By Jude Atupulazi
He is irrepressible, he is bullish, he is unyielding, fearless, combative, loud, cocky, tough, lucky and more. That is Donald Trump of the Republican Party, the 47th President of the world’s strongest nation, The United States of America; the country many of the world’s downtrodden dream to go to, but few succeed in going.
Like or hate him, you cannot take away the above qualities from Trump. Winning a presidential election in America when fighting from a disadvantaged position is never easy and given the enormity of the odds faced by him, Trump, you can say, had two of the above qualities going for him in a big way: toughness and luck.
Toughness to be able to still soldier on when the establishment was out for him; luck to be able to escape two assassination attempts and toughness again to have been able to continue after those two narrow escapes.
In fact, in the first attempt, the bullet of the assassin missed his head by the whiskers as he turned while speaking and his right cheek and ear were grazed before the bullet hit and killed one of his supporters behind him at the venue of one of his rallies.
The second attempt was when he was playing golf and one of the security agents attached to him spotted the nose of a rifle pointing at Trump from a nearby bush (thank God it wasn’t a security agent in Nigeria who would have been admiring Trump’s golfing skills and forgetting he had a job to do). A lesser mortal might have chickened out or cracked, but not Trump who has proved to be a mental monster.
But despite all this he won with a grand total of 68,772,983 votes, representing 51.2% of the total votes cast.
He defeated his closest rival and challenger, Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, who scored 63,670,087 votes, representing 47.4% of the votes cast.
Trump is a tough talker too, a trait that has attracted many enemies to him but he is not one that cares how others feel about him. He is a man not given to diplomatic niceties. He tells things the way they are and that’s why he once described Nigeria as a shithole country. Some Trump haters in Nigeria would always use that against him but when you ask them if what was said of Nigeria isn’t true they usually have no answer.
Speaking shortly after his victory became clear last Wednesday, Trump, while addressing voters at Florida after securing 266 Electoral College votes ahead of Kamara Harris, Presidential Candidate of Democratic Party, who scored 219, said, ‘This is the greatest political movement of all time. We are going to help our country heal. We are going to fix our border.
‘Our country was devastated before. I want to thank the American people for electing me as the 45th President and now the 47th President of the US.
‘This will be the golden age of America.
‘This victory will make America great again.’ This was atypical of Trump, a style that thrills his admirers who want a more combative leader with tons of swagger. But those who hate him fear he will always gravitate towards plunging America into trouble, like fighting avoidable wars.
Well, you can hardly have a complete, flawless package in any individual, can you? But suffice it to say that his cowboy disposition resonates well with many Americans, hence his victory against the odds heavily stacked against him.
But despite his flaws, if there is anything many will like about a Trump presidency, it is his expected zero tolerance for some of the rubbish that we have come to associate America with. Indeed, for a long time now it had seemed as if that country was becoming rather stupid in some of their ways. It seemed they were becoming too free for their own good.
Thus, gay marriages and rights are now seemingly the norm, as well as abortions. During the time of Barack Obama, African countries which did not support gay marriages or accord gays certain rights were discriminated against by way of non-granting of aids. It was one thing that blighted the Obama regime.
Because Americans were becoming too free for their own good, a man once posted a picture where he wedded a tree. He was dressed in a suit and decorated the tree in a bridal outfit. He said he loved the tree. At another time, a man wedded an old car which he regarded as a relic. He said the car served him well and he had fallen in love with it. Of course the car was also decorated as a bride.
These and some other crazy stuff happening in America can be put down to too much freedom which the people are finding difficult to handle positively. Nothing irks like the guts of gay people who flaunt it before the sane population. One only imagines how the kids will be viewing the whole thing and given the tendency of those copying a bad thing to do worse things, one can only but conjecture what a future American society will look like.
This madness in America, a country many look up to and see as a model, is wreaking havoc in otherwise prude societies elsewhere. Back here in Nigeria gay people are beginning to lose their shyness and beginning to flaunt it out of disregard for the culture of their clime. I know Trump will not encourage all this rubbish and will not mind the uproar that will erupt from the camp of the mad people.
For those tackling his resolve to stop illegal migrants, I ask them if there is anything wrong in a leader trying to stop illegality. If anyone wants to enter another country, shouldn’t that be done according to the rules and regulations of that country? Illegal migrants only succeed in disrupting the plans of their host countries. Those societies plan everything; it is not here that anything goes. A good leader wants the best for his people first before others.
In Nigeria our borders are thrown open to people from Niger, Chad and other places who add no value to our country except to pillage and kill. Other serious countries don’t allow that and that is what Trump is trying to do. No Nigerian, or indeed anyone from any nationality, should aim to enter another country through the bush, river or sea.
Beyond all this, is the lesson we can all learn from the Trump saga though. Here was a man whom many, including me, thought was finished but he braved the odds, fought his way back and today he has again become America’s number one man which translates to the most powerful man in the world. In fact, I learnt that even most of his supporters abandoned him after he lost his second term bid and while gunning for a return to the White House, some of his party people refused to endorse his candidature. But he trudged on.
In Nigeria today many will tell you that all hope is lost; that there is no more need to run for elections or vote because the results will not reflect the popular vote. Yes, but then we should keep trying as every effort leads slowly to something. For example, the powers that be in Nigeria were shaken by the impact made by Peter Obi in the last presidential election.
The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in particular, which was loath to give its ticket to Obi, regretted not doing so when it was too late. They knew that with their structure it would have been more difficult for the APC to rig the election. Obi was virtually on his own and relied on the masses who had no political structure. Yet, he did wonders, even beating Tinubu in Lagos.
That Lagos example is one that showed that there is a way you can beat someone and rigging becomes impossible. Despite everything done by the electoral umpire to deny Obi victory in Lagos it proved impossible because of the large margin. Yet, Obi had no one there fighting for him. Imagine if he was in a stronger party like the PDP, what could have happened. Most of the states won by the PDP would have gone to Obi and each PDP state governor would have defended his votes.
I am sure that if some other candidates had done what Obi did in the past, PDP would have given Obi the ticket. Now they know better. This is why it is good to continue trying and fighting as each attempt or fight weakens the resolve of those thwarting the popular mandate of the people. There could come a time when they will get tired and say, ”Let’s give this man this thing so Nigerians will allow us to rest.”
It is like a mother who has a troublesome child who keeps begging for toys. At a stage the tired mother will reluctantly oblige the child with one to have some rest. Thus, no attempt is a waste. Little by little we will get there and like that popular exhortation, I say, ”Don’t give up for your salvation is on the way. Trump just showed it can be done. Continuous trial will produce a trump card at some time.
