The United States (US) Department of State has just whitewashed the perfidious exercise that was the 2023 general election in Nigeria. It has given the rascally indulgence a clean bill of health. It said the elections reflected the will of the people regardless of the widespread irregularities that marred its credibility.
But the verdict is coming too late in the day. It did not come when it would have mattered. Coming at a time when virtually everything that can be said about the elections has been said, the position of the US can be said to be nothing other than a back-handed compliment. Some would call it a ridiculous afterthought.
But why did the US go to sleep when the controversy was raging? Why did it not interject in the global outrage that greeted the patently flawed elections? The reason is simple. It is hypocrisy. It is the trademark of the western world whenever issues that touch on Africa and the entire world are on the front burner.
Let us not forget that it was the same US that maintained a studied silence about the Chicago papers that gave a lie to Bola Tinubu’s educational claims. The drama of falsehood was enacted and re-enacted on American soil. The United States authorities were in a position to say it as it was. But they went underground. They played the ostrich. The US authorities treated the roguery that took place in Nigeria as if it did not matter.
More than one year after, Washington has finally found its voice. It is doing so at a when the issue has gone cold and impotent. Its 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights, which said that the 2023 general election in Nigeria reflected the will of the people, is, therefore, a belated and irrelevant interjection. It fits neatly into the hypocritical disposition of western countries whenever issues about Africa come into play. The report, in simple terms, validates what we already know about western powers in their relationship with African and third world countries. But this off-handed verdict can only jolt those who do not know or understand the disposition of the west to the third world.
In the eyes of the western world, the developing world, represented largely by Africa, is in a state of flux. It has no character or characteristic except the one assigned to it by the western world. The west formulates and dictates what should constitute the standard and the truth whenever and wherever Africa is the subject matter. If the predominantly black race says no, the white race, which straddles about with a superiority complex, can say yes on its behalf. And because the position of the west on anything Africa is usually considered as inviolable, Africans are expected to swallow hook, line and sinker any balderdash that issues forth from the west. The back-door approval which the 2023 general election in Nigeria has got from the United States is a case in point.
Considering the damage the outcome of the 2023 presidential election has done to every fabric of the Nigerian state and its peoples, the position of the US on the matter is both ludicrous and ridiculous. It is an assault on the patience and tenacity of a people that have been dehumanized and impoverished by their own government. The manipulated outcome of the February 25 presidential election gave Nigerians a President they did not ask for. The people wanted a new Nigeria. They wanted a breath of fresh air. That was why they yearned for a President who would be committed to the idea of a new and reinvigorated Nigeria. That quest, sadly, was thwarted by conspirators who want to convert Nigeria to a fiefdom.
In its bid to join the victory bandwagon, America has to be seen to be saying something. But rather than say it as it is, America has chosen the language of obfuscation. It wants to use the subtlety of diplomacy as a means of worming itself into the matter. But as we noted earlier, that is coming too late. The issue of how the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria was won and lost has long been concluded. What is left is for historians to document the sleight of hand for the sake of posterity.
What is of relevance now is what Nigerians are getting from the perfidy that took place in 2023. It is a clear fact that Nigeria has not been the same since the manipulation took place. To say that Nigerians were shocked by the make-believe that was that election is to state the obvious. It was one election in which Nigerians believed that their votes would count. But they never did.
With the damage done, Nigeria is now a shadow of itself. Those who took over the reins of governance are anything but patriotic. Their idea of power grab is to deploy it in the service of their narrow, selfish interests. This is what the country has been witnessing since power changed hands nearly a year ago.
But what rankles the most is the unpreparedness of the power grabbers. Given that good governance is alien to them, they have messed up the entire system. The economy has collapsed. The value of the national currency has plummeted to an all-time low. Inflationary spiral has galloped out of hand. Prices of goods and services are beyond reach. There is pain and anguish in the land.
To imagine that this unpalatable state of affairs is what the United States is trying to whitewash is disappointing.
The problem here is that of standard of measurement. For America, what is good for the goose cannot be good for the gander. As a country that poses as the world’s democratic watchdog, the United States is always at the forefront when issues of democracy and good governance come into play. Sadly, however, it uses dubious yardsticks as its standard of measurement. Someone needs to ask the US authorities whether what took place in Nigeria in 2023 can be allowed or tolerated in their country. Can America allow someone with questionable credentials to take over the White House? Certainly not.
If America feels that the headache is for Nigerians to bear, that is in order. But our expectation is that the US should distance itself from the matter and allow those concerned to take their destiny in their own hands. To now give the impression that the tragedy that befell Nigeria is justified is hypocrisy of the first order. The verdict from the United States is antithetical to what the country preaches and practices in its own land.