tunjioa@yahoo.com 08036683657
What politicians have been does not reliably foretell what they may do in office. The need for them to get the votes is one reason. So, what appeals to voters is what they say. How outrageous such may be doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t matter that it may contradict their personal experiences. Reliable ones among them go ahead and do exactly what they say. The United States’ president, Donald Trump, in one of such. He fuelled the fear of foreigners among some American voters to get to power. He has settlers as ancestors but he embarks on policies meant to keep would-be settlers away from the US soil. His approach reminds one of the fear that politicians elsewhere also fuel in order to get the votes, as well as the phobia for “settlers” that’s a common feature of the Nigerian landscape. I’ll return to it later.
Last month, two kids died at the United States-Mexico borders. They had been in the US detention facilities among other illegal immigrants as Trump ordered. Those deaths didn’t deter him from pursuing his war against would-be settlers. He had even threatened to shut down the operations of the US Government in order to ensure his policy sailed through Congress. He did as he promised. Now, polls show that citizens hold him responsible for the shutdown. But his Republican Party supporters are pleased that the government is shut down since Trump is not given the $5bn he needs to erect a wall on the US-Mexico borders. The wall is meant to shut out would-be settlers coming from Latin America. Yet, Trump himself is a product of three generations of settlers. Also, his three wives were naturalised American citizens. Only one of his five children is the child of two American-born citizens. That says something about expectations, and how the background of politicians sometimes counts for nothing with respect to the policy they pursue in office.
We know getting to power and remaining there take skill. Strategy is the more appropriate word. It took strategists to make Trump win an election in which his opponent had two million votes more than he did. How highly cerebral mathematical calculations of some consultants, and the targeting of specific voters with specific messages resulted in victory for Trump seemed to me one of the greatest pull-offs of the new millennium. It’s because not many observers gave Trump a chance. But he silently worked behind the scene, believed in the proposal by his strategists, and with just a handful of votes in states that had greater value in the Electoral College the election swung in his favour. The approach is simple. Some American voters were for economic nationalism . This involves keeping illegal would-be settlers out. Trump promised it, and now he’s doing what he promised.
Actually, Trump’s campaign promises were outcomes of a carefully thought-out strategy too. A politician who didn’t sound like Trump wouldn’t have made a dent in an election already given to the opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump’s chief ideologist was Steve Bannon. I had once mentioned him on this page in connection with another matter. Weeks after I did, Bannon had to leave Trump’s White House inner circle. But he had got the job done, teaching Trump to ride a populist wave by playing on the fears of those Americans whose few votes could give him victory through the Electoral College. Bannon wasn’t the first strategist to advise his client to follow that course though. Trump too hasn’t been the only politician who speaks the language of those who fear would-be settlers. Across Europe, nationalists and far-right parties have made significant electoral gains. They have some common themes such as hostility to immigration and anti-Islamic rhetoric. Where does this leave Europe? Where will a similar approach in Nigeria leave us?
My initial intention was to make conjectures regarding this trend in the US and Europe. But I choose to return home. Why? A Nigerian version of what Americans and Europeans fear exists here. We are withdrawing, separating ourselves unto ourselves. I mean we withdraw into our ethnic and religious cocoons. For some Nigerians, these are their last lines of defence. Meanwhile, there is a system in operation that is essentially bereft of equity and justice. In the face of it, we retreat to ethnic and religious conclaves. We use them to prosecute our battles in politics, regarding appointments and access to state resources. I’m convinced this isn’t the way to go. I think we ought to come together and see how we can make the system work better, and ensure that people get their fair treatment. Leaders, traditional or religion-based, should reach out to other leaders and solve local problems. When I wrote about the tendency among Christians in northern Nigeria to withdraw unto themselves not long ago, this was part of what I had in mind. The reactions I got didn’t deny my observation that Christians withdrew. What a few readers accused me of was that I focused on Christians without balancing it with the action of those they took issue with. My private response to inquiries from some decorous readers was that on that occasion I was expressing my view regarding what Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said to his fellow Christians. When I have factual things (even though a reader may not agree with me) to say to other parties, I will write about them too.
Now, I don’t believe a negative reaction is the solution to any challenging issue that we may have in Nigeria. This is more so if such issues will continue to occur as long as we humans relate. One of them is migration. Challenging issues are to be managed. It’s not in the interest of anyone to turn them into flames that can consume all. It’s what a negative or hardened position does. For instance, the idea of keeping ‘outsiders’ out of our localities because they are competitors is negative. Nothing negative is sustainable. It generates tension and violence will continually erupt. When this happens even what the locals think they want to keep to themselves alone may go up in flames. In any case, we can’t have members of our own ethnic or religious group doing well for themselves in the locality of other people while we keep our own locality under lock and key. Such a step is a narrow-minded solution to the challenges we confront with respect to locals-‘outsiders’ relationship. I’ve heard this approach being canvassed by educated people who should know better, and I think it’s dangerous.
Some years ago, I travelled to my father’s hometown where I met a resident trader of either the South-East or South-South origin for the first time. A few years later, I took note of how densely populated the town had become. More non-locals had come in. Some of them wanted to purchase land, a part of my late father’s land inclusive. They wanted to construct things like fuel stations. I know the trend will continue for as long as outsiders find the town peaceful and good for business. I didn’t think of having them kept out, rather I thought of what I should do to ensure that I didn’t become ‘landless’. My solution to that concerns how I can to make such land productive and useful. If a “son of the soil” doesn’t put to good use what he has, it will eventually go to ‘outsiders’ who need it. This is happening across Nigeria. What I notice however is that rather than the so-called indigenes (whose ancestors had also come in to settle sometime in the past) to work on themselves and make themselves relevant in their own locality in the face of competition from would-be settlers, they want to keep them out. They even engage in violent acts to achieve this. I hold a rather amused view of the mentality that drives it. Why? The approach won’t work for ever. One generation may hold on to what it has. But the next is never obligated to do the same thing. It’s in humans to migrate. If anyone thinks moving from one place to settle in another can be stopped, I’m afraid they have embarked on a journey that’s contrary to human nature. History shows that what is contrary to human nature can never last.
END
Be the first to comment