as somebody who had served in that office, to simply let people know. This is not normal.”
Strong Institutions Outlive Strong Presidents
What is not normal in America is the norm in Nigeria. While Obama laments about “certain institutional values, that are extraordinarily important being breached, in Nigeria those institutions no longer exist. They have since been replaced by “extraordinarily important” individuals who are the law and are above law. They define the essence of our diluted democracy.
How Trump would have loved to be president of the United States of America with Nigerian institutions. Then, he would have an army chief-of-staff and his soldiers, whose oath of allegiance is to the president and not the constitution or country.
Instead, Trump has the misfortune of dealing with a military that, “are unique among militaries, who do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator”.
No matter the damage Trump has done to American institutions (recently he fired defence secretary, Mark Esper with a tweet) and will do in his last two months, Biden has four years to heal America.
For Nigerians, there is no quick escape in sight. A feeble attempt to oust the incompetent Buhari regime in 2019 was scuttled by political apathy, electoral fraud and a conniving Supreme Court.
Nigerians have over two years to endure the ghoulish theatre Buhari and his regime has made of Africa’s most populous country. The government continue to hound protesters while fating kidnappers, bandits and terrorists.
Our soldiers have abandoned their primary duty of securing the country from external aggression, instead they have found soft targets in their compatriots and unarmed civilians.
Nigeria continue to sink under the weight of debt servicing and corruption. How many more of my compatriots will die from pestilence, hunger, and bullets before 29 May 2023? In a country blessed with some of the greatest optimists that ever walked the earth, depression and suicide are on the increase.
But still we must hope. We must put aside our differences, come together and elect a new set of leaders who have shown vision, competence, and empathy in public or private service. The time starts now.
This article was written by Soni Gold in December, 2020.
