Farooq Kperogi: What Trump’s comeback may mean for Africa

A few weeks ago, I spoke at a symposium in my university here in Georgia on the implications of the U.S. presidential election for the African diaspora. To the bemusement of my audience (who were a mix of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris supporters), I explained the curious phenomenon of African support for Donald Trump, particularly among Nigerian and Kenyan evangelicals.

I described how a surprising number of African Christians (and, in fact, some Muslims) consider Trump “God’s chosen one,” a valiant defender of conservative religious values whom they imagine will take on global LGBTQ rights with righteous vengeance.

The audience was incredulous and struggled to reconcile Trump’s infamous moral transgressions with his appeal to African conservatives. When I explained that these supporters see Trump as a warrior against the “cultural liberalism” they believe threatens their faith, eyebrows raised.

The eyebrows raised even further when I pointed out that there are Muslims who are so disillusioned with the Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel that they prayed for a Trump win even when Trump is more manifestly hawkish than Biden/Harris and so disdains Muslims that he enacted a “Muslim ban” (which actually included non-Muslims) within the first few months of his first presidency.

But here’s the crux: Donald Trump is no more interested in religious morality than he is in the theological reveries of his African fan base. He is, in truth, a transactional man, a walking paradox of deals and calculations, utterly bereft of the very spiritual or moral foundation his African supporters so naively project onto him.

Trump’s “faith,” such as it is, is at best a performance, an asset to be deployed for strategic gains among America’s own conservative Christians, whom he has calculatedly courted for votes. To imagine Trump as the champion of conservative religious values is to mistake calculation for conviction and propaganda for principle.

His record speaks louder than his rhetoric. In 2015, for example, at a gathering of conservative Christians in Iowa, he openly admitted he never asks God for forgiveness, a theological anathema for any believer.

Later, on the campaign trail, he betrayed his biblical unfamiliarity, when he clumsily referred to “Two Corinthians” rather than the more common “Second Corinthians.” A slip of the tongue, perhaps, but in a subsequent interview, he tried to salvage his Christian credibility but ended up quoting a verse that doesn’t even exist: “Never bend to envy,” he offered, an adage Christians say is found nowhere in the Bible.

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Even when cornered about his favorite Bible verse, he misfired by citing “an eye for an eye,” a command Jesus explicitly repudiated. These are not the errors of a deeply religious man but the floundering of someone who considers faith a tool, not a calling.

Two Trump biographers sum up his attitude to Christianity and God nicely. Timothy O’Brien, in a 2007 book titled TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald, wrote: “Donald has never been a spiritually or religiously serious person.”

And in 2001 book titled The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire (which was revised and reissued as The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President), Gwenda Blair wrote: “He’s a transactional guy with humans, and it’s no different with God — it’s all about whatever is to his advantage with regard to his supporters, and referencing God is exactly and only that.”

Yet for all his transparent artifice, Trump has nonetheless cast a beguiling spell on certain parts of Africa and the African diaspora, who see in him a savior of conservative values. They seem unfazed by the fact that his administration’s policies, his rhetoric, and his track record show little regard for Black humanity.

This disdain was palpable during his last tenure, and his recent rallies have done nothing to dispel it. Take, for instance, his unfounded claim during the first and only presidential debate that Black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs, a baseless assertion that isn’t just false but revelatory: it reveals a mind committed to degrading Blackness wherever he sees it.

There’s a dark and disheartening history here. Trump’s disdain for Black people isn’t new, nor has it emerged from thin air. His bigotry is old news, woven through an embroidery of disparaging comments, discriminatory practices, and racially motivated policies dating back decades.

In 1973, the Department of Justice sued Trump for refusing to rent apartments to Black families, citing his blatant violation of the Fair Housing Act. He fought the case before reluctantly signing an agreement to stop his racist practices.

His remarks afterward? He railed that the government was forcing him to rent to “welfare recipients,” the vile code by which he aligned poverty with Blackness. The sentiment was clear: in his mind, Black people didn’t belong, and it was his duty to keep them out.

