ON Saturday, November 7th, 2020, Americans declared Joe Biden as our next President-elect alongside Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect. On November 3rd, American citizens went out en masse to exercise their civic duties. The people spoke loudly and clearly considering the presidential election results. As an immigrant, a black, and Nigerian-American, a leader and member of the Delaware Democratic Party, I see firsthand what it means to be an immigrant in America, and a black under our outgoing president Donald J. Trump. For many immigrants, we indeed felt unfair treatment of immigrants and their families. Donald J. Trump changed the immigration systems to discourage many of our families back home from visiting their loved ones. His was an administration that is full of lies, alternative facts, cruelness, boast, hate, racial discrimination against blacks and immigrants. I can keep going on with this man’s atrocities, but surprisingly, we noticed some of Nigerian Christians, pastors, past political leaders who supported him claiming that he brought back Christian sanity. Really? You must be a joker!
I will relate the behaviors of Donald Trump supporters in Nigeria to this quote, “The difference between my darkness and your darkness is that I can look at my badness in the face and accept its existence while you are busy covering your mirror with a white linen sheet. The difference between my sins and your sins is that when I sin, I know I’m sinning while you have fallen prey to your fabricated illusions. I am a siren, a mermaid; I know that I am beautiful while basking on the ocean’s waves and I know that I can eat flesh and bones at the bottom of the sea. You are a white witch, a wizard; your spells are manipulations and your cauldron from hell, yet you wrap yourself in white and wear a silver wig.” ― C. JoyBell C. As someone that lived in Nigeria for over 28 years before I relocated to America, I think I have that audacity to argue and challenge Nigerian hypocrisy on American politics. Nigeria is a country blessed with human and natural resources, we have the wealth and the brains but we have many greedy politicians. Some pastors are visionless and clueless—maybe they are not—but their lives are covered in hypocrisy. Many of these people have caused Nigeria to be in the situation we are in today, and they do not advocate for freedom. Many immigrants in America send money home to develop our economy and create employment opportunities, and we have Nigerians in that same country that will not contribute anything to the development of their own country and all they can do is to meddle in American politics. When Trump called you a “shithole” country, what did you say or do? I think it’s high time Nigerians back home woke up from their slumber and faced the reality ahead. Americans have spoken on who they want for their next president, but it’s time for visionless people like the Nigerian trump supporters to think about how Nigeria can be great and respected internationally. As the world listened to the President-elect Joe Biden, he pledges to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify, who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States. We have several issues in Nigeria such as corruption, bad leaders, dehumanization, poverty, bad economy, bad representations, abuse, neglects, misappropriation, maladministration, fraud, and theft. It appears these are not enough for Nigerians to worry about but some of them have been bamboozled with lies and they don’t know their right from their left.
I am proud to have witnessed the 2020 elections. I was also fortunate to be a candidate in Joe Biden’s state. I have a strong faith in Biden to fight endlessly to put an end to Covid-19. Biden and his team will work to bring back the US economy, healthcare, education, immigration, gun control, and equity and justice in the land. Finally, I want to call on Nigerians to pay closer attention to what’s happening around them in their country rather than focus on US politics. We need a better Nigeria!
- Abegunde, a politician, accountant, businessman and consultant, lives in Delaware
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