Emma Emeozor [email protected]

After the outrage that trailed Donald Trump’s alleged Africa “shithole” slur, the American leader has asked his Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson, to visit the continent in March. He made the announcement in a letter he sent to the African Union (AU) during its summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, recently.

        In the letter Trump said he had “deep respect” for Africa. Could this be an indication that the unpredictable Trump has changed his negative perception of Africa and is now ready to strengthen US-Africa ties on the basis of equal partnership or is he only trying to calm the nerves of angry Africans?

The proposed visit by a senior cabinet member of the Trump administration comes one year after he came to power. Though the details of the visit are yet to be made public, Tillerson is expected to visit four or six African states, according to the letter.

In this report, foreign affairs analyst and professor of International Law and Jurisprudence, Akin Oyebode, examines the motive behind Trump’s decision. He also expresses the hope that Nigeria would be on Tilerson’s itinerary.

Asked why Tillerson’s visit to Africa now? Oyebode said the American President was embarking on “damage limitation.”

“By sending his Secretary of State to Africa, he is just trying to cut the losses of America, not because deep inside him he believes in the equality of races,” Oyebode, former vice chancellor of Ekiti State University said, drawing attention to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “This is a man whose policies in terms of immigrants reflects his racist bias. During his campaign, he questioned the birth of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, insisting that (Obama) was not an American. Obama had to make public his birth certificate from Hawaii. It was only then he acknowledged that Obama was truly an American. Trump has deep hatred for people of African orientation, this is to say, the African race.”

Oyebode, who is still seething over Trump’s alleged description of Africa as a “shithole” was quick to fault President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for not demanding an apology from the US government for “that damage and insult to Africa.” This is even as he noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the US ambassador to Nigeria over the comment.

Apparently, Oyebode was not satisfied with the diplomatic handling of the matter.

“Buhari is sitting on a very high pedestal as President of Nigeria, the world’s largest concentration of black people.” Therefore, “if Nigeria doesn’t speak, who else will speak for Africa?” he queried.

While expressing cautious optimism overt Tillerson’s planned visit, Oyebode reminded African leaders that Trump was not the first American leader they would be interacting with: “We’ve dealt with different American leaders. Trump is not the first president that will be meeting with African leaders. I want to believe that Africans and African leaders have come a long way.

“For now, African leaders should have long spoons with which to dine with him or his emissary. We have been battered by 300 years of trans-Atlantic slave trade, we endured 100 years of colonial oppression, and we are now at the age of neo-colonialism, to capture what Ghana’s former leader Kwame Nkrumah said about Africa.

“So, I want to believe that Africans and African leaders have come of age and they will know how to handle the visit, they will have a listening ear when they meet with him (Tillerson).”

He believes that Tillerson’s background as a former chief executive officer of Exxon-Mobil Corporation makes him a good envoy to talk with, compared with Trump “whose experience, with due respect, is limited to hotels, resorts and golf courses.”

For Oyebode, Tillerson’s visit provides African leaders the opportunity to tell the Trump administration that, after all, America no longer has a monopoly of power and cannot dictate to the world as it did during the Cold War era.

He said, “America believes in exploiting the resources of other nations. The American monopoly is either in oil and gas or in some other strategic minerals. It is interested in minimising its loses and maximising its gains. But, America needs raw materials, natural resources, etc, that they don’t have. So, the American president should learn to eat what I would call humble pie, because, as big and as powerful (the US) is, the North Koreans have showed that there is a limit to the arrogance of power.”

But will African leaders have the courage to speak with one voice and tell Trump through his Secretary of State the truth no matter how it might sound to him? After pausing and reflecting, Oyebode said, “I’m sure, because of the multiplicity of countries, they might not speak with the same resonance and there are people who for a few dollars would sell their heritage.”

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As if to inspire African leaders to unite and speak with one voice, Oyebode said, “America does not hold a monopoly of what we need in Africa. There are rivals like China and, to a lesser degree, India, that we can go to shop for our needs. Even as we speak, the Chinese have come to Nigeria, they are building roads, airports, hydro-electric stations at a fraction of the price the Western firms would have asked for. So, we are living in a new world now, it is not 50 years ago, we are in the 21st century where the global marketplace has increased, shall I say, the nuisance value of Africa.

