Why Trump would not have won in Nigeria

Last week, the United States of America once more lived up to its billing as the bastion of democracy in the world with the seamless way its presidential election was executed. Within hours of the completion of in-person voting in the evening of November 5, the winner emerged in the early morning hours of November 6, though all the votes had not been counted. But the moment he secured 270 electoral votes, Donald Trump was seen as the winner of the election. His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, conceded defeat and congratulated him.

A few factors were apparent in the American election. The first was the fact that an outsider defeated an incumbent vice president. The opposing party also defeated the ruling party. This has only happened once in Nigeria when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was defeated by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in 2015. One could see the transparency, honesty and lack of desperation that Jonathan displayed long before the election. He repeatedly promised that if he was defeated, he would hand over. He warned that nobody should rig the election on his behalf. He also warned against violence, noting that his ambition was not worth the life of any Nigerian.

Another factor that manifested in the American election was its transparency. Everything concerning the election was visible to people. TV stations beamed live voting, collation of votes and release of results. There were no ceremonies. It was what the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) promised Nigerians before the 2023 election. The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and his lieutenants repeatedly assured Nigerians that with its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), nobody could vote twice. It also promised that even if there was no internet coverage in an area with a polling unit, the election result would be uploaded to the result portal, called INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV). The moment the INEC official moved to an area with internet coverage, the result would appear on the portal. People could follow the election results in real time and see the progress.

Until then, the key source of rigging in Nigerian elections was between the period the election result was announced at a polling unit and the time the result was taken to the collation centre. The INEC promise convinced most Nigerians that the 2023 election would be transparent and free. With that decision to cut off that channel from the election process, INEC boosted the trust of Nigerians in the process. Many people were energised to participate in the election because of their belief that the human element that made it hard for election results to reflect the wishes of the electorate had been removed.

But Nigerians were shocked on Election Day when something unimaginable happened: the presidential election results from many parts of the country could not be uploaded to the result portal. Another surprise was that the results of the national legislative elections (Senate and House of Representatives) taking place at the same time as the presidential election could be easily uploaded to the same portal. It was obvious that someone had locked the portal from accepting the presidential result. INEC called it “a glitch” but till today it has not allowed an independent investigation to confirm what happened.

Why Trump would not have won in NigeriaWith the result portal locked, mutilated results were eventually uploaded. The results announced at polling units were different from what got uploaded to the portal. When people complained, they were told to go to court. It was very demoralising to see many people who had never voted before 2023 but chose to vote because of the strong promise made by INEC get deflated after the election, with many vowing never to vote again. If Nigeria were a country concerned about getting its system strong and transparent, INEC and its leadership should have been arrested and charged with sabotage for wasting the resources of the nation, raising the hopes of Nigerians and non-Nigerians and dashing their hopes.

Another factor that could not be overlooked in the recent US election was the fact that Trump was still allowed to contest the election though he had been convicted by a law court. That would not have been possible in Nigeria. The final factor has not been allowed to gain roots in Nigeria. That same factor which made Barack Obama president of the United States of America in 2008 was what made Trump win the United States presidential election in 2016 and 2024.

That factor is the supremacy of the American voting public on the issue of who should lead them, no matter what the powerful interest groups and individuals want. Nobody chooses the Americans who are best for them. Nobody thinks he knows what will be better for the Americans more than they do. The Americans do that themselves. And nobody sits down somewhere to change the figures or use the security agencies to harass and intimidate opponents.

After four years, the people can decide to kick out the person they elected four years before. The incumbent president cannot manipulate the system or intimidate his opponents with arrests and threats. He cannot even use the money of the nation for his campaign or accept donations from state governors. In short, the power of incumbency confers no advantage to him. He will have to sell his candidacy to the electorate like any other candidate. If the electorate prefers him, he will win, but if not, he joins the list of former presidents. If he has completed his two terms, he cannot choose who succeeds him. It is that simple.

Trump’s emergence in 2016 looked like a joke. Many thought he was a complete outsider who just wanted to register his presence in the minds of the American voters. I had liked his bravado in business. But I was shocked at his words during the campaigns. Ironically, the more he spewed out his words, the more states he won in the Republican Party primaries despite the high calibre of contestants among the Republicans. Eventually, he won the Republican ticket. I began to ask: “What if Trump wins?” The response I got from many Nigerians was: “It is not possible. American powerbrokers would not allow such an erratic, foul-mouthed man to smell the presidency.”

I saw the way even his top party members, institutions sympathetic to the Republican Party, and former American presidents all came out to criticise him and withdraw their support for him. All kinds of allegations of things he said or did in the past were unearthed. Still, his popularity did not wane. Even our own Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, said he would shred his American Green Card in protest if Trump won the American election in 2016. Trump eventually won that election. In 2020, as the incumbent president, Trump was defeated by Joe Biden. Despite being the most powerful president in the world, Trump could not stop Biden from defeating him, though he tried all he could to upturn the result.

In 2016, Trump’s victory re-enforced the supremacy of the American electorate. In 2024, the same factor played out with the USA proving that democracy truly means that power belongs to the people. If Trump had contested in Nigeria, some powerful interest groups would have done everything to stop him. Even if he won the election, they would have doctored the result to ensure that he did not become president.

But the irony is that though the US believes it knows what is good for itself, it does not believe that some other countries know what is good for them. The reaction of the US to the electoral victory in some countries has been hypocritical and arrogant. It is the same arrogance that made countries like the UK, France, Spain, and Portugal go around colonising other countries on the pretext that they wanted to bring civilisation to barbaric people. The US also supports repressive and despotic regimes in many countries as long as the leader is an ally of the US. Self-interest is good for countries, but it becomes concerning when it is brazen.

Nigeria should make up its mind whether it truly wants democracy, which empowers the people to decide who should lead them, or something else dressed up as democracy.