ECHOES OF TRUMP IN NIGERIA’S 2019 ELECTION FORTUNES

The millions who attended election rallies expect urgent attention to their needs, writes Okello Oculi

Candidate Donald Trump planted seeds of his electoral success among racist voters by repeatedly claiming that Barack Obama was not born in America and, therefore, not qualified to be elected president. His election campaign would later be accompanied by repeated murders of African-American men by white policemen; evoking memories of hangings, roastings and bombings of African-Americans - with impunity - by white racists across America.

Aware that factories were closed in states like Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania because multinational companies preferred to use cheap but highly educated and disciplined workers in China, he added hatred of China to his hatred list. Finally he loathed immigrants from Mexico as voters for Democrats, depicting them as smugglers of cocaine to ruin American communities.

Trump’s devotees carried posters at election campaign rallies which named him ‘’Jesus Christ’’ – of America.

In the 2019 presidential and legislative elections in Nigeria the equivalent of these fears and pains were legion. A core issue was the implementation of a scheme for keeping budgeted funds away from grabbing fingers of top officials. President Goodluck Jonathan had developed the scheme but feared that he would lose the 2015 elections if Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala put it into practice. Civil servants would fight him.

The electorally fatal aspect of the scheme was its closing taps of stolen budget funds dripping down to family networks, old boy school chains, community leaders and givers of valued titles; oiling marriage ceremonies and village festivals. The money drought that followed made its victims grow grey hair faster. It created a new cultural force known as ‘political allergy’ to warriors of the war against corruption. It was a natural survival instinct.

Whether by design or simple idiocy, carryovers of Boko Haram’s violence against communities spread across the country. Some speculators attributed it to corrupt fugitives hiding in Dubai and other shelters linking up with Islamist expansionists seeking to create a caliphate spreading from Mali to Somalia. Its value in Nigeria would be to deny 2019 electoral victory to warriors of anti-corruption by deepening ‘political hatred’.

Finally, the cumulative effects of the 1986 devaluation of the Naira; ending free health care, cheap fertiliser and subsidised education – measures which the late Professor Adebayo Adedeji described as ‘’social and economic warfare against African societies’’ – had over two decades wrecked the quality of education in Nigeria. Employers moan over job applicants unable to write correct English sentences; a collapse in quality workers which drove foreign and local investors away.

This entrenched decay was waiting to be harvested by politicians roaring for the blood of those in power. The harassed incumbents depicted it as ‘’corruption is fighting back’’: facing tall waves of pain and fears to wrestle with.

To the ‘’talakawa’’ in northern states, Candidate Muhammadu Buhari, aroused memories of a military ruler who, between January 1, 1984 and August 1985, jailed hundreds of business, administration and political elites for corruption with impunity. As victims of

corruption, he was an impending political tropical ‘’tsunami’’ heralding their redemption.

Unlike Candidate Trump who blew the trumpet of ‘’America First’’ as a combat against volumes of imports, PDP’s constituency in the Southern states remain heavily committed to importing consumer goods. They have also lost income under Customs department officers intercepting rice, frozen poultry, drugs and motor vehicles being smuggled into Nigeria.

The PDP and APC neither offered these importers alternative sources of income, nor proposed injecting investments to spearhead local industrial production despite a legacy of exporting petro-dollars fuelling individual striving for personal wealth. This mindset has been exploited by cultural and commercial attaches from Korea, Japan, China and European embassies to promote imports from their own industries.

PDP’s call to ‘’Make Nigeria Work Again’’ is also anchored on promoting interests of ‘’business’’; including a promise to sell income-earning parastatals. The party offered little concrete economic remedies for common folks.

Research by Abdullahi Sule-Kano showed that the 1986 devaluation of the naira and loss of free medical care had severely undermined the diet of Fulani cattle rearing communities. While the price of grain increased, cows could not increase their yield of milk. Families were forced to sell milk traditionally reserved for children and family members. The resulting malnutrition was a security risk. Research on plantation workers in Brazil had shown that lack of certain vitamins in diets led to increased domestic violence.

Sule-Kano’s research was ignored by Nigerian government officials, but probably not by political officers in foreign embassies, and backers of Boko Haram. Fulani youths began kidnapping girls and young wives to earn ransom in cattle for sale in urban markets. The media gave no coverage.

PDP’s support base in the South-East was ravaged by kidnappings. It was blamed on Buhari’s indifference, while not blaming ‘’Fulani herdsmen’’; thereby avoiding losing support in Buhari’s base.

Sule-Kano’s research pointed to roots of the anger among northern youths attending massive election rallies. The devaluation of the naira had made cotton yarns expensive and killed rural textile production for sale in urban markets. Leather artisans lost their market to synthetic sandals. Rich farmers fed youths with narcotics to work longer hours; but ignored rousing talents of rural blacksmiths to fabricate ‘Nappers For Ploughing’ farms.

State governments denied investments to vast household food processing sectors; preferring foreign ‘’sugar-and-water’’ beverages. A state-owned hotel in Kano served imported ‘’baked beans’’ but not ‘’Fura Da Nono’’. Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed’s doctoral thesis showed that British colonial officials banned and imposed heavy taxes on local industrial products in order to open markets for British imports.

The millions who attended election rallies expect urgent official attention to their needs.

THE ENTRENCHED DECAY WAS WAITING TO BE HARVESTED BY POLITICIANS ROARING FOR THE BLOOD OF THOSE IN POWER. THE HARASSED INCUMBENTS DEPICTED IT AS ‘CORRUPTION IS FIGHTING BACK’