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The 2024 U.S. election and Nigeria 09 Dec 2024

Former President Donald Trump secured a decisive victory in the November 2024 US presidential election. He polled 312 electoral college votes, compared to 270 required to win, while also winning the popular vote. His victory was backed by a broader mandate given to his conservative Republican Party, which won the controlling majority in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

Trump’s resounding victory came as a shock to many people around the world. Pre-election forecasts predicted a tight race, and four days before the election, the nationally-recognised Iowa Poll gave a three-point lead to Trump’s Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris. But a cornerstone principle of electoral democracy is that it is the actual votes that determine the winner of an election.

The first lesson to be drawn by Nigeria from the election is that the will of the people, as expressed through their votes in a real democracy, is sacrosanct. Whether an incumbent party is seeking to retain power, or the political opposition is trying to grab it, the count of the actual votes decides the contest. This is what confers legitimacy on the government that is so duly elected. But this fundamental precept is being routinely flouted in Nigeria.

Another key lesson of the quadrennial election was that Americans made the economy the leading issue going to the polls. In 2021, US inflation rate rose to 7.0% on average and only slightly dropped to 6.5% in 2022, the highest levels since 1981. The prices of energy and groceries went up, as those of housing and finance. This meant working- and middle-class Americans as well as businesses were adversely impacted by the economic condition. Not only did a majority of the voters take this as unacceptable, but they also believed that Trump would manage the economy better compared to his rival.

But Nigerians hardly vote on the basis of our economic interest. Using the same metric that US voters focused on, Nigeria’s headline inflation rose from 8.0% in 2014 to 24.7% in 2023. In this period, President Muhammadu Buhari won re-election in 2019, despite inflation rate more than doubled to 16.5% during his first term in office. Further spike in inflation did not stop his party-man from succeeding him in 2023. Although the results of these elections were disputed, the ruling party arguably got too many votes that enabled it to keep itself in power. Not enough people voted against previous bad economic outcomes. Instead, voter apathy, ethnicity, religious sentiment, and power rotation between the north and south of the country allowed to remain in power a party under whose watch Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world.

The US voters voted against the harsh economic reality under the governing party. They discounted the fact that the economic outlook had become better, with annualised inflation rate having trended downward to 2.4% in September 2024. The economic outcome that they had experienced, instead of a futuristic positive outlook, influenced the electoral choice they made. They accepted no excuses, like that the high inflation was a global phenomenon brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. The energy price inflation also arose because of the Russia-Ukraine war, but the US support for Ukraine is consistent with its traditional policy of undermining its geopolitical rivals.

As Nigerians are now grappling with historic levels of inflation spurred by the policies of the President Bola Tinubu administration, the government insists that the crushing economic hardship is unavoidable to birth a future boom. Americans rejected such inevitability.

Apart from these lessons, the likely impact of the in-coming Trump administration on Nigeria has been a subject of interest in the country. Simply extrapolating from Trump’s apparent disinterest in Africa and obscene description of African countries as “shithole” nations during his first term may not offer enough insight on the subject. For a broader perspective, one may have to examine the attitudes of the Democratic and Republican administrations towards Nigeria since the country returned to democracy in 1999.

The Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria in August 2000 to offer support to Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. The visit also supported the efforts of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to drive foreign investments into the country and foster diplomatic rapprochement with the world after years of military autocratic rule had isolated the country. Three months earlier, the US Congress enacted the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which provides duty-free access to the US market for additional over 1,800 products from 32 sub–Saharan African countries, including Nigeria.

The Republican administration of President George W. Bush, which succeeded Clinton in 2001, launched the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The initiative provides funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research. In Nigeria, PEPFAR has provided over $6 billion in HIV/AIDS response since 2003.

President Barack Obama reoriented US support for Nigeria from the offering of substantive programmes to maintaining tendentious stances. During his two visits to Africa in 2009 and 2013, he snubbed Nigeria. Obama opposed Nigeria’s anti-gay legislation and meddled in the country’s 2015 election with his direct video message to Nigerian voters that subliminally expressed bias against the re-election of the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Obama’s Power Africa initiative has had an underwhelming impact. President Biden has mainly continued this legacy, and a Harris presidency would have followed suit.

What Trump would not do is more predictable, viewed from the prisms of his US-centrism, disinterest in external interventions that do not benefit him politically, and instinctual bias against Obama. This could remove US’ strong external influence in Nigeria’s elections, serving as a boon for the country’s democracy.

Trump’s disposition on immigration is not inimical to the advancement of the Nigerian economy and society. His conversative political positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights align with Nigerian northern Muslim and southern Christian conservatisms. If the internal conditions are met, Nigeria can regain control of its internal politics and quietly restart the building of its economy during Trump’s second term.

Jide Akintunde is Managing Editor, Financial Nigeria publications. He is also Director, Nigeria Development and Finance Forum.