It’s amazing how much can change in a couple of years, particularly when it appears that major change would have been restrained by decades of set patterns, systems and structure power equations.. It is not so much that there are new influential players setting new patterns and directions in global relations, but the appearance of widespread chaos and uncertainties, the emergence of pervasive doom and gloom in global circles that were openly confident of the preservation of the status quo plus the blurring of the boundaries between friends and foes. There is a new normal in the world that gives more offence than comfort.
American voters fired loose cannon at their country and the world when they elected Donald Trump their president and leader of the free world. He had since exhumed right-wing American sentiments and trashed mainstream American values on race, the poor, minorities and neighbors. He routinely offends hallowed US political establishments and sensitive institutions of state, and has placed his ego and the tweet as the centerpiece of all policy. He has been in the gutter with US media; tweets away serious questions into his personal integrity, and treats key appointees with breathtaking contempt. He has insulted old allies and courted registered old enemies. He tells an outraged world that America has no apologies for his attempt at reshaping the world after his personal image.
Global and regional organizations cringe at prospects of engagements with him. World leaders grit their teeth as they relate with a leader who designs his own protocol and etiquette. This leader of the free world is making it feel a lot less free. The other half of the world is perplexed at the rapid change which a single leader can bring to a world traditionally understood largely in black and white. Only now does the world appreciate the capacity of an American president to pull the world in the other direction.
Trump’s assault on all received wisdom is compounding significant turbulence in much of Europe. UK’s Brexit vote has locked the country in a spiral of uncertainty and confusion, draining the influence of a nation that had been a major player in Europe and the world. Right-wing forces are changing the face of European politics, demanding barricades against foreigners and determining fates of politicians. Waves of illegal African migrants that have survived the desert and the seas, and rising numbers of citizen Muslims are stirring deep emotions and hasty policy initiatives towards preserving the purity of races, or creating an acceptable version of contemporary reality. European unity is under severe strain as it agonizes over immigrants, responses to complex developments in the Middle East, a resurgent, aggressive Russia with an appetite for neighbors and a bullying, disrespectful Trump who accuses it of joy riding.
China continues its march across the world, taking over from weakened territorial control and charting a new course with a combination of bold vision and less obtrusive influence. Russia plays to ambivalent former powers to re-assert its influence in volatile Muslim territories, building fortresses with blood and guts of local enemies.
The latter boosts economies of developed industrialized nations with billions for weapons, as they fight on all fronts in wars that weaken them all. India and other fast-developing economies see prospects and challenges in a world being disrupted by a leader of the most powerful economy who wants to re-design the entire terms of global trade in favour of America. The rest of the world watches a new world emerging, certain only that it owes itno favors. Africa has long given up the fight for dignity, independence and freedom from control by advanced industrialized powers. As it struggles to balance the challenges of growing western-style democratic values and institutions against endemic poverty and growing population, it submits to any terms, investor or donor. In strategic terms, it has never mattered less to the US, except, perhaps, in the fight to stop the spread of militant Islamic groups and extensive political instability that will threaten trade in Africa’s assets. The facade of a democratic system and political stability is enough to stay in the good books of the US, but even Africa’s wretchedness is a source of contempt for Trump.
More than any other time, Nigeria needs the world to keep in on the straight and narrow as it plunges into the hazardous vortex that is its traditional mode of choosing leaders. This time it will deal with a chaotic and uncertain world. Four years ago, Obama’s US, the government of the UK and the EU rallied positively on Nigeria’s elections, playing heroic roles in pulling many chestnuts out of Nigeria’s fire. The unusual violence- free transition to a new administration in 2015 owed much too many behind-the-scene deals and assurances put together with these nations. With a few months to another election that is very likely to be conducted in equally-frightening contexts, it does not appear that these nations will spare enough time, interests and resources to give INEC the support and encouragement it needs to conduct credible elections; to engage candidates and parties in seeking assurances over violence-free elections and peaceful outcomes; and supporting the next administration to pursue policies that will address improved security, job creation and fighting run-away official corruption.
The Nigerian government made much of the recent visit of President Buhari to Trump to beg to be sold very expensive aircraft to exterminate the Boko Haram insurgency. Informed opinion is unsure whether these planes are what Nigeria needs to flush out the remnants of the insurgency from their holes from where they still strike. Hundreds of billions of dollars will do magic to Nigeria’s efforts if they went into purchasing new small arms and weapons, paying troops’ allowances and settling other morale-boosting expenses and rehabilitating villages to relocate IDPs. It is very likely that the US military establishment knows this.
Still, superman Trump made a big deal in agreeing to sell the planes, while giving President Buhari a slap on the wrist over killings of only Nigerian Christians, a sensitive matter that should have been controverted by president Buhari if only to correct an ignorant and dangerous opinion.
As Nigeria moves nearer to the precipice once again, it will find the international community a weak leverage to utilize. The world itself is trying to find its feet from the rude disruptions that is the Trump phenomenon. Nigerians will have to learn to pull their own chestnuts out of their fires.
Jamila Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja.