Such is Trump’s enduring perspective, made all the more alarming by his political ascendance. The implications of his return for Africa are both direct and symbolic. During his previous presidency, Trump cut aid programs that many African countries rely on and dismissed African immigrants as a detriment to American society.

His rhetoric went beyond mere words; his policies made a statement, a policy posture that informed his supporters, shaped the broader narrative around Black immigration, and foreshadowed his now-infamous “shithole countries” comment in 2018.

When Trump disparaged Haiti, Nigeria, and other Black-majority nations in favor of immigration from Norway, it wasn’t just a one-off gaffe; it was a worldview rooted in negrophobic disdain.
In truth, Trump has never reckoned with the humanity of Black people. Even before his “shithole countries” remark, he lambasted a Black accountant in 1991, citing “laziness as a trait in Blacks.”

Years later, during his 2016 campaign, he praised Ann Coulter’s venomously xenophobic book, which decried the arrival of Nigerians in the United States as a criminal invasion.

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His decision to block the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian-American, to lead the World Trade Organization in 2020, was yet another evidence of his disregard for Black excellence—American citizenship or no.

This is not a man whose opinions have been shaped by reasoned disagreement but by ingrained prejudice and an unwavering belief that Black lives, both within and outside of America, are lesser. Such a man at the helm of one of the world’s most powerful nations isn’t just a potential diplomatic nightmare; it’s a moral catastrophe for those who value the dignity of human life.

For Africa, the implications of a Trump resurgence are manifold. His approach to immigration alone could lead to increased restrictions on Africans seeking opportunity or refuge in the United States.

His contempt for Africans doesn’t only taint those who seek to immigrate but extends to those who remain. His willingness to denigrate entire nations with his vile language reinforces a global view of Africa as “the other,” a place he deemed too backward to deserve respect or dignify.

But Trump’s leadership affects more than just immigration. His previous administration gutted health programs that African nations relied on to tackle AIDS, malaria, and other epidemics. His withdrawal from multilateral agreements and climate initiatives destabilized African countries that disproportionately suffer from the effects of global warming and benefit the least from its economic causes.

Africa is neither immune to nor shielded from Trump’s reign. From economic pressures to ideological disrespect, his contempt manifests as policies that undermine progress and sow the seeds of isolationism.

For Africans, Trump’s victory isn’t just a foreign policy issue; it’s a personal affront. It’s a slap in the face to the millions of Africans who know America as a country that historically symbolized freedom, opportunity, and hope.

Africa’s bond with the United States transcends politics; it is the memory of independence movements supported by the promise of democracy, the aspiration for economic opportunity, and the reverence for cultural exchange. Trump’s worldview, with its utter disregard for Black humanity, threatens to erode this bond, leaving in its wake a continent left to question its ties with the West.

The challenge before Africa is to use this moment as an opportunity for unity and self-determination.

Trump’s contempt is an ugly mirror, a stark reminder that Africa cannot rely on foreign validation. Leaders and citizens alike must demand dignity, both in their interactions with the United States and in their own national narratives.

The message should be clear: Africa is neither a pawn nor a supplicant. It is a continent rich in resources, diversity, and human potential, undeserving of the scorn Trump so freely dispenses.

Trump’s victory may symbolize a return to darkness, but it is also an opportunity to galvanize resilience. Africa need not waste energy on a man who cannot see beyond his prejudice; instead, it should look to the future with resolve.

Africa’s destiny lies not in the hands of a foreign leader, and certainly not in one so blind to its humanity. Let his disdain be a rallying cry, not for despair, but for Africa to rise on its own terms.

Farooq Kperogi: What Trump’s comeback may mean for Africa

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Media Studies. 

Of Kings, King Kong and honour

By Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 8, 2024)

Since 1933, when it hit the cinemas in the United States, the classic movie, King Kong, has undergone no fewer than 13 remakes. King Kong is a giant prehistoric ape ruling the mysterious Skull Island, where he is worshipped by dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and numerous other monster creatures.

