In the opening paragraph of his views about the implications of a Donald Trump’s Presidency to Nigeria, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode declared his support for Trump’s presidential bid. Trump is the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election running against the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.
But as applies in any true democratic setting, Fani-kayode’s support for Trump is justified. The application of politics is often based on interests, which entitle individuals and organizations to their choices of either electioneering candidates or governance policies. However, Chief-kayode went beyond his choice of a candidate, and delved into other issues he inaccurately illustrated.
For those who do not know, Fani-Kayode is a former Nigerian Minister of Aviation (2006-2007) who joined active politics and juggled between Nigeria’s two major political parties; the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition’s All Progressive Congress (APC). In June 2014, he finally settled for the PDP and was later appointed the Director of Media and Publicity for the 2015 Presidential Campaign Organization of the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan. His candidate, Jonathan lost this election.
Since this period, Fani-Kayode has written editorial articles and commentaries about significant issues of Nigeria’s politics. He has reliably presented substantial arguments on various issues, but his latest take on Trump offered opinions that were not only based on falsehood, but also inconsistent with the existing facts.
In the most part, Fani-kayode cluttered his materials on current affairs, and rendered some analysis that revealed a lack of thorough knowledge of the United States politics. For instance, his support for Trump, in his words, was because Trump “admitted publicly that the American-inspired removal of Arab secularist leaders like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghadaffi, Hosni Mubarak and, more recently, the attempt to remove Bashir Al Assad were wrong, short-sighted, counter-productive and have led to nothing but chaos.”
Fani-Kayode may not have been aware, but during his nomination campaign process, unprompted media interviews of Trump clearly exposed his ignorance about politics of Africa and Middle East. Here is a candidate who could not identify Africa on the world map – and worse – Libya, Nigeria or Egypt from the African map. America saw this movie with Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice presidential candidate in 2008 presidential campaign who had no single knowledge of her country’s foreign policy at the time.
Fani-Kayode in furtherance of his ill-informed opinion claimed that Trump was well known for his disregard and contempt for radical Islam, his firm opposition to islamist intolerance and jihadi terrorism and his concerns about the activities of those that seek to establish a new world caliphate where sharia law is applied. This is absolutely false. Fani-Kayode either ignorantly or intentionally ignored to emphasize how Donald Trump’s rapidly changed policy positions, including his radical views on Islam.
Donald Trump in 2015 had proposed a blanket ban on Muslims based on what he called “hatred” of the West innate in Islam. He advocated for the first time, the monitoring of mosques as a way to deal with radical Islamic terror. Asked if he’d consider closing some mosques, Trump said “absolutely, I think it’s great.”
In 2016, Trump softened these policies to ban on only Muslims coming from countries with a history of terrorism. Accordingly, Trump’s policies have been tainted with outright falsehoods while he simultaneously refused to offer specifics on implementation strategies.
The truth however, is that in America, after the W. Bush’s horrible tenure, most voters no longer relate to block-headed candidates who only read campaign scripts and make imaginable promises about matters that are beyond their knowledge. It might have worked in Nigeria with Buhari, but in the United States, experience matter; and that why John McCain failed with Palin, and Mitt Romney failed woefully with Paul Ryan.
Unlike in most African countries where democracy is bastardized beyond recognition, the United States President does not dictate laws and orders.
Fani-Kayode in his article, had also questioned the trio of President Barak Obama, and his past and present State Secretaries, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry on matters inconsequential to their constitutional powers. Unlike in most African countries where democracy is bastardized beyond recognition, the United States President does not dictate laws and orders. President Obama has been operating under a Republican dominated congress and often struggled to implement his own proposals. He has important job to do besides what an individual in Nigeria thinks about his office.
Funny enough, Fani-Kayode in his piece blamed Obama, Clinton, and Kerry for imposing an arms embargo on Nigeria when President Goodluck Jonathan was in power, but failed to explain the disgraceful events that trailed the United States’ actions.
