Donald J. Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America. It is rightly presumed that the President of America is the most powerful President in the world. He governed America from 2017 to 2021, after surprisingly winning his 2016 presidential election. The victory of Donald Trump really proved the scriptures right that all powers belong to God and God gives it to whosoever he wishes. When he declared his intention to campaign for the post of President of America, nobody gave him a chance, but he won.
During his presidency, Trump did little to change his personality to suit his new office. He was reputed to have told about 35,000 lies within a period of four years. He made history as the only American President that was impeached twice because of his urging a foreign president to investigate his potential political opponent for corruption in order to score cheap political advantage and because he urged Americans to attack the Capitol, the seat of the National Legislature, in order to usurp the power of the President, which he lost in a free, fair and credible election. This insurrection, he levied against his country, despite having filed over 60 election cases in court and lost 99.9 per cent of them, even the cases that came before his own appointed supreme court judges. Their electoral body that conducted the election, cooperated with him in all the demands he made. They suspended the announcement of results in some states to recount the votes in areas he demanded recounting. They stopped the announcement of results to conduct investigation into his allegation that some voting machines swapped his votes and allocated them to his opponent, which his own Attorney General, after investigation, told him to his face that the allegation was bullshit. He summoned some Republican controlled state legislators to the White House to entice them to change the result of the election to favour him, but they rebuffed him. He called some electoral officials in the state of Georgia to rig the election of the state to give him the votes he needed to win, but they resisted him. He encouraged his Vice President, Mike Pence, to desecrate the American Constitution and declare him winner instead of the rightful winner, but his Vice vehemently refused. At the end of the day, the United States survived the greatest attack on its democracy since the American civil war.
Briefly compare this scenario with what happened in Nigeria in 2023 presidential election. Prof Yakubu Mahmood, the INEC Chairman and his mouthpiece, Mr Festus Okoye, INEC Federal Commissioner in charge of voter education, promised Nigerians both verbally and in writing that election will be conducted through the instrumentality of the BVAS electronic machine that will conduct the accreditation of voters, automatically record the number of accredited voters and receive the results garnered by each candidate in the election which must be uploaded and transmitted in real time from the polling unit to the INEC IREV Portal and the National Electronic Register of Election Results. On the election day, people who did not support APC were told not to come out to vote, particularly in Lagos, and the people that dared come out were brutalised and battered by thugs, agberos and miscreants. Ballot boxes and papers were snatched and dumped into rivers and gutters with some set ablaze while security agencies stood aside and watched. The INEC officials in some states were told not to upload results from the polling units and in some states were not given the code to transfer the results. Where they have codes, the INEC officials blocked their central servers not to receive the results to electronically record them. After the election, the BVAS was bypassed in the collation of results, leading to manual collation of non-existent results. Governors of states were used to rig elections for INEC’s preferred presidential candidate.
At the table of Prof Mahmood, when he was purportedly collating the manually generated results, he acknowledged he didn’t have any electronically transmitted results from the BVAS with which to verify the correctness and authenticity of the manually generated results in accordance with the law. He was advised to take a pause and do the right thing as required by law, but he refused, telling the party agents to go to court. When the heat increased on him, he promised to review the process when he was done, leading to the walking out of the collation hall by the party agents of the opposition parties. He hurriedly announced the result from his unverified manual results in the dead of the night and has not reviewed the result as promised till date. It was even more ridiculous when he could not give the CTC of the results to the legal team of the parties that went to court to challenge the results announced, giving the excuse that it was not ready. Not even a court order could make the results available. Mahmood had to apply to court to reconfigure the BVAS before giving any party any result. This means that he gave the parties a reconfigured result not the original results that emanated from the polling units as compelled by law. Many believed that this process led to the manipulation of the results to rob the winner of the election of his mandate while declaring the wrong candidate as the winner. The parties have placed their fates in the Nigerian courts and pray they will do justice to it as it was done in America.
On the 4th of April, 2023, Trump was indicted at the Manhattan District Court of New York for paying hush money to silence an adult film actress whom he had an affair with but which he denied. He has gone down in history once more as the first former President of America to be indicted for a crime. He has other matters awaiting possible indictment like obstruction of justice for his unlawful carting away of classified documents, indictment for trying to manipulate Georgian election, indictment for January 6th insurrection against the capitol and so on.
The lessons to learn for African leaders and indeed all persons are many. One of the most prominent lessons is that rule of law is one of the pillars that sustain democracy and that no one is above the law. This was the most powerful citizen on earth by 2021, but now being held accountable for his actions. Nations over the world who hold their leaders accountable for their actions in power have been known to progress faster than others who confer on their leaders the status of sacred cows both in and out of office. South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, South Africa and even Pakistan have joined the nations that hold their leaders, past and present, responsible for their actions, and they are gradually getting their acts together towards steady growth and development, while countries like Nigeria, are sinking lower and lower everyday into misery and poverty, owing to the thieving attitude of their leaders for which none of them has been held accountable. Nigeria must rise and join the league of transparent countries that hold their leaders responsible for their actions in office. It is disheartening that in Nigeria, employees of the Presidents are sent to jail for their actions, while the Presidents that gave them such orders are allowed to go free. This trend cannot lead us to any meaningful development. Whoever breaks the law must be made to pay, no matter his status, this is the technical definition of rule of law.
Another lesson great leaders must learn to observe is a moral lesson especially directed to male leaders and how they deal with their female counterparts. Looking at America, I remember how Bill Clinton was one of the most beloved American Presidents that brought so much prosperity to the US yet it was his unguarded affair with Monica Lewensky that nearly brought down his Presidency. He ended up being impeached. Trump has been indicted in Manhattan for his illicit affair with a porn star and trying to cover it up so it doesn’t affect his chances to win a presidential election. These men have more beautiful women as wives at home. A little more respect and contentment with our spouses can save us from this embarrassment. God himself advised men in 1 Peter 3:7, when He said: “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered”. If you make mistakes, be bold enough to apologise and learn from it not attempt to unlawfully cover up the incident at all costs.
Nigeria leaders must learn that power is transient and change is constant. Immunity of your office today should not impose on you the irresponsibility of rascality and impunity because in a democracy, you have four years to govern, and you become an ordinary citizen again and be subject to the law of man. Trump behaved as if he was above the law when he was President, and just four years after, he is facing criminal charges in the court like any other ordinary American. No condition on earth is permanent.
Nigerian judiciary must learn from the indictment of Trump that once they are appointed into office, their loyalty should be to their country, not to their appointors. All the judges appointed by Trump passed judgment on all the matters brought before them by Trump on the basis of law not on the basis of their loyalty to Trump. The presidential election petition will be a litmus test for the judiciary whether they will respect the law or be cowed by the ruling party in power.
The Nigerian people must learn from the Trump example that the character and traits a leader exhibits before getting into office cannot suddenly leave him when he comes into office. Americans were aware that Trump was not a sincere person before going into election, yet they voted for him in a free and fair election. They, therefore, have no right to complain when they reaped about 35,000 lies from him within four years. Election has consequences. Whoever you sow as your leader, you reap the rewards of the person’s performance. Nigerians must fight for a free and fair elections and must ensure they vote in men and women of character, capacity and competence to govern them. Any country that votes in corrupt leaders are no longer victims, but accomplices. We must also accept the judgment of courts to avoid anarchy, especially if it’s based on justice.