In the 1933 version, the story begins when an ambitious filmmaker, Carl Denham, takes his cast to Skull Island in the Indian Ocean territory for a jungle shoot, and the First Mate (assistant captain) of the ship, John ‘Jack’ Driscoll, falls in love with the deuteragonist, Ann Darrow. A deuteragonist is the second lead character while the protagonist is the lead character in a drama or movie.

The blond and beautiful Ann is captured by Skull Island natives who offer her to their king as a befitting sacrifice, setting humans and animals on a collision course which encapsulates the themes of man’s perpetual violation of nature, racism, exploitation, fear and love.

More powerful than any monster ever, the 25-foot tall King Kong falls in love with Ann, and gingerly holding her in his palm, remains determined to protect Ann from love-struck Jack and other crew members trying to rescue her. Though he’s a beast, King Kong navigates the intersection between primal instinct and civility by exuding love for blondie Ann, a human being, smoothening the jagged edges of animal-human borders.

In violation of nature, the crew captures King Kong, the protagonist, ships him to New York, and presents him to Broadway theatre audience in an exhibition dubbed “Kong, the 8th Wonder of the World,” with Jack and Ann posing beside Kong, rendered unconscious by a gas bomb since he was captured on Skull Island.

The blinding light from photographers’ cameras irritates the dazed Kong, who breaks loose, wrecking buildings, trains, vehicles, public utility poles and cables etc, as he picks Ann up like a piece of fried plantain and makes a dash for the 102-storey Empire Building which he climbs to the zenith.

Four planes face King Kong with fire, trying to shoot him off the building. He places Ann, his beloved, in a safe place and faces his adversaries, swatting and destroying one of the planes. In destroying the plane, Kong is injured while the gunfire intensifies. Momentarily, Kong takes his eyes off the planes and looks towards Ann, a fatal error that enables the three other planes to have good shots at him. He falls off to the ground, where a bewildered crowd quickly gathers in the final moments.

Fittingly, Jack reunites with his love, Ann. Denham, who makes his way to the scene of the fallen beast, overhears a policeman saying the planes got Kong, but he responds, “Oh, no, it wasn’t the planes. It was Beauty that killed the Beast.”

There are kings and there are kings. King Kong ruled his Skull Island. The eagle rules the air. The elephant rules the jungle. The blue whale rules the sea. I know an oba in Osun who rules with dignity and honour on the àpèrè of his forefathers.

Genealogically, the road to the palace is not paved with gold alone. It is also caked in the blood of revolution and hate. Faced with dwindling economic fortunes, the high cost of monarchy, political upheavals and the appeal democracy offers, many countries have consigned their kings and queens to the dustbin of history.

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI lost both his crown and head to the guillotine – in the aftermath of the 1792 French Revolution, making him the last monarch to live in the Palace of Versailles, taking to his grave the fitting nickname of ‘Louis the Last’.

The ruler of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, bit the dust during the Russian Revolution of 1917, drawing the curtain on monarchy in the Soviet country. And in 1918, after World War I, Germany kicked out its king, Kaiser Wilhelm I, and locked the palace forever. After Mussolini fell and a republic was established in 1946, a referendum nailed the coffin of monarchy in Italy just as China transited to a republic in 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution which abolished the Qing Dynasty.

Brazil sacked its king in 1889 after a republican military coup while Greece showed King Constantine II the exit door of the palace in 1973, following a referendum by military coupists. But Spain, which abolished monarchy between 1931 and 1939, restored it in 1947. Indeed, red and gold are the road to the palace.

In the 20th Century, monarchies were abolished in Afghanistan (1973), the Ethiopian monarchy that lasted for almost 3,000 years ended with Haile Selassie in 1974, Vietnam (1945), and Iraq (1958). Recently, Nepal and Barbados kicked out the monarchy in 2008 and 2021 respectively.

Unlike Africa and Europe, monarchy remains strong and vibrant in the Middle East though social reforms are gradually tempering the sword of absolutism with change.

