By
Chris Paul Otaigbe
The 2016 elections that brought Donald Trump into power as America’s 45th President was allegedly smeared, with a now proven report conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, by a sweeping, systematic and wide-ranging cyber-attack by Russia.
Although, Trump was declared winner of the election by a wide margin in the Electoral College, Hilary Clinton, the Democrats’ Presidential candidate actually won the popular vote by over three million. But the bottom line is,
Trump is the President of the United States, a stunning blow to the majority of Americans and the world at large.
Outraged by this unclean turn of events, the Department of Justice (DOJ), under Jeff Sessions, then, launched a special investigation into the alleged Russian attack in 2017, to be conducted by an independent Counsel Robert Mueller.
Enraged, Trump fired Sessions as the US Attorney General because the gentleman insisted on recusing himself from the case. Jeff was his friend and the first notable Republican to sell his candidacy to the larger Republican
Party. Prior to Senator Session’s sack, Trump had tested his audacity to fire State officials standing in the way of his interest by sending James Comey, the FBI Director, out of office.
For most of the period, Rod Rosenstein, then the deputy at the DOJ, supervised the investigation with little interference. Trump appointed an acting Head at DOJ, who was later replaced, as the substantive Head, by a man who evidently appears to have gotten the Trump brief right, William Barr.
From the point at which Barr took over the DOJ, Trump’s interference and obstructionist moves against the House inquiry and interest in the Russian-Mueller investigation became smooth sailing. Instances of these were well documented in the Mueller final Report.
The Congress, which has the Democrats in the majority, has been divided over launching an impeachment enquiry or proceedings into these evident obstruction by the President of the United States. Richard Nixon committed far less, in the 70s and he was impeached. While, some members want the Congress to proceed with an impeachment or an inquiry, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives insists impeachment is not the way to go. She went further to tell her colleagues that that is exactly what Trump wants because he knows impeachment would further polarize America to his own advantage.
The Democrats depended on an eventual Mueller Report which they hoped would have indicted Trump. With all the damning evidence, recorded in the Report, the indictments, convictions and jailing of some of Trump’s very close associates and confidante, the Mueller Report fell short of INDICTING the President because the DOJ had tied its hands with the Rules that the Report cannot indict a sitting President of the United States. Not giving up, the Democrats, then placed their next hope on a Mueller testimony at a Congressional hearing. Smart Barr, quickly issued another Rule: Mueller can testify but must confine his testimony to the Report with no commentary on how the processes of the Report was arrived at.
And so, on the highly publicized date, July 24, 2019 (which had been postponed a week earlier), the aged and almost frail-sounding Mueller came. His testimony, however, had failed to deliver the theatrics and the punch the Democrat had hoped to hit the American people with. This, of course, emboldened a jubilant Trump to celebrate on his usual round of Twitter tirade against his opponents.
With over 100 Democrats in the House rooting for impeachment or inquiry, Nancy’s insistence on going the Judiciary route to get rid of Trump seems to be losing support and to some extent, logic.
With his many reported and self-confessed crimes against women, questionable tax compliance concerning his businesses, largely unwholesome business practice he is being suspected of running as a billionaire business man, among other alleged criminal behavior, coupled with his infamous infractions, now, as President, Trump is riding the tide for two-three reasons:
He has over 90% approval rating in the Republican Party and he has over 40% of voters who believe in his alleged White Supremacist concept of governance. The most important reasons, which explains why he may be having such a fanatical following: the economy is at an all time great, unemployment at all time low and he is seen to be fulfilling his electoral promises to his voters. All these come together to make him the formidable force, despite his many crimes and sins, against the American system. This is where his strength lies.
It had to take this scenario to constitute a force strong enough to disrupt and destabilize America’s democracy.
So how does this relate to the Nigerian situation or the Nigerian factor?
First, Trump reminds of the brashness and the impunity of Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, displayed during his time as President.
For instance, in what can be described as a reversal of a sort, most of the impunity Obasanjo accuses his successors of, he did far worse during his tenure. In Trump’s case, most of the crimes he accused Barak Obama, his immediate predecessor of, are the same crimes he is currently committing in a far worse manner.
Obasanjo was a bully as President who punished anyone who didn’t do his bidding and so, out of fear, men who, hitherto, were regarded as honorable, threw honor to the dogs and started supporting OBJ’s lawlessness in power.
In Trump’s case, a Lindsey Graham who moved for Bill Clinton’s impeachment as a younger legislator in the Congress, for simply having an inappropriate affair with a White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky, has become Trump’s major advocate and legislative thug in the Senate against any meaningful legislative action against Trump’s many alleged misdemeanors. Graham is remembered to have said that the President does not need to commit a crime to be impeached. Simple allegation of inappropriate behavior is enough to impeach a sitting President of the United State. Today, with all the alleged crimes, which have sent many to jail as published in Mueller’s Report, Lindsey still believes Trump is okay to continue as America’s President. Senator Graham has, on record, called Trump an idiot and a crook. So, why would he make such a 360 turn to be one of the President’s men? He is afraid to lose his Senatorial seat as a Republican because Trump is fully in command of the Party, now.
Trump has destroyed the Republican Party structure, noble ideology and replaced it with his own brand of ideology of authoritarianism similar to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s. This explains his love for dictators such as Kim Yung Il of North Korea, the Philippines President, Rodrigo Duterte and of course, his alleged secret ally, mentor and collaborator, Putin. At some point, the FBI decided to investigate Trump on the allegation that he may be working as a Russian agent against US interest.
Regardless of Trump’s trumpeted alleged crimes, his base still love him and have vowed to vote for him in the next election. Now, this is where he can be compared to Nigeria’s current President, Mohammadu Buhari, who command’s over twelve million followers who are predominantly of the Northern extraction, in Nigeria. Buhari has, unrepentantly, continued in his alleged nepotist ways of surrounding and saturating his administration with Northerners thus deepening the ethnic and religious division in a country that contains the world’s largest black population. Similarly, Trump has surrounded and saturated his government not with Whites, but with those sympathetic to the White Supremacists ideology.
