The world is fast changing its old garments. Yes, it’s tumbling down and gliding on its head. Agape love is feigned and hate fills the human minds and earth’s dwelling places. Particularly, superpower nations have failed a simple test of love and a harmless co-existence of nations. To weaker nations, the powerful profess to being the watchdog, in a comity of nations that are, supposedly independent and each maintaining a sovereignty. Ruthless competition, perpetual domination, exploitation, gunboat diplomacy and mutual distrusts are measures of the fickle love that pervades. When super nations gift charity to struggling nations, the minor league, with the right hand, sabotage is their left hand that snatches it back from the indigent receivers! And the tendency is to give lesser countries indecent names and steadily faulting their actions.
The foregone is only a takeout from a misgiving the United States (US) Mission in Nigeria, has for the governorship election, which took place in Edo State, last year. The Mission thus emanated a widespread media statement, which portrayed the election as heavily rigged and the litigation process undermined. The stance of the mission is said to have followed the protracted depositions by some finicky civil society organisations (CSOs), which the diplomatic mission accepted, without proper investigation.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, had fielded Senator Monday Okpebholo, who trounced Dr. Asue Ighodalo of the state’s opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), to get the seat. But, in a judgement of the election petition tribunal, delivered by the three-man panel, led by the Justice Wilfred Kpochi, the election of Governor Okpebholo was validated.
Even though the election had long been concluded and Okpebholo, its winner has settled for the business of governance, the US Mission in Abuja, still carried on as if it was still in the election monitoring stage, where their intervention mandate counted and expired. And it was at the heel of this judgement that the American mission made the statement.
And for some unsolved civil society organisations, that had been consistently accused of partisanship and a ‘procured-support’ from the PDP opposition and its backers, a revered US Mission outside its home country, known for its tradition for unbiased Ombudsmanism, seemed to have staked its hard-earned reputation on a skewed narrative by the said CSOs.
Even then, the mission’s outburst also seems partisan, and an affront on the sacredness and impartiality of the Nigeria’s Court of Appeal; of a sovereign nation, that ordinarily draws its strength from its judiciary.
But, why will a purported superpower and policeman of the world, ignore irritating happenings and worsening of her ‘God’s own country’, only to be stuck in the web of internal affairs of Edo, a minute and catalyst of a Nigeria country, that is belittled by them as weak and dependent? Why will the Americans, renowned for its firmly defence of the judiciary in their own soil, play the ‘Trump-card’ that tended to deride the judiciary, in another clime, where the Americans see the same judiciary as the last hope of the common man, and also of the bourgeois?
More so, Mr. Austin Osaghae, a public affairs analyst, had posed nagging questions, thus validating the bewilderment of numerous Nigerians, that the US Mission in Nigeria, as shepherded by Mr. Richard M. Mills, its Ambassador, who was dragged into an objectionable public declaration.
“Even the naive would be aware that the statement by the US Mission in Nigeria was prejudicial on the initial tribunal judgement and an Appeal Court’s version that was yet to come. Where the PDP had not taken its decision on going for the appeal, the mission had already issued the statement. Was the mission privy to the PDP’s decision to appeal the judgement?”
The Mr. Mills’ mission should have known that there are two sides to a coin, a euphemism that it should have done a through homework so as not to be deceived by the CSOs.
Before and during the election, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, who brandished the levers of power as the state governor, had slanted the paraphernalia of his office, in favour of Dr. Ighodalo, his choice successor as governor. Obaseki had earlier imploded his PDP party by manipulating a simple election primary, where Asue Ighodalo emerged as a governorship candidate, over others. Mr. Obaseki also created an impossible huddle for other party’s candidates, buying over advertising spaces on the public advert billboards and stopping them, excepting Ighodalo, from using public auditoriums, open spaces and government-owned media houses for campaigns.
There were crime upsurges, where political opponents were allegedly harassed, intimidated, maimed and sometimes killed, so that Ighodalo could emerge. It is also on record that Inspector Onuh Akoh, of the Nigerian police, was murdered in daylight, while on official duty at the precincts of the Benin Airport. Accusation was that some gunmen from the Edo Vigilante Group, which Obaseki had purposely set up, in order to rig the election, were responsible for the killing.
The Inspector General of Police was strategic for stopping the deployment of the vigilantes for the election, in order to avoid bloodshed.
Why would the US Mission in Nigeria, funded by American taxpayers, undermine the overriding policy of its president, Donald Trump, who abhors undue interference in external matters of sovereign nations and official extravagance of its missions?
Why will President Trump insist on a policy and a US mission abroad do the opposite?
It is like in the holy book, where a mocker, who criticises another for having a speckle in his eyes, whereas he had failed to remove the logs in his own eyes.
Presently, it isn’t well with the God’s own country, as it encounters severe economic meltdown, political turmoil and social vices, never experienced in recent time.
About political and cultural diversity, the US shares likeness with Nigeria. For instance, the US presidential democracy, as adopted by Nigeria, is implicated in the country’s systemic rot, double-dealing and exorbitant cost of governance. But there are hardly no disreputable happenings in Nigeria that are not happening therein. Abound are sexual unruliness, gun-running, hard drug enterprise, cybercrime, financial and other organised criminality.
American democracy is intriguing. It resonate the Nigeria’s ugly experiences of election rigging and manipulations. In year 2000, for instance, this writer had monitored the stalemated presidential election, which featured George Bush jr and Al Gore. Also in 2020, there was a political bedlam, following the loss of a re-election bid of Donald Trump, to Joe Biden of the rival Democrats. Heated accusations, which could have truncated its democracy, had surfaced, that the Democrats rigged that election. Apart from the recounting of votes, there were skirmishes and bodily injuries, as Trump’s supporters, that were galvanized by the Proud Boys right-wing militia of Trump, clashed with security agents at the Capitol, the US seat of presidential power.
And with the comeback of President Trump, there is still unrest in that nation.
Nigeria is often derogated by the West as a corrupt nation. But if America and most of her Western allies don’t welcome official embezzlement, economic and financial crimes in Nigeria, how come that most financial institutions in the West accept stolen monies by Nigerian leaders? Whilst Scott Perry, a US congressman, alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had been funding Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in Nigeria, the nation’s government quickly refuted it. Fueling another allegation of corrupt enrichment in the country, Elon Musk, a US tech billionaire, revealed that his critics want him killed because he is stopping their fraudulent practices.
Tony Erha, a journalist and activist, who writes from Abuja, could be reached at tonyerha@gmail.com
