I watched horrified the third and final US Presidential Debate between Republican Party flag bearer, Donald Trump and his Democratic Party counterpart, Hilary Clinton in the early hours of October 19. As I sat listening to the debate by the two frontrunners in the United States of America’s November 8 presidential election I wondered if after almost 230 years – since 1789 – of practicing the American-style democracy this was what the country could exhibit to the world as the finest brand of their democracy.
When on October 18, 1975, the then Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed told the opening session of the 50-man Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Victoria Island, Lagos that the Nation’s Supreme Military Council (SMC) had decided to adopt the United States Presidential System of government as it planned to handover government to the civilians, it was a matter of fait accompli and the CDC had no choice than to obey the SMC directive.
So, the decision to adopt the United States’ executive system of government as against the hitherto practiced parliamentary system was not really the wish of Nigerians but an imposition of the military on the nation. Since then, the nation has struggled with adapting to the system, and each time the Americans have always assured us we will get better with time. But if what has been put on show so far by the two leading American presidential candidates is where we hope to be 200 years from now, then it is time to do a sharp re-think.
The electioneering campaigns of the two frontrunners have been categorized by hate-speeches, violence and killings. Insults have been traded by both parties and the American Nation has never known such hatred and acrimony leading to the presidential polls.
The presidential debate was everything a civilized electioneering campaign should not be, pooh-poohing all the proselytizing of the American system by the self-styled democratic apostles of the World. A political analyst on CNN soon after the debate described it as the ‘saddest day for US Presidential Democracy.” The BBC presenter described the duo as the two most unpopular candidates for an American election yet.
First, the candidates ended the debate the way they started – without shaking hands – breaking the timeworn US election debate tradition. The debate itself was devoid of all manners of civility, with both candidates going for each other’s jugular. Trump called Clinton a liar and a cheat who should be in jail rather than contesting for the US highest position: “She should not be allowed to run. She should never have been allowed to run based on what she did with the emails and other things,” he said, referring to the allegation that Clinton willfully destroyed 33,000 implicating emails and lied to the FBI about it. Clinton returned the favours by describing Trump as the “most dangerous person to run for the American presidency in modern history,” a statement purportedly originally credited to Bernie Sanders.
The venoms continued. Trump suggested that Clinton was corrupt and accused her of not accounting for six billion US Dollars under her watch as Secretary of State in the US State Department. He also accused her of giving unfair access to contracts and privileges to top donors to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton countered by insisting that Trump has not paid a penny in federal income tax and is the first presidential candidate in 45 years not to have released his tax returns before the elections. To Clinton’s assertion that “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,”
referring to the nine women that have so far come forward to accuse Trump of sexual harassment, Trump countered that the Clinton Foundation receives money from such countries as Saudi Arabia with poor women’s rights records, and that the accusations were stage-managed, same way the political violence at Trump’s campaigns in Chicago and other places have been stage-managed by the Democrats. Clinton called Trump a ‘puppet’ of Vladimir Putin of Russia. Trump retorted that she was the puppet.
But by far the most damaging outcome of the debate, damaging to all the values the US democracy lays claim to was Donald Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the result of the election no matter its outcome, saying “I will tell you at the time; I will keep you in suspense.” He argues that the voters’ register has already been illegally populated by “millions that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered” and that the mere fact that Hilary was allowed to run suggests that the election has already been rigged in her favour. He was later to modify this statement at a rally in Deleware, Ohio by declaring that: “I will totally accept the result of the … election if I win”
From the Second Republic in 1979 to date, Nigeria as a nation has been struggling to adapt to the inconveniences and convolutions of the US presidential system of governance. Perhaps, because of the winner-takes-all executive powers of the president and the state governors the struggle to the respective state houses has been fought with intense rancour and in most cases a do-or-die attitude. In its wake has come massive election rigging, inducement of the voters and corruption of the election offices, and, as recent developments suggest, corruption of the election arbiters.
But most debilitating aspect of the system has been its very expensive nature. Many argue that Nigeria was not ripe for the system and that it is indeed the cause of our present economic downturn. Who would forget the famous allegation made against the National Assembly in 2010 by the then Central Bank Governor and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that the National Assembly alone consumes 25% of the federal government’s overhead?
Apologists of the US system would argue that many of the problems we are currently experiencing with the system is because we are still learning the ropes and that with time we would discover that the system is the most suitable for us. Having followed the current US electioneering campaigns the question to ask is: Is this where we want to be 200 years from now?
The stories of political violence and killings at electioneering campaigns, and of voters register manipulations and rigging should belong to the democratic neophyte-nations and not the supposed democratic beacon of the world. If these are still present in the United States of America in this 21st Century, then we should not hope that they will ever disappear from our shores in three generations to come.
Last year, Secretary of State John Kerry persuaded President Goodluck Jonathan to accept the election result and concede defeat to Muhammadu Buhari, which he did and which saved the nation a lot of political stress. But here is a major candidate from the same United States declaring upfront that he will not accept the results in his own country. In 2000, Senator Al Gore contested the election result up to the Supreme Court of the United States even after pledging in the presidential debate to accept the results. Why can’t the Americans practice what they preach?
Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton have unwittingly done us a favour. They have exposed the fact that the American system is after all dirty, nasty and brutish. It is indeed not the best for the world, and certainly not the best for Nigeria.
This may be the right time for us to look for a home-grown democracy that will take into cognizance our peculiar political history and culture, and our economic realities.
Onukwuba, a Senior Fellow at Lagos Business School, wrote this piece from Lagos.
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