In his own explanation at the time, Mr. James Entwistle, the American ambassador to Nigeria attributed a United States blockade of Nigeria’s ability to purchase weapons to human rights violation by Nigerian troops in the Nigerian North-east.
This was consistent with the Leahy Law or Leahy amendment – a U.S. human rights law that prohibits the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity. This law was approved by the congress in 1997, years before President Obama took office. So why blame Obama?
But Fani-Kayode evaded what could have been a thorough justification of this embargo. For the fact that Nigeria’s former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, allegedly stole more than $2bn (£1.3bn) with funds meant to procure arms to fight Boko Haram was enough reason to conclude that this institution was justifiably troubled with high-level corruption and mismanagement – for even Fani-Kayode himself has been facing charges for allegedly being a beneficiary of that loot. Fani-Kayode it was alleged, received N1.7 billion directly from Mr. Jonathan in funds that they suspected came from Dasuki – not Obama.
Axelrod may have been hired by the APC, the same way Fani-Kayode was hired by the PDP. In fact, Fan-Kayode made more money in his PDP position than Axelrod made from the APC. Therefore, by whining about Axelrod assisting Buhari in his election victory, Fani-Kayode who headed Jonathan’s campaign was actually narrating his own incompetence and abysmal failure.
Fani-Kayode most ridiculously shot himself on the foot when he claimed that Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod was paid large sums of money to assist President Buhari to come to power. As a point of reference, Axelrod was a former Obama’s campaign manager who operated a consulting firm at the time. He may have been hired by the APC, the same way Fani-Kayode was hired by the PDP. In fact, Fan-Kayode made more money in his PDP position than Axelrod made from the APC. Therefore, by whining about Axelrod assisting Buhari in his election victory, Fani-Kayode who headed Jonathan’s campaign was actually narrating his own incompetence and abysmal failure.
If I may ask Fani-Kayode, was it Obama that appointed Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega who tactically delivered victory to his Kingsman? Was it Obama that headed Jonathan’s campaign? Was it Hillary that procured a card reader that could not even recognize the President’s finger print at the accreditation process? Was it Kerry that registered thousands of underage voters in the North? I can go all day.
It is ridiculous that rather than evaluate their lapses on why they failed to retain Jonathan’s incumbency, those who headed his campaign and indeed the party leaders were busy blaming their structural woes on Obama. As I mentioned in my book, “Governance Buhari’s Way”, managing failure remains one of the best part of effective governance. In organizational leadership, failure is not unacceptable. What might be disastrous is when managers fail to immediately assess measures and reconcile their lapses. After any election, especially in a race as controversial as the PDP-APC presidential polls, a “postmortem” is compulsory to enable players explore relevant thoughts about their performances. In other words, winners engross in strategizing about implementing their blueprints and projections, whereas losers evaluate their losses to make amends for a comeback.
If I may ask Fani-Kayode, was it Obama that appointed Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega who tactically delivered victory to his Kingsman? Was it Obama that headed Jonathan’s campaign? Was it Hillary that procured a card reader that could not even recognize the President’s finger print at the accreditation process?
However, in the Nigerian system, the situation is absolutely the opposite. Most winners are immediately occupied with infighting over their opportunities to loot public funds. The others are busy lampooning losers with foul language for losing. Losers on their own part are enthralled in some “don’t blame it on me” mentality. Fani-Kayode exemplifies an incompetent loser who is yet to assess his failures, but would arrogantly go around to pass blame on others.
Fani-Kayode made substantial points about specific ill-advised actions of John Kerry over Nigeria’s politics but those are absolutely unconnected with Trump’s ability to lead. Nigeria made that mistake when out of frustration about specific policies of President Jonathan, cheered a dictator into office. Today, those who committed this error are licking their wounds. Consequently, structural policies by Obama, Hillary or Kerry unfavorable to Nigeria do not justify Trump’s leadership proficiency.
♦ Anthony Ogbo, Ph.D. is the Publisher of Houston-based International Guardian, and author of “Governance Buhari’s Way.”
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