Ademola Araoye
Nigeria is entangled in the intricate web of the deep moral crisis being spurn by the Trump United States. The tsunami impact of the Trump phenomenon is global. All major state and non-state actors in the global system that have the flimsiest relations in whatever manner with the United States are scrambling to achieve basic understandings of the essence of the extreme historic policy repudiations, not revisionism, being instituted by the ultra-nationalists. The repudiations of the very vision of the United States and by implication the rejection of its place in the world has set forth consternations. Along with this the oscillations and the dichotomous morality of a now bifurcated leader of the Western world has dominated the discourses in major capitals of the world. The response to this development is overwhelming disbelief abroad and near national trauma for the vast majority of Americans. This mass disaffected include a significant majority of disoriented whites and fanatical evangelicals on whose behalf Trump is ostensibly remaking America. He is doing this by scrubbing off the shine on the city on the hill. From neighboring Canada, Mexico, across the pond to allies in the now devalued North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, Great Britain, France and Germany, they are all shell shocked and scrambling on how best to manage an ill motivated contrived policy crisis fostered on global humanity. Of course, Ukraine is worsted in all this as it is reduced to a discarded pawn. Given a very naïve president, Ukraine was always a play thing in the hands of the West. In the unfolding setting, Nigeria is a mere expendable item to be used if necessary in the game. Some discernment is therefore required in the permanent state of anticipation of what the Trump game plan throws up in our direction.
As regards methodology in the ensuing struggle for the ascendance of immorality in the United States, truth is the first casualty. Deliberate propaganda and blatant lies, whatever the factual reality, are the preferred instruments. Experts observe that lying and deception have been the basis of many propaganda techniques including ad hominem arguments, big lie, defamation, etc or any other techniques that is based on dishonesty or deception. Like the philosophy of Paul Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the National Socialists German Workers Party (NAZI), also a far right totalitarian political party in the Third Reich that is similar to Trump’s residue of the Republican Party, truth counts for nothing, if it does not promote the often nefarious political agenda of the totalitarian state. Goebbels’ mantra was to repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Psychologists refer to this as “the illusion of truth”’. In its few weeks in power, what has become obvious is the need for critical discernment in relation to any pronouncement attributed to Trump and his camp. Accordingly, the first rule in dealing with Trump and associates, including J. D. Vance and members of the Trump Party, since the old Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln died, is to remain absolutely skeptical of everything. In fact, the safe thing is to doubt every word, and hold everything and every breadth to a rigorous test of veracity. In this murky scenario, every word or lie is designed by the ever calculating and manipulative utterer to achieve a set objective, either domestically or in the service of a untoward agenda at the international level, or even both.
The starting point is recognizing the almost pathological need of President Trump to discredit his immediate white predecessor in office and also devalue the worth of Barrack Obama as the first black occupant of the White House. These are integral to the agenda to Make America White Again (MAWA). This context is suggestive that the allegation of Congressman Scott Perry should be taken with more than just a grain of salt, even as the Nigerian Senate rightly proceeds with its investigation. The platform on which the allegations was made, the very first hearing of the Sub-committee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a controversial creation of the racist duo Trump/Elon Musk presidency. By all means, the Elon Musk led DOGE had to be validated. With annual disbursement of U$ 23 billion and 10,000 personnel across the world, USAID operations are concentrated in poor “shithole” countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. USAID Is thus a prime target for Trump to terminate American goodwill to a world despised by the American President. As an irony, Congressman Perry is the grandson of Colombian immigrants and the son of a single mother who fled abuse to the United States. He is exactly the epitome of the universality of the principles on which America was founded that is now rejected by the son of a Nazi German immigrant. But like many Latinos that voted for Trump last November, the pursuit of the illusion of personal gains may yet swallow the bright future of a whole community.
Meanwhile, as foreign policy springs from internal circumstances and the dominant visions of the state of itself, the crisis brewed at home by Trump also serves the purpose of discrediting the international liberal order. This is consistent with the agenda of regression of the United States to what American Senator Bernie Sanders has described as an oligarchy and a plutocracy- a government of the rich, by the rich for the rich. The policy has entailed all manner of assaults in mostly unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations against multilateral agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), and complete attack on principles anchoring such bodies as World Trade Organization, or even the International Criminal Court (ICC), although the United States has been allergic to any semblance of international governance or mediating rule of law. It is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court. The United States Aid for International Development (USAID) however may be seen as the most important national agency complimenting the efforts of other international organizations in the field of humanitarian assistance delivery. The continued vitality of USAID poses a threat to the anti-humanist objectives of Trump’s deconstruction of the very essences of the United States. To that may be added a most important project of deviating from the evolved vision of America as a multicultural nation to that of the white race. Thus the lie against South Africa as expropriating land belonging to whites in that country was concocted like many other lies that are being trumpeted by the ultra-nationalist administration. In fact, the policy of open door to the United States offered to South African whites is revealing of the real intentions of President Donald Trump. That mischief making was roundly rejected by even mainstream white communities in that country. By the way, the WTO was prescient in proactively moving ahead the conduct of the last election into the office of the Director-General forward in order to avoid an expected racist negativity from a then candidate Trump in the event he won the then looming presidential elections. So, why should Scott Perry, a Trump acolyte, be believed? As far as one can see, the evidence adduced locally a speculative regarding the source interventions recorded by locals.