“If the US really understands realpolitik, it must be seeking more friends in order to influence world events, not adding to its enemy list.”

The professor wants the Trump administration to define clearly its terms of engagement with Africa, bearing in mind that “no country, be it in the West or elsewhere, can impose its will on Africa as it was in the past. As I said earlier, Africa has paid a high and severe price from exploitation by the West of its human and natural resources. Now, it is too late in the day for any white power redneck to be imposing its will on the rest of the continent.

“Every negative statement made by Trump about Africa rebounds in the US because at least 15 million of the country’s population is of African extraction. He has appointed only one African-American, in his cabinet, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Cason. But when he was campaigning, he told African-Americans to trust him, promising to improve their lives, provide education, jobs, yet he still brags that the employment figures in the African-American community is the lowest in history.

“And the African-Americans are not amused by his patronising attitude to them because they know where they were coming from . . . from slave plantations, right up to the 14th amendment of the constitution on the equality of the races after the civil war.”

On the inability of African leaders to stand up to the West when the need arises, Oyebode said the leaders are handicapped by the poverty and underdevelopment that has reduced the value of the countries. He explained that foreign policy is always a projection of the melting point.

“If you have the situation in Africa in terms of debts the countries owe, the corruption, general underdevelopment and disillusion, then the continent’s international relevance will be severely circumscribed.

“But that doesn’t mean African nations really have no muscle at all. America, as big as it is, wants raw materials, market. Trump is trumpeting the resilience and resurgence of US foreign monopoly capital, he’s calling on US firms to open factories in America in order to cut down unemployment. However, if they produce, they have to sell. If you go to the streets of Nigeria, for example, you will find American products, including the choicest cars and you have so many Nigerians who are studying in American institutions at tremendous expense. Therefore, America is gaining a lot from its relationship with Africa.

“As I said before, if America decides to dump Africa, there are at least 50 other countries that would welcome Africa. In other words, Africa can always call the bluff of America by inviting non-US companies to come and do business here (in the continent). We have important raw materials and a big market, we have 400 million hungry Africans who will buy the products. Africans can purchase whatever products they need from Japan, Singapore, China India and even Dubai.” he said, warning that “the world is changing rapidly and nobody can dictate policies that can’t answer to the contradictions of 1960. We are in 2018.

“What I’m saying is that there is a limit to the hostility of Uncle Sam because of the diversification of power areas; we no longer live under a single nuclear power, for example. We have a multiplicity of powers. India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. South Africa used to have nuclear weapons before the Nelson Mandela administration. All the noise that Trump is trumping about nuclear weapons is Cold War rhetoric. The monopoly of the US in providing what we want has been broken. Trump thinks America owns the world. But that is not true. The situation has changed. American policymakers should put on their thinking cap and not rely on the rhetoric of Trump.”

But in the 21st century what should be the focus Africa’s diplomacy? Oyebode defined diplomacy as the act of protecting and furthering a country’s national interest abroad. It is a tool for empowerment of a people or a nation internationally.

Because Africa is in disarray, it has not put its house together. There was a time Africa pursued the non-alignment policy. But now there is need for realignment and rearrangement. Africa’s diplomacy must not be one-track.

Oyebode expressed the hope that Nigeria would be on the itinerary of Tillerson’s maiden tour, noting that Obama by-passing Nigeria during his Africa tour was a mistake: “I accused Obama of ignoring Nigeria. You don’t come to Africa and by-pass Nigeria. It was an error on the part of Obama.”

Well, if for the Trump administration, too, Nigeria is not important or Nigeria has marginal nuisance value, and they by-pass it, that would be their undoing.

“On the African continent, Nigeria is highly regarded. It’s an unelected spokesperson for the continent. The memory will not be lost on Trump that Buhari was elected only few weeks ago to be the African Union’s chief crusader against corruption.

“Trump has been lampooning Africans that we steal our own resources and bring to keep in the West. Here, you have a president who has waged war against corruption, and the rest of Africa has acknowledged it. The president of the US should take cognizance of the rapid changes taking place and read between the lines correctly in order to map out policies that reflect the changing international reapolitik.