Prof Bolaji Akinyemi is a former Minister of Exterior Affairs. On this interview monitored on Channels Tv, he speaks on Donald Trump’s return as President of the US; points that can form international politics and economic system and the way they might have an effect on Nigeria
How do you describe the particular person of Donald Trump?
Donald Trump is an open guide. Everybody is aware of who he’s, a convicted felon, a person whose language will not be one that you simply need to determine with, a person whose closest allies and associates internationally are literally, you understand title them, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Benjamin Netanyahu who has a warrant of arrest from the Worldwide Legal Courtroom [ICC} on his head over alleged Gaza war crimes.
The World Court has harsh things to say about him. I’m talking about Netanyahu, a man who the United Nations has had to pass several resolutions distancing his country from the UN. These are the people who are the closest people on the global scene to President Trump.
So, he is an open book, when it comes to who the world will admire. You recall that President Ronald Reagan also referred to the United States as the shining light on the hill. That is somebody who will guide the world, somebody the world can identify with.
My first visit to the United States was in 1962, and since then, the United States psychologically has played a large role in my life. The first American president that I will meet was John F. Kennedy. I was shattered when he got killed. This was a man; if you read his inaugural address, to me, is still one of the top class inaugural addresses.
And he is still one of the best American presidents. The United States at that time was becoming the very country that you know you wanted to embrace and their value you wanted to identify with. See how far the United States has fallen. It has disgraced itself; I must say. It has disappointed the rest of the world in the electoral decision that the United States took.
What kind of America do you think Donald Trump will shape in the next four years, considering the rhetoric and those messages that were brought into his campaign?
If he decides to actually actualize the rhetoric in his campaign, America is going to shock the rest of the world. We are going to see American soldiers on the streets, disciplining those he called enemies and people he has political disagreements with.
He is going to bring out American soldiers to expel immigrants from the streets of the United States and those who dare come back, he said he is going to lock them up.
For people, who feel this may just be a rhetoric, he reminded his listeners that there is a military detention centre in Cuba, in which America tries not to publicly admit that it has. Democratic presidents have tried to shut it down, President Joe Biden has tried; it is the Republicans who have blocked the attempts.
Now, you see all the rhetoric that came from Trump’s camp, I pray and hope that he does not implement them, or else even the United States may find itself before the World Court, being dragged for violation of human rights.
These Bretton Woods institutions were set up to protect Western economic interests… Therefore, for us to be embracing their suggestions as a solution to our economic problems is a wrong approach
He spoke about illegal immigration, he referred to some part of the world as shithole countries, he spoke about women in ways that people have criticized him, and other statements that are extreme and derogatory. Do you think this Trump that has won this seat again is a ‘Born Again Trump,’ or is the same old Trump?
You know that Kamala Harris tried to get in touch with him to congratulate him but she did not succeed in getting through to him.
The routine procedure is that the loser in a presidential election will call the winner to congratulate him and offer the hand of friendship and cooperation but Trump refused to pick that call.
Does that sound like somebody who intends to unite America? Does that sound like somebody who is prepared to offer hand of friendship across to 60 million or so Americans who voted for Kamala Harris?
It is the same old Trump they are going to get, and America itself is going to be sorry that this is the man they voted for. But they cannot claim that they didn’t know what they were doing. They cannot.
The election was a competition between light and darkness, between love and hatred, between good and bad, between crudity and refinement. It is just very clear.
Who would you describe as light and darkness in the contest?
Oh you know; you should know. I don’t need to spell ABC for you to decipher. You know what I’m talking about. You said at one time he described some part of the world in a derogatory way; it is Africa.
Let’s not beat about the bush that he referred to as shithole. Now, it was on his platform that Puerto Ricans were referred to as garbage.
Does that show any respect for a whole people? You talked about what Nigeria and Africa should expect; we don’t care. We are not on his radar.
We are not on his radar at all. If you are on his radar, the people who are going to be important to him are going to be Russians, North Koreans and Israelis. Of course, you cannot ignore NATO but you are going to have a weakened NATO under him.
I feel sorry for Ukraine, because the funds from America to Ukraine is going to dry up, and Ukraine is going to have to be dependent on whatever little they can get from the Europeans and from NATO countries.
I also feel sorry for the Palestinians. Trump is not going to have anything to do with a two-state solution. How that is going to contribute to peace in the Middle East; well we just have to wait.
What did you think happened in all these?
I have no idea what happened, the glass ceiling against the president, the syntax is still there. Perhaps, we have tended to misinterpret the United States. We have had in Nigeria, three female Chief Justices.
America hasn’t had a female Chief Justice. The liberalism that you know we tended to attach to American political system is simply not there.