Specifically on USAID, the organization has remained, since its founding on November 3, 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, the most visible humanitarian face of the United States in the world. It is the ultimate expression of American benevolence and soft power. It has remained so even now, playing critical roles in catastrophic humanitarian situations across the globe. For all the warts, both real and imagined, the humanitarian impulses of the United States has been of tremendous significance in Africa. One specific instance highlights this. In a Liberia rendered prostrate by the horrible Ebola pandemic from March 2014, the American Army, working in collaboration with WHO, arrived at a juncture when state structures and institutions were on the verge of collapse. In fact, silent conversations around what to do in the event of the collapse of the state that never experienced colonial over lordship were being murmured. People slumped oozing blood from all orifices in the body and passed on helplessly in public. No one could come to the aid of the other. Death lurked everywhere, even as hunger weakened the spirit of those tenuously surviving. USAID mobilized aid, even as in no time, the American field Army descended on the theater and in no time had increased available beds for the virtually dead in quickly constructed hospitals in available open spaces. Thereafter, hope was restored as life gradually was infused into the nation. These are not interventions to be taken lightly and rubbished by the agenda of some extreme nationalists who have manipulated their way to power in a distraught United States. This experiential context of USAID calls for extreme caution against knee jerk reaction to what for now, until proven beyond doubt, is more likely a propaganda big lie for purposes yet to be unraveled.
Meanwhile, the allegations by Congressman Scott Perry alleging that the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) had funded the terrorist organization Boko Haram during the Joe Biden administration has rightly instigated serious concerns in the foreign and security policy elite in Nigeria. USAID was also accused of wasteful spending. That allegation has been vigorously challenged. It is very appropriate for the Nigerian Senate to seek to get to the bottom of the matter. It is however doubtful that beyond a perfunctory engagement with the subject, Nigeria is at this time equipped to unravel an issue that would impact long term relation between Nigeria and the United States. The challenge is made more difficult as the Nigerian inquiry cannot trust the evidence derived from the current United States administration with a known cause to misinform Nigeria, and indeed the world. In spite of reservations about the capacity of the Nigerian Senate to lay the matter to a definitive rest, a few speculations around the emerged character of the Trump administration as articulated above would seem to be in order.
Finally, there are many levels, strategic and operational, at which the activities of USAID, like all human systems, can be examined. The imperative to interrogate broad institutional policy at the strategic level is a first and basic level of understanding the principal objective of the organization. As trite this may be, it establishes the fundamental, rather than the ostensible, imperative of its engagement in the field. The Senate of the United States oversees this and ensures that the organization does not deviate from its mandate to implement programs in global health, disaster relief, socioeconomic development, environmental protection, democratic governance and education. Unlike similar allegations made by revolutionary Sahelian states claiming duplicitous role of the French Army deployed to fight the Islamic insurgents in the Sahel, USAID would seem to have a longer history of unblemished constructive interactions in the management of humanitarian crisis across the world with states and non-governmental bodies with which it collaborates across the globe. And unlike the French army in Africa, the operations of USAID are transparent and in the glare of the public. Notwithstanding the duplicity as an element of diplomacy, on the broader policy front of the United States, certain key observations are necessary. Against the background of a strong explicit disavowal of terrorism and the proclamation of Boko Haram as a terrorist organization by the United States government, USAID would be hard pressed to pull off this crime that is against the declared and demonstrably intrinsic interest of the United States without detection. In short, the probability of the United States to instrumentalize terrorism to attain its policy objectives in Nigeria would seem to be very low. Although the dictum is to never say never. Against the vast panoply of alternative policy instruments available to the United States, the fanning of terrorism would not be a most effective mechanism. There is thus a need to temporize conclusions especially as the evidence currently available would not pass the muster of rigorous examination.
Yet at the operational level, that is no assurance that there are no rogue elements in the middle and lower ranks of USAID in the field, who may, for whatever reason, be incentivized to engage in such espionage of national security. Although that would be very embarrassing for the leadership of USAID, that prospect is however greatly diminished by the realization that Boko Haram straddles the whole of the Chad basin and any externally sourced funding cannot be limited to only Nigeria. The question then arises is the collective intelligence capacity of all the impacted states, including Nigeria, so weak as to be unaware of such serious breaches of national security? The saga raises further the serious question of how Boko Haram is funded. That appears to be a subject Nigeria has seemed to shy away from. And is there any link between sympathizers of Boko Haram in mainstream of national political life and external agents? Meanwhile, it would be disastrous if the allegations of Congressman Scot Perry has any iota of truth. The big question would then be “how could this be?” There would have been some use to the Perry allegation should it instigate a meaningful investigation into the funding of a 15 year long terrorist occupation of the national territory.
*Professor Ademola Araoye is a retired official of the United Nations and former Director of Abuja Leadership Center, a TETFUND Center of Excellence in Public Governance and Leadership at the University of Abuja. He is author of Sources of Conflict in the Post- Colonial African State (AWP, 2012).