Buhari will miss Obama. He owes him a debt

It goes without saying that President Buhari’s government and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), preferred Hillary Clinton, rather than Donald Trump, to win the US presidential election. Notwithstanding Buhari’s perfunctory congratulatory message to President-elect Trump, the reactions of some of his ministers were revealing. For instance, Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transport, said the Democrats “went to sleep” in the election, implying he wished they had defeated the Republicans. Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture, admitted to being “in a bit of shock”, and said Nigeria would have to “re-tune and re-tool” its foreign policy if Trump was hostile towards Nigeria. These are not the reactions of politicians who are indifferent to a Clinton loss or relaxed about a Trump victory!

Part of the reason for this, you may argue, is that, as “progressive” parties, there are political affinities between the APC and the Democratic Party, just as there are between the Democrats and the UK Labour Party, which also wanted Clinton to win. But, in truth, there are more to it than ideological similitudes. President Buhari and the APC are, in fact, beholden to President Obama and the Democrats. Why? Well, Buhari owed his victory in last year’s election, in part, to the US President, or, put differently, he enjoyed the sympathies and helpful interventions of the Obama government in that election.

Indeed, before the election, President Obama sent out powerful signals that left few people in doubt about his preferred candidate. These included allowing his secretary of state, John Kerry, to boost Buhari’s international standing as more or less president-in-waiting through several visits and talks. This prompted an editorial in Washington Times, saying that “Despite the policy against state visits near election time, Mr Kerry lent the political legitimacy of his office as the president’s representative to the opponent of the current leader of Nigeria”.

Well, truth be told, that “current leader”, Goodluck Jonathan, had already fallen out of favour with President Obama and most other western leaders because of his incompetence, particularly his appalling handling of critical national challenges, such as the endemic corruption, the Boko Haram insurgency and the abduction of the Chibok girls. Jonathan, lest we forget, had almost abandoned his leadership of the country and was out of touch with realities outside his Aso Rock hole-up. Furthermore, his government had developed strained relations, sometimes with open rifts, with the Obama administration and other key Western nations. By contrast, Buhari was actively courting Western leaders, and holding himself out as someone willing and able to tackle Nigeria’s chronic problems, as he set out in his much-publicised Chatham House speechduring the campaign.

Crucially, the West’s interests coalesced with those of most Nigerians. The majority of Nigerians wanted change – Jonathan was beyond the pale – and the US and other key Western leaders were determined to prevent any shenanigan that could thwart the people’s will. I have never seen an African election or even, more broadly, a developing country election in which the US and other Western countries took such an extraordinary interest as they did in last year’s presidential election in Nigeria. The US and key European countries maintained an unusually close watch and vigilance over the entire process. It was unprecedented: minute by minute monitoring, intelligence sharing and extraordinary public interventions, all to ensure that the popular will of the people prevailed.

Take one striking example.  After the polls had closed, there was undue delay in announcing the final results. This prompted nervous concerns about the counting, certainly not helped by outlandish claims by senior PDP apparatchiks that the party had won in 23 states. The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his UK counterpart, Phillip Hammond, issued a joint statement in which they warned of “disturbing indications that the collation process may be subject to deliberate political interference”. This was an extraordinary intervention, most certainly based on intelligence, by the two countries. Of course, as the British playwright Tom Stoppard once wrote, “It’s not the voting that makes a democracy; it’s the counting”.  Given the apocalyptic predictions about existential post-election violence if the election result was tampered with, that open intervention and, indeed, a number of private interventions by the US, through pressure and nudging, that culminated in President Jonathan conceding defeat, were indispensable elements of the successful 2015 elections.

Sadly, we may never know the full details of what transpired in those critical moments of Nigeria’s history. In open and transparent societies, several insider accounts would have been published by now. For instance, the Brexit vote took place less than six months ago, yet there are already two or three books about the politics and intrigues that led to David Cameron’s resignation, and Theresa May’s emergence, as prime minister. Surely, if we don’t document key events of the past, how could we know, let alone learn from, them?This is why there is a lot of “post-truth” politics in Nigeria. As the Oxford Dictionaries put it, “post-truth” occurs when “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Certainly, it’spost-truth politics when former President Jonathan claims the moral high groundfor conceding defeat in an election he actually lost, saying he made a sacrifice for the country in doing so, when, in truth, he had no choice: he faced a lot of the countervailing forces.

For Buhari, though, the narrative is different. Although he commends Jonathan for conceding defeat, he never stopsthanking the US for “exerting pressure” on him.In one statement, he said:“I will never forget the role the US played in the stability of Nigeria”. He was referring to the 2015 elections. Buhari is rightly indebted to President Obama for a relationship that contributed in no small measure to his emergence as Nigeria’s president, and that has bolstered his international standing since he assumed office.

For instance, Obama has held a couple of high-profile meetings with Buhari in Washington. This is not insignificant, given the premium that even other Western leaders place on being granted an audience by the US president. Furthermore, Obama has allowed his secretary of state, John Kerry, to develop something close to a personal friendship with Buhari through regular visits and talks. What’s more, Obama gave a public endorsement, with international implications, to Buhari’s performance as president. During the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last year, President Obama was introducing Buhari to the new Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. “Have you met the President?”, Obama asked Trudeau, referring to Buhari who was sitting next to him. “He is doing a good job”, he added, to which Trudeau replied: “Yes, indeed!”

Now, this piece is not about Buhari’s performance, on which regular readers of this column know my views. It is about the relationship between the leader of the free world and the president of the world’s most populous black nation. From a geo-strategic point of view, that relationship, when positive, is desirable. But there is a legitimate question about whether the relationship between Obama and Buhari has benefitted Nigeria itself. For instance, is America now buying Nigeria’s oil, is it returning Nigeria’sstolen money stashed in US banks, is it helping Nigeria to resuscitate its moribund economy, etc, etc? There is little evidence that Buhari has leverage the relationship to extract key benefits for Nigeria; it’s largely personal, based on Buhari’s reputation and Obama’s role in helping to mid-wife his emergence as president. Yet, notwithstanding that, it is, in my view, still desirable, from diplomatic and strategic standpoints, for the presidents of Nigeria and the US to have cordial relationships, which certainly is the case between Obama and Buhari, and would almost certainly have been the case between Buhari and Hillary Clinton.

But Obama leaves office in January, and Clinton lost the election! And, as the Bible says of the people of Israel, “Now, there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph”. Another version says, “The new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt”. Would this have implications for the relationship between President Buhari and President Trump? Social media is replete with derogatory comments that Trump allegedly made about Nigeria and President Buhari himself. Whether or not these are true, the fact is that Trump and Buhari are unlikely to be buddies! For instance, Trump has spoken to only one African leader – the Egyptian president – since his election. Surely, given the strategic importance of Nigeria, Buhari should also have received his call. Yet there are speculations that President-elect Trump has not even replied to Buhari’s congratulatory message.

Surely, Buhari will miss Obama when he leaves office in January next year, but he must now adjust to Trump’s unpredictable world. That said, President-elect Trump has been softening some of his tough campaign rhetoric, and may be open to outside influences. President Buhari must proactively forge strong links with him, as even Britain is working hard to do!

Olu Fasan