In Nigeria, the desirability or otherwise of monarchy is like the waves of the sea, rising and falling, peaking and ebbing, a mixed bag of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Among the Ugly is the Canada-returnee jailbird king who oversmokes Indian hemp, beats his wife and royal colleague, and fights culture and tradition; a madcap desecrator of the throne who will never heed the caution of the odíderé until he perishes.

Among the Bad are the kings who run errands for politicians and support bad government policies – like that Abacha-dark-goggled king who advised the Igbo to go and perish in the lagoon so that the son of the owner of the brass mortar may reign. As a lover of culture, I won’t call for the abolition of monarchy in Nigeria though the temptation is high.

There are many good kings in Yorubaland, though the eyes cannot miss some black sheep among the flock. But lest I be accused of nepotism, I’ll name one oba in Osun, my state of origin, though Lagos is my state of birth; I’ll name one oba in Ondo, one in Ogun and one in Oyo as exemplars of nobility. This is not to say there are no good kings in Lagos and Ekiti states. There are many, but I’m probably not close enough to them – to talk about them.

At times, I wonder how lucky the Ekimogun people of the Ondo kingdom are by having as the Osemawe, Oba Adesimbo Kiladejo. Another worthy king I know is the late Towulade of Akinale kingdom in Ogun State, Oba Olufemi Iyanda Okesooto Ogunleye, journalist and lawyer, who died on June 19, 2024, after bagging a PhD at 80.

On October 22, 2024, I was strolling on Facebook Street when I saw a post by Diran Odeyemi, a popular Peoples Democratic Party chieftain in the South-West. The post says, “Do you know this school? Abolarin College, Oke-Ila, Osun State. No school fees. Free hostel. Free food. Free internet. Free uniform. Free laptop for every child. 24/7 power supply. All paid by the town’s king. The king teaches too in the school. We should celebrate such a Nigerian. What makes this school remarkable is that one major criterion for getting admitted is being poor. If your parents are rich, you cannot get admission.

Unlike other schools, Abolarin College wants poor kids who are very brilliant. From what I gathered, the king has only one wife. He’s not using the money of the kingdom to accumulate wives or properties.

Every Osun journalist worth their salt knows Oba Abolarin, whose nickname is Doxy. I got to know the 66-year-old king when I worked in Osun. I know his school, too.

I know students from the North, East and West of Nigeria are in his school. I also know he has two first degrees – one in Political Science, the other in Law – both from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

As an honourable king and ègbón, I know Doxy up-close; he’s highly cerebral and doesn’t brook conflict or crave attention. Like the almighty sun in heaven that dries up wet clothes on earth, you will see the actions of Doxy without seeing his person.

Two other Nigerians whose actions pleasantly shocked me in recent times are the Asiwaju of Igbajoland, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, and a former House of Reps member from Ogun State, Hon. Lanre Laoshe, both of whom refunded a Federal Government student loan they received in the 1970s.

Asiwaju means leader and Awomolo leads on many fronts. He is Osun’s first Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice as well as Osun’s first Senior Advocate.

He told me in an interview that he had been contacting the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation since 2012 to pay his student loan indebtedness but no official told him what account to pay into, adding that each time he saw his loan affidavit, he became weighed down.

“The idea behind student loans is good. I commend President Tinubu for resuscitating the scheme. I spoke with four different Accountant Generals of the Federation since 2012 when I wanted to pay N50k.

“In 2018, I wanted to pay N1m, but I just followed God’s direction and I’ve now paid N2m for a loan of N1,000 I took in 1975 If NEFUND wants me to pay more, I will.”

Laoshe, who took a student loan of N1,200 in 1976, repaid N3.1m, reportedly using a table of average annual exchange rates from 1972 to 1985 from the Central Bank of Nigeria to calculate what he owed the government.

