How America became a third world country - By Tabia Princewill

 I still remember how every  minority in the Western world seemed to walk taller, with more confidence, the day Barack Obama won the US Presidential election. I was living in France at the time, a country which is unfortunately no stranger to identity politics and resurgences of xenophobia, and I remember swaggering into my lecture hall. Black street cleaners had swagger; black workers had swagger. Black students had swagger. 
I can’t find the words to express what it meant to me, and countless others in the diaspora, to find my “otherness”, my “blackness” suddenly vindicated, accepted, maybe even celebrated—people thought Michelle was beautiful! Smart! I remember watching the First Couple, Barack and Michelle, dance to Etta Jones’ “At Last”. I remember feeling like I too had come full circle. In this “White House built by slaves” (to paraphrase Michelle Obama), a black couple with a healthy relationship, lived quietly with their daughters, without a scandal for eight years (unheard of in modern politics). 

They redefined what was possible, what opportunity, hope and hard work meant. To African-American young people, saying “my President is Black” was the answered prayer of men and women who died nearly 500 years ago, never knowing what freedom meant or that one day for that matter, their children would come to define it.
 It seems so unjust that a man as intelligent, deep and genuine as Obama should hand over to a man endorsed by the KKK. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tightening their grips on the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations. “We shall not be moved” was often sang during the civil rights era. Undoubtedly, Obama’s coming couldn’t erase several centuries of hate and prejudice. We must never be complacent. We also must never cease to believe that justice, freedom and fairness come as naturally to human beings as the opposite.
 There are many brilliant articles online on how racism, sexism and poverty shaped the 2016 US election. I’ll encourage readers to find them and to study them. There are many lessons for Nigeria. The average Nigerian is in his core, possibly just as xenophobic as the white, often uneducated voters who ushered Trump to victory—it’s an inconvenient, unpleasant truth. 
The horrible things Trump said during his campaign are common words all over Nigeria, in homes and offices where hate speech, intolerance of other ethnicities and religions, are normalised and trivialised. After all, didn’t a member of the Senate allegedly threaten to “rape” another one of his colleagues right there and then on the Senate floor? How different is that from “grab them (women) by the p****” Trump’s now infamous catcall? Trump’s campaign mantra was to spew hatred of women and minorities as policy: the only difference between Trump and some Nigerian politicians was his command of the English language.
 Our leaders are often vulgar, unbothered by their ignorance and uninterested in the poor and disenfranchised whose most vile and base instincts they pander to. The New Yorker called Trump’s victory “an American tragedy”, in a way few Nigerian media outlets would dare criticise a President-elect whose favour our society is structured and trained to seek. It is the independence of the American spirit, its dogged pursuit and love of freedom, which will hopefully keep its democracy safe. As for us in Nigeria, we continue to revel in obscurantism and abhorrence of the truth, while movements are already gearing up, all over America, to checkmate any attempts at desecrating American ideals and freedoms. Public opinion in Nigeria is a fickle thing. 
We’re shocked by Trump’s victory, but not shocked by the insufferable mini-emperors we elect. Trump, even if he tried, couldn’t do half as much damage as the average local government chairman in Nigeria, who remains nameless and faceless, free to do as he pleases. America recognises the significance of the moments it is living, for better or for worse. Nigerians hide their heads in the sand. Nigerians aren’t all shocked by Trump’s allegedly “sharp” business practices, or the customers and investors who claim they were cheated etc. We have a long history of connivance between the business and political realms in Nigeria, where laws only apply to the poor and therefore unimportant. Nigerian business men destroy entire sectors because of sheer greed and incompetence yet walk away smiling, even after jobs, pensions and lives have been obliterated. 
The bigotry displayed during the campaign is an everyday fact of life in both official and unofficial circles in Nigeria: America must fight the temptation to normalise divisiveness and hate. We here in Nigeria, know what this has cost us. Even those Americans who threatened to leave if Trump won are still there, ready to fight (metaphorically, not physically) for their beliefs and their country. Nigerians “check out” when things get hard and uncomfortable. On a final note, I’ll mention the evangelical churches in America who wholeheartedly backed hatred of non-whites and ask what this says about new age churches: are we ready to examine their doctrines? Many preach material comfort at all cost, sometimes excusing or masking, at home and abroad, the social corruption, the sacrifice of others’, their rights and happiness, which making money at any and all cost, enables. The American and Nigerian societies are oddly similar: deeply conservative, with a veneer of liberalism. In our own profoundly unequal society with the strains of the 2015 election barely healed, where poverty remains the condition of the majority of the population, we are ripe for the plucking—a demagogue, someone who preys on our darker instincts, our vulnerabilities, would find it all too easy to plunge us further into darkness and we’ll have no one but ourselves to blame. Blasphemy killings THE alleged killer of an Igbo trader in Kano was reportedly acquitted, his accomplices walking free.
 The woman’s crime was blasphemy but interpretation of her husband’s account of events speaks more of an intra-communal dispute than a wholly religious one. We as Nigerians are yet to fully learn how to live together and respect each other’s differences. White nationalists in America (the KKK included) are reportedly planning a rally to celebrate Trump’s victory. The forces at play in America today are deeply imbedded in the Nigerian psyche. Identity politics and violence have been the hallmark of Nigerian social life practically since independence and our leaders haven’t done much in terms of their pronouncements or our educational policy (we don’t study civics or history) to teach our youth that although tongues and religions may differ, brotherhood is our only chance at survival and global relevance. A united Nigeria has always frightened the West (hence the incessant doomsday predictions over the 2015 elections). We haven’t needed much help or interference to decide to destroy ourselves. 
The African diaspora and Trump Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, (as well as a host of other Nigerian political figures) congratulated Donald Trump on his surprise victory and pledged his willingness to work with him. One wonders: as what? He is neither a diplomat nor does he hold any government portfolio. In fact, it is interesting that many of the African leaders who so quickly congratulated “the Donald”, misunderstand his apparent disdain for African leaders, as shown during the campaign, via some of his comments on the “backwardness” of the African continent. Donald Trump is no friend of immigrants, be they African or Latino. Predictably, no President from the developing world (particularly Africa) will have the courage to take Donald Trump up on some of his comments, or in the event that the African diaspora finds itself targeted by hate crimes, as is already happening since Brexit. 
What will we in Nigeria do with an army of deportees, should they come? Plans for African diasporans are often vanity projects, sketchy at best, lacking any concrete implementation. Perhaps, Trump will be a good thing for Africa. If we no longer receive aid money (and with the current drop in oil prices there’s generally less of any kind of money to embezzle) perhaps we’ll be forced to fix our countries. God’s plan?