US, Nigeria and lessons from Trump’s victory, by Gabriel Akinadewo

The greatness of American democracy and its global leadership was, again, revealed on Wednesday morning with the victory of the Republican candidate, Donald John Trump.
Now that campaign and elections are over, Trump said in his acceptance speech that “it is now about us, Americans”, no longer Republicans or Democrats.
His challenger, Senator Hillary Clinton, immediately called to congratulate him.
All Nigerians saw how the US election went smoothly unlike the political and legal madness going on in Ondo State. The election in that South-West state is less than three weeks away – November 26 – and even now, nobody knows what is going on due to the shenanigans of some politicians, playing god.
A major lesson of the US election is that ‘if America will be great again’, Americans will take the decision.
If Nigeria will be great again, Nigerians will take that decision too.
No outsider will fix this country for us.
During the campaign for the US highest office, the world was with Clinton but America was with Trump.
Emotions were with Clinton but reality clung onto Trump.
The result became glaring Wednesday morning.
Trump got more than 270 state-by-state electoral votes needed to win a four-year term.
In the build-up to the campaign, Nigerians abused themselves endlessly over who was the right candidate between Trump and Clinton for the office.
What many Nigerians do not know is that the American institution is bigger than any President. The system has the capacity to ‘straighten up’ any occupant of the White House.
Many Nigerians said a President Trump would start a Third World War and I asked myself: How?
During the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 between the U.S. and the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R), many people feared the world was on the brink of a nuclear war.
American and Russian leaders engaged in a tense political and military stand-off over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
The world panicked. Everybody was shouting. But, secretly, the late American president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), and the late Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, worked underground on how to resolve the crisis.
Eventually, Khrushchev agreed to remove the Cuban missiles and Kennedy secretly assured him that the U.S. would not invade Cuba.
End of story.
The super powers have never been closer to a nuclear war than this event which happened 54 years ago.
The challenge with many people, especially Nigerians, is that they erroneously believe a ‘livid or mad’ U.S. President will just walk to a red button, press it and ‘boom’, the world vanishes.
It is not as easy as that.
What Nigerians should learn from Trump’s victory is that Americans are never afraid to make bold decisions in electing their leaders.
This was an election in which all the so-called ‘godfathers’ – former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush (Snr), Bill Clinton, George W. Bush (Jnr) and President Barack Obama – openly told Americans that Hillary Clinton was their candidate.
But, Americans openly said ‘No to Godfatherism’, ‘No to Imposition’.
With the American system which has endured for centuries, there was no way Obama would have used his office to change the mandate given to Trump freely by Americans.
In fact, he has called to congratulate Trump and invited him to a meeting at the White House on Thursday.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
In American history, this was the most divisive campaign ever but expectedly, no bloodshed.
Also, if this is not one of the greatest upsets in U.S. political history, I don’t know what is. And the upset was made possible by Americans, not outsiders.
Aside the presidency, the Republican Party also controls the Congress – Senate and House of Representatives.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
Talking about Nigerian democracy, only God knows where Nigeria would have been by now in world dynamics if the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola had been allowed to govern this country when he won the June 12, 1993 election.
Abiola was never a local government chairman, governor or senator. He just came with his background in the business world and dominated the political landscape.
He won the election but it was annulled by the General Ibrahim Babangida regime. He eventually died in detention on July 7, 1998.
The rest is history.
I see Trump as the Abiola of the American democracy.
A businessman, he will make history on January 20, 2017 as the first ever U.S. president without a military or government background.
The presidency will be his first elected office.
At 70 years, seven months and six days, Donald John Trump – born June 14, 1946 – will be the oldest first-term U.S. president.
Trump, who for months, was not taken seriously by the Republican establishment, eventually overcame 16 other candidates vying for the conservative party’s presidential nod.
He was judged the loser of all three presidential debates with Clinton. The American Establishment, Political Class and the ever powerful Media rose against him. But, according to my father, the late Archbishop Isaiah M. Akinadewo (Omo Jesu), there is nothing impossible for the determined mind.
Trump never allowed the gang-up to distract him from his goal: the Oval Office.
Everything in the books was used to blackmail him but since he knows that ‘the solution to violence was more violence’, he countered the blackmail, threatening fire and brimstone.
He raised the blackmail bar higher by saying that the election was going to be rigged and he would not accept it.
Expectedly, the Clinton Political Structure did not relent, throwing darts at him. Rather than sulk, Trump rose, like the Biblical David, and faced the political ‘Goliaths’
In all these, Obama and the political establishments did not, once, think of ‘dusting books’ to look for a contract Trump once got from the American government decades ago to nail him.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
Obviously, Trump’s triumph was a slap to Obama, a Democrat who spent weeks flying around the country to campaign against him. Obama, a few days ago, referred to him as ‘uniquely unqualified’ to be American President.
Despite the fact that she held a steady lead in many opinion polls for months, Trump’s victory also marked a frustrating end to the presidential aspirations of 69-year-old Clinton, who for the second time, failed in her drive to be elected the first woman U.S. President.
Americans also sent a strong message to Obama that they were not ready to give him a third term through Clinton.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
A few weeks to the election, Nigerians had already declared that Obama would hand over to Clinton on January 20, 2017. They forgot the God factor in everything we do. A popular cleric even predicted Clinton’s victory.
In Nigeria, even when the present APC-led administration is less than two years in office, eyes of some power brokers are already set on 2019 and they are creating confusion in the system, behaving like the Biblical Prophet Balaam and King Balak.
America is not just called ‘God’s Own Country’ for nothing.
Although in the U.S., you won’t see churches every 100 metres as we have in Nigeria, Americans always put God first in everything they do.
The American mantra is that as long as you respect the rights of a fellow American and love your neighbours, you are doing the will of God.
Also, they believe in the saying: ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’.
That is why Obama campaigned endlessly for Clinton but Americans said: ‘Hold it, Mr. President, you will have your say, but we will have our way”.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
Is there a God factor in our democracy? If the answer is in the affirmative, why is there so much confusion in the build-up to the Ondo election? Who are the power brokers manipulating the process, to ensure that some candidates are not on the ballot?
On Wednesday morning, the Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, manifested the God factor when he said: “The American people have spoken and the American people have elected their new champion. America has elected a new president and it is almost hard for me to express the honour that I and my family feel that we will have the privilege to serve as the Vice President of the United States of America.
“I counted this moment deeply humbled, grateful to God for His amazing grace”.
Despite all the political stumbling blocks, here comes Donald John Trump, the 45th Commander-in-Chief of world’s most powerful country.
Any lesson for Nigerians?
* Akinadewo is the MD/EIC of Freedom Online (www.freedomonline.com.ng).