My father and mother didn’t owe student loans. Please, ask your parents to pay up if they are owing. As we, the masses, hold government accountable, we should look at ourselves, too. Surely, Nigeria needs more men and women with conscience.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @ Tunde_Odesola

(Opinion) Oyo Assembly trespasses over illegal suspension of Oyo East LG Chairman

Like executive, like legislature in Oyo State, rascality is now the order of the day as Oyo State is now synonymous with illegality and power exuberance. The only Governor which condemned Supreme Court landmark judgment on local government autonomy is the Oyo State fanatical emperor; Governor Seyi Makinde as the Oyo State House of Assembly was reported on Thursday October 31, 2024 to have also suspended the Chairman of Oyo East Local Government, Olusola Oluokun, over a viral video that was purportedly obnoxious and unbecoming of a Chairman of a local government. While the Governor deliberately attacked the Supreme Court judgment to discredit the then Chief Justice of Nigeria who hailed from Oyo State, did the Assembly also want to discredit Alaafin of Oyo Empire symbolizing Yorubaland which Oyo represents?

To be sincere, apart from Ladoja/Akala regime which witnessed thugs’ incursion into Oyo politics, the current administration is the most ruthless that even elevated hooliganism in the State and made thugs of undisciplined people disciplinary committee Chairman of Transport Arms of the terror network. An absurdity of highest order to the Pace Setter State!!!

Actually, the atmosphere in Oyo State House of Assembly since 2019 has shown that the house is either full of political puppets or novice in legislative duties, No wonder, the house members do not even know their limit in law making nor know the laws they are supposed to superintend. There was a day I even asked my own Assembly member from Orelope State Constituency copy of a Law passed when he joined the House but I was surprised that he said he did not have a copy of the bill apart from political brag by telling me he did not know the person he was responding to despite introducing myself formally as usual before making my request. As activist, I did not know more than 65% of people I have attended to their cases. They only got my contact and when they explained their situations, I proffer the solutions where there was no need of seeing me. And once they got result, that is the end. If an honourable has no copy of the law he was part of the makers, do we need to ask them what oversight functions they perform when they do not even know what to do?

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If the House of Assembly is constitutionally informed and literarily exposed, it would have known it is not only illegal for house of Assembly to suspend or sack a local Government Chairman the Same way the National Assembly cannot suspend a Governor or impeach him but that it smears ill of the constituents of that Assembly. The legislative functions of the councilors at the local government include screening and approval of local government budget, nominees of local government chairman such as Supervisors, special assistants and advisers, suspension or removal of local government chairman among others and to conduct oversight functions on the entire local government departments and Units where allocation of resources was made during the financial year. Ohhhh, let me ask Oyo Assembly o, is it the National Assembly that helps you perform your roles? If not, why hijacking the local government administration just because they were selected by you boss?

So, if at all, there is any kangaroo law at the State level which empowers the State Assembly to suspend or sack a local government, that law exposed the mediocrity of those who made it and or implement it as not being sound intelligently in the task of legislative functions. This is because if the National Assembly doesn’t have power to suspend a Governor, the State House of Assembly should know it trespasses and subverts local government administration independence which the Supreme Court has affirmed. Is Oyo Assembly now reversing Supreme Court judgment as a result of power abuse or display of sheer ignorance of the laws?

According to 1999 Constitution of the FRN (as amended), it provides in Section 4 (5) “If any Law enacted by the House of Assembly of a State is inconsistent with any law validly made by the National Assembly, the law made by the National Assembly shall prevail, and that other Law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void” and section (7) provides “The House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof with respect to the following matters, that is to say- (a) any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution; (b) any matter included in the Concurrent Legislative List set out in the first column of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto” In all of these provisions, the State House of Assembly only has power on revenue allocated to a local government or budget made in respect thereof of any thing having to do with education among similar objects. At no point was any administrative power over local government administration vested in the State House of Assembly. Therefore, the suspension of the Oyo East local government by the Oyo State House of Assembly is ultra vires by the application of Doctrine of covering the veil. Without requiring litigation, the House should reverse itself as quick as possible except it wants to make mockery of itself and the occupants of that House

Luqman Soliu

Abeokuta, Ogun State

(Opinion) Oyo Assembly trespasses over illegal suspension of Oyo East LG Chairman