A Biden presidency-SWOT analysis for Nigeria (II)

(Continued from last week)
I became suspicious of democrats; liberals. Is that what it was all about? They seem to be more interested in ramming liberal values down the throats of unwilling countries, in great contrast with their preachment of freedom. In other words, it is democracy, liberalism and freedom, at the cost of the blood of millions around the world. The global press was held in tow, to black out the atrocities against women and children in Libya, Syria and Iraq before them. A black tribe in Libya, the Tawerghans, were almost wiped out summarily, and totally displaced into refugee camps by the extremists unleashed by the USA, UK and France, and it was like nothing happened. Then Obama shifted to Syria, to unleash more havoc. That brother is a damn smooth talker and a wonderful personality… someone that reminds you of Denzel Washington or the best of black Americans you can find. Heck! He’s a jolly fellow and could throw three-point shots in basketball better than Larry Bird.  But as president, Obama was coldblooded and his actions impacted many people around the world very negatively, especially here in Africa.

• Gbajabiamila’s security aide ‘shoots’ newspaper vendor
• Police accountability, discipline mechanism weak – Gbajabiamila

Trump, on the other hand, is a bumbler… lacking in character… a gaffe machine… spends way too much time on Twitter. He is also racist, believes Africa is full of shithole countries and I’m sure he never stepped his feet on this continent in his four years. He is a moral reprobate and lacks the kind of oratorical skills and literary depth we have seen in almost every US president before him. He makes George W look quite distinguished. But, and this is a big but, he never unleashed havoc all over the world. He started no new wars and tried to round off the old ones. He met with the North Korean president Kim Jung Un, and amazingly that country that had been portrayed as arch enemy to the world started to come through. He talks a lot of jive about China too but Donald Trump is just a salesman; we stopped hearing things like ‘axis of evil’ and ideological wars became a bit minimized. Long and short, he seemed to have clipped the wings of the real extremists in government in his time. Some of these extremists are very smooth, ivy league types. They believe the USA should be constantly showing she is the big brother of the world by dominating and disciplining other countries in some sort of hypocritical manner. This includes bombing the daylights out of some unlucky ones from time to time. One of them is John Bolton, a bitter extremist, ultra-racist and vile-tempered fellow whom I have seen in action since the days of George W, but who has now been wheeled out to discredit Trump. People like Bolton are not happy. Left to them, the USA will have boots on ground even in Nigeria, showing us ‘pepper’. As much as everyone takes delight in abusing Trump (perhaps in retaliation for the insults he too throws about), I want to believe that every man has a redeeming feature. I will not join in. I have also been disappointed by smooth talkers and outwardly civil people in the past, who turned out to be the worst specie ever.

What does Joe bring to the table? There are three issues that are very critical. One is this COVID-19 issue. I see that Biden has been abiding by all the rules (no pun intended); face masks and lockdowns where necessary. With a Biden presidency America will likely go back into full lockdown. He has mainstreamed his idea that everyone should mask up already.  But the people – those 68 odd millions who voted for Trump – will resist and chaos may ensue. 70 million people is no joke. Biden – and all democrats (including his Nigerian supporters) – keep talking about trusting the scientists, ignoring the fact that scientists, being very smart people, often never want to be caught even if they are wrong. Plus there are rogue scientists everywhere too.  Have the diagnoses about COVID-19 not been often very wrong and misleading?  From the experience in Africa – and Donald Trump’s experience with COVID-19 – the scientists have not even entertained a rethink of their strategy of lockdown, masking and vaccines. They have all queued up behind a businessman (Bill Gates), who ordinarily should know very little about this aspect of health science. They expected us in Africa to die like ants but somehow we keep going. Now we hear that every five years there will be a new, similarly devastating virus. I never want to be locked down the way I was for weeks earlier this year. It was an eerie, wasting, sapping, hopeless, selfish, fearful, experience that I never want to experience again in my life. Will Biden and Kamala give these rogue scientists free reign?

There is also the aspect of Big Brother America. Trump seemed to have had little time to poke his nose into our affairs and we may have enjoyed some four years of relative independence. Don’t ask me what we made of that. But what did we make of American interference too? I hope Biden will not come back to pushing sexual policies in Africa rather than  honestly assist with our more serious economic, security, environmental and other challenges.  Or he should just leave us to sort our problems out.  It has always been all about interests. Again, I recall the statements of Tony Blair and George W. Bush when they visited Nigeria sometimes in 2010. The contention was between the USA/UK and the growing influence of China. The two gentlemen revealed that they know their interaction with us in Africa has not yielded real results for decades.  Will Biden play another Obama in Nigeria?

Biden’s biggest problem though, is an America that is split almost down the middle. The underbelly of American democracy and society was revealed in this election, which may throw up even more drama as the Trump team heads to court. I expect that Trump leaves eventually, but I doubt all that stuff about someone sending him to jail afterwards. I think Nigerians joining all the insults and lampooning are also overreaching themselves. We should think hard about how the policies of these countries will affect us, beyond the easing of immigration. We should be cold and calculated about this, and shelve this our owambe gbagbati attitude of getting too excited when we should be thinking.