We have seen from the outcome of the election that this Republic Party is not the party of Abraham Lincoln or the party you know of the Bush family.
This is a right wing movement driven by a right wing ideology that has captured the United States, and this does not hold well for even the United States.
Why women, blacks, Latinos could vote for Donald Trump in the quantity they voted for him, I cannot explain except you say that some, maybe, some people are suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, where they identify with people who exploit them.
What do you make of President Bola Tinubu’s congratulations to President Trump and asking for collaboration with his administration?
The President has done what any president would do. There are values that control international relations or interstate relations, so President Tinubu has done absolutely the correct thing, and I’m sure that we will get also the correct replies coming out of the United States, probably a message that the President did not even see, but it’s written by an officer at that level whose duty is to monitor messages coming from foreign leaders and the kinds of reply that you give. Of course, there are special leaders, Netanyahu of Israel, Putin of Russia, and even probably the president of China.
There may be the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister from the United Kingdom, but you know, there are special foreign leaders that will be put in Band A to use our electricity consumption terms and classifications. There will be heads of state that will be Band B and in Band C. So, African leaders should be in Band C.
Should we be optimistic at all? What should be our alignment? What should be our expectation of the Donald Trump presidency?
Or do you think that we should just manage ourselves and look elsewhere for salvation? We shouldn’t even be looking elsewhere for salvation. We should be looking inward for salvation.
I have said this so many times, and I have stressed this. Nigeria is not a banana republic, if we manage our oil and gas resources as well as our agricultural resources ourselves, we will pull ourselves from the economic doldrums we are. So, we don’t need to turn elsewhere. Look at what India has done, the way India has pulled itself around.
We can now again use the Lee Kuan Yew language ‘From the Third World to the First World.’ Look at the way Turkey has pulled itself from the third world to where maybe the second on the way to being the first/ They did all that, not by depending on aid or depending on assistance or depending on other countries.
They are detailed on these by cooling themselves with their own bootstraps. When Lee Kuan Yew was asked for an explanation over what he did, he said because he ensured that he and his ministers were reading from the same page, that he and his ministers went to either Cambridge or Oxford, that they made sure they rejected every recommendation that they got from the World Bank and the IMF; but instead, they thought through what they believed will be solutions to the problems, because they understood the problems of their country more than anybody else.
Frankly, I think that President Tinubu should buy the book ”From the Third World to the First World” and make it compulsory reading for every member of his government. We have enough resources to actually pull us up, to help pull the millions of poverty -stricken people that we have up from poverty to richness.
The concept of alignment or non-alignment, with all due respect, is dead. It served its purpose when really the world was divided into two blocs.
The division in the rest of the world now is more nuanced than that. The BRICS that people factor has among its members, China, Russia, it’s not ideologically bifurcated. South Africa is there; now Brazil is there. So, we should stop talking in terms of those ideological notes.
If we manage our oil and gas as well as agricultural resources ourselves, we will pull ourselves from the economic doldrums we are. So, we don’t need to turn elsewhere
Do you think that we are focused in our international relations, policy and ideology under this government, if not, what should we be doing?
We haven’t been focused since after the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second coming, so I wouldn’t want to isolate the Tinubu administration. If one is going to be clear and not confuse Nigerians, we have not been focused in our foreign policy since President Umaru Yar’Adua’s time.
Looking at global politics and economy and how it affects us in Nigeria; what do you think we should do economically and quickly too, in terms of catching up with global economy in the advent of the Trump assumption of office?
Number one, measures should be put in place to ensure our oil resources are not stolen, and the ones that we sell legitimately that the money goes to the Central Bank reservoir as it should. We should ensure that we rev up the exploitation of our gas resources.
Three, which is very important, whatever it is going to take to protect Dangote Refinery should be done. I know this is very complicated, and they claim to know all the shenanigans that are involved in the struggle between Dangote and either IPMAN or other domestic competitions, we must make sure that we protect Dangote Refinery.
I am not saying that the country should be given to Dangote; the most important yardstick is our national interest. And I must say that the success of Dangote Refinery is in our national interest. We don’t have the time for me to give a lecture on what Dangote Refinery can contribute to our economic resources.
Number four, we should stop listening to the World Bank and the IMF; these Bretton Woods institutions were set up to protect Western economic interests, they don’t claim to do anything else. Therefore, for us to be embracing their suggestions as a solution to our economic problems is a wrong approach.
We have enough economic experts who are Nigerians; Prof. Benedict Oramah of Afreximbank; Dr. Akinwumi Adesina of African Development Bank; Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of World Trade Organisation and many others. These are the think tanks. These are people we should assemble to constitute economic advisers to the President as regards to home grown economic solution. So in short, that is what I will propose.
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