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World leaders set for post- Trump era, says Keshi

Ambassador Joe Keshi is a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at various times Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of Nigeria at The Hague, Netherlands and Consul- General of Nigeria in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. He speaks in this interview with BIYI ADEGOROYE about the recent US elections and President Donald Trump’s attempts to discredit the electoral system

 

 

How do you see President Donald Trump’s failure to recognize Joe Biden as President-elect, set up a transition committee, but has resorted to litigations after the US election which he lost?

 

Many of you are worried because you do not understand Trump’s business strategy which has actually failed him in all his undertakings and at the same time, helped him in them. In any case, Trump has sued virtually every business partner of his that anyone can remember.

 

 

What he does when he is about to lose something, or like he did with Deutsche Bank or any of his businesses that is failing and he is at a disadvantage is that he drags you to court. He now wastes your time, getting brilliant lawyers who will continue to waste your time in court, such that you continue to lose money. He does not give a damn.

 

Eventually, you the aggrieved person gets tired of the whole process and you now call him to negotiate and in the process you grant him a few favours and the case is sorted out. Sometimes he will even expose some of your dealings with other corporate organisations.

 

That has been how he has run him business organisation. It is the same thing he is trying to do with this election. Look, the election results have been declared, and Biden won by over 75 million votes to Trump’s 72 million, and the former won over 273 of Electoral College votes.

 

What else does he need? Even when the votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania are sorted out, Trump cannot be President for a second term with what is going on now.

 

The people of America have spoken and they have elected a new President, over 80 per cent of them, majority of them Republicans, have admitted that the election is over.

 

Biden won, but it is only the President and a few senators that have refused to move on. His enablers in the Republican Party, for their selfish ends and power interest, are just playing game with Trump, privately they say one thing and publicly they say another.

 

It is unfortunate what is happening to the Republican Party today in the US. You remember the Republicans in the mid-70s matched to President Richard Nixon that they would not support him and when he saw that he did not have the support of his party, he resigned over the Watergate Scandal.

 

Today, you have some lily-livered Republicans, who for their own selfish end are so scared of Trump because he might attack them on Twitter, where he has lots of followers, and in the process they might lose election.

 

The President has to come to face reality and agree that the game is over. You know he once boasted that he could shoot somebody on the street of New York and go scot free? And that actually bloated his ego.

 

As a matter of fact he had actually gone through so many court cases and escaped by paying fine or so.

 

Where do you think the pendulum will swing in the re-count of votes in Georgia?

 

It will not swing at all because there is no way the electoral machine will make a mistake and give Biden 14,000 lead in Georgia. No way. The machine will not make such terrible mistake.

 

Now, my only fear now is the possibility of error now that you have millions of ballot papers to be counted manually over a few days. You know fatigue could actually set in and the people will make mistakes. At the end of the day, may be about 1,000 will go either way and that would insignificant.

 

A re-run has also been scheduled for January 2021 for the two senatorial seats in Georgia…

 

That is another thing entirely and it is one very interesting thing about this election. Joe Biden as a Democratic candidate won his presidential election, but a number of Democratic candidates in the congress did not.

 

That way, Americans may have created their own problem but that was the way the founding fathers designed their constitution.

 

They do not want to hand over power totally to a president who will lord it over the people, rather they wanted a balance such that one party controls the congress and another the Senate, and that has worked for the US for many years until the Democrats took over the congress from Newt Gingrich.

 

That prevented any form of extreme behavior and of course, Barak Obama’s election brought some elements of racism into US politics and has created far more problems.

 

What do you think Trump has off his sleeves by firing his Defence Secretary and appointed five loyalists in the Pentagon, the US Defence Department?

 

He has nothing at all. Rather, the game is that, like any typical angry man, he wants to bring down the house. He is like a bull in the China shop. Look, by US policy, some of them might remain in the Department but definitely not in that capacity when Biden assumes office. All these are just interesting game which we are all witnessing.

It is also a lesson to voters around the world to be careful about those they choose to lead. The fact that a guy is popular, playing to the gallery does not mean he is worthy of an office. Look at our own situation in Nigeria and where we have ended.

 

This was the same populist cry that led Germany into the WW II which culminated in the death of over a million people due to the craziness of one man.

 

At the end of it all, we have to be careful when some aspirants come in, enunciating some policies, saying they are better than what they are not.

 

These leaders always deceive the people. Look at the current dictators around the world and you will find out that they are the same thing. They claim that they are fighting for you but they are actually fighting for their ego and influence.

 

Today, Trump cannot imagine himself outside the White House, having tasted power. This is a man who, before winning an election, shouted 12 more years.

 

In other words, he was considering a third term. He has not got out of this yet he is already talking about running in 2024! It just showed you the craze for power.

 

What does the fact that many of the world powers have congratulated Biden?

 

Well, it shows that the world is moving on, that the world is set for a post-Trump era and that all these leaders were privately praying for the election to end the way it did. This is because they were tired of this man.

 

Look, diplomacy requires some steady hands. It requires that you are able to understand your opponent, where he is coming from and the fact that if you sit down as world leaders you can actually talk like two reasonable adults.

 

Diplomacy does not require bullying in reaction to the smallest thing, that if you don’t do this you are in trouble- that is what you tell your children at home and not an utterance in the international arena.

 

He is not happy with lots of German cars on the street of US without commensurate number of American cars in Berlin and he threatened the German leaders and businessmen; he threatened to pull out of NATO; he threatened to pull out all the troops.

 

Nigeria could as well behave the same way because we bear the largest chunk of ECOWAS funds and often send troops on peace-keeping.

 

No matter what we say about our leaders, how many of them have threatened an ECOWAS country that if they did not pay their dues this and that would happen to them?

 

No, rather diplomacy requires that you continue to appeal to countries to be more committed. You don’t go to the United Nations to make addresses where you threaten the world.

 

What kind of President do you think America will have in Biden?

 

Biden is a man who can unify all Americans; he represents everything that Donald Trump is not, and this helped him in so many ways. Americans are exhausted of the last tiring, divisive three years of Donald Trump and wanted to return to normalcy.

 

Biden is a man full of empathy, compassion and sympathy, and it is because of this he returned to the political space. He saw everything America is going through and said ‘look we need to restore the soul of America.’

 

Throughout his campaign that was his slogan and he said Trump was not doing the right thing. You saw the way Trump dealt with a number of institutions which complained about his behavior?

 

He sacked many heads of government institutions, even Defence Secretaries, did not even appoint people into many offices in the last four years or so while a number of his Assistant Secretaries of State occupied the position in acting capacity.

 

Trump brought this upon himself and this is a lesson to all politicians who should know that they hold public office in trust, not for themselves, family but for the people who elected them, and every politician must learn that when they win an election it is to serve the people.

 

Four years ago, Biden was persuaded to allow Hillary Clinton to take the shot and he believed that with his age, everything was over.

 

Here was a man who bided for the presidency first when he was in his 40s, tried against sometime later and dropped out after Iowa, now this before he made it.

 

Many of us who have followed Biden from the beginning know that God is in control. When you look at his struggle, you will agree that Biden has had his share of tragedies.

He overcame being a stutterer, just a few days before he was elected to the Senate his first wife and daughter died in an accident. His most favorite son later died of cancer after coming back from the warfront.

 

 

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