President Obama Can Turn His Loss In The Mid-Term Elections Into A Big Victory In 2016 By Wumi Akintide

Date:

I love the American democracy better than I love the British version. The Nigerian version makes me wants to throw up because it is so hopeless.

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Nigerians only embrace democracy because it is the popular thing to do. We lack the maturity, the discipline and the leadership and the followership and above all the rule of law to make it work like it does in America or Great Britain or some of the European countries.

US President Barack Obama
US President Barack Obama

The Scottish people have been an integral part of the United Kingdom for as long as any of us can remember. A few months ago, they decided to exercise their fundamental human rights under the law to conduct a referendum on whether to stay or break away from the United Kingdom. Her Majesty’s government granted the request but took steps to advise Scotland not to leave the Union and what they stand to lose if they leave.

Devolution which would grant more right of self-rule to Scotland was the preferred option for the Queen and her government, but Scotland insisted on her right to hold the referendum and they were allowed so to do.

Both sides deployed everything in their arsenal to fight for their positions without pulling punches. The referendum was held without any mayhem talk less of a war. In the end the separatists lost by 10 points. The leader of the movement wasted no time to acknowledge he had lost. He resigned the following morning. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, gracefully thanked the Scottish for exercising their rights under the Law and for voting wisely to remain in the Union by a wide margin.

Dr. Wumi Akintide

He quickly announced what his Government planned to do to appease the separatists.  A situation that could easily have led to war in Nigeria or any of the third world countries was easily diffused. That is the beauty of democracy in a great country like Britain.

The Referendum was a lesson on how democracy is supposed to work in Nigeria if our people would learn their lesson. Compare that with what happened in Nigeria when the Igbos of Nigeria asked to be excused from the Nigerian Union because they were being pushed away by the then Federal Government in 1967.

They went to war because the Federal Government simply looked the other way and could not protect the Igbos from the pogrom unleashed on them by Northerners who wanted to uproot in one day a condition they had tolerated for years.

They claimed they wanted to stop the Igbos from completely taking over their territory. They resorted to violence and beheadings of innocent Igbos in major towns like Jos, Kaduna and Kano.

The situation ultimately led to the Biafran War from 1967 to 1970. The Biafrans lost close to 2 millions of their soldiers, children and civilians. Up till tomorrow, the Igbos still blame their defeat on a Yoruba leader named Obafemi Awolowo, who was neither a soldier nor the Commander-in- Chief. They believed that Awolowo single-handedly crafted the policies that made it possible for the Federal side to defeat the Igbos in that war and to stop more bloodshed.

What the English adage tells us is that a tree does not make a forest but the Awolowo tree as far as the Igbos were concerned was more than a forest. They saw Awolowo as their nemesis and they put all the blame on Awolowo, not even on Yakubu Gowon who was the Commander–in-Chief in a military government that ruled Nigeria at the time.

It is of course true that Awolowo won that war for Nigeria with the stroke of his pen and his brain power in pretty much the same way like Winston Churchill the then British Prime Minister who had won the Second World War for Britain and the Allied Powers. What did Winston Churchill do?

Like Obafemi Awolowo the man did fire a single shot but he had the uncommon sense and wisdom to inspire his people with his gift of the garb. He led the move to persuade Franklin Delano Roosevelt the American President and American Congress to join in the war effort to take out Adolf Hitler. It was a brilliant move that won the war and catapulted Winston Churchill into a legend and historical monument in Great Britain till tomorrow even though the man lost the very next election not because the British did not love and respect the man.

They voted him out because they had had enough of him as a wartime Prime Minister. They voted instead for a new party and another prime minister to manage the peace. That is the beauty of democracy that Nigerians are yet to learn. President Jonathan has shown he lacks the integrity and the discipline needed to lead Nigeria after close to 6 years in office but he still want 4 more years because he sees the position as his entitlement even though he has woefully failed to demonstrate leadership and the ability to guarantee the security of the people he was elected to serve.

If Winston Churchill can be rejected at the polls, Jonathan who cannot untie the shoes of a Churchill should be thankful to God and Obasanjo that he was ever given the chance to be elected President after a few years as deputy governor and governor of a relatively small state in Nigeria.

America, a former British colony just like Nigeria, has managed to push Britain to second place as the bastion of democracy. In fact America has shown more sophistication and independence streak by not embracing the British Parliamentary system. The American presidential system is validated by a Constitution that is now viewed by many as the 8th wonder of the world. The American Presidential system has become the best model for the whole world.

No American President with the exception of FDR has been allowed to serve more than two terms in office even if the individual was as smart as hell and as good as any of the best American Presidents like the great George Washington (1789-97), Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), Andrew Jackson (1829-37), Abraham Lincoln (1861-65), Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45), Harry Truman  (1945-53), Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61), John F. Kennedy  (1961-63), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69), Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) The only exception as I hinted before was Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York who held that job for 12 years presumably because of the pressures of the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 or the great Depression which occurred  just before he got elected.

America showed the world the beauty of democracy when in 2008 it elected the first minority president, Barack Hussein Obama, and in a circumstance that can be described as a mystery that only God is able to explain. The man got elected before the white majority suddenly realized they have proved Martin Luther King right when he told them he had a dream and they thought it was a dog dream. They wished they could take their votes back, but it was too late because it was the will of God.

I myself could not believe how the election came about even though I voted for him but I never expected he could win. I initially opposed him when he first showed up.  I cannot help but agree that the young man was a miracle child of destiny. He is neither black nor white. He is a hybrid of two great cultures the world has known. His father did not come to America in a slave ship like most of his fellow blacks. The white people would call him a black man because his father is black. His mother is Caucasian but the young man is as smart as they come. He is a product of two Ivy leagues Universities namely Columbia and Harvard. None of his white classmates could match his record in Harvard or Columbia.

It was as if God brought down his father from one of the most despised tribes in Kenya to come to Harvard and God’s own country to meet his own Virgin Mary and to put that miracle child in his mother’s womb just for that purpose alone. His father who later became an alcoholic returned to his own neck of the woods Kenya with his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. The man died miserably in a car accident upon his return to Kenya.

God made him a hero like he made Joseph, the carpenter, who became the earthly father of the greatest man the world has ever known. I am talking of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God to whom every tongue must confess and every knee must bow. I see some similarities between Obama and Jesus.

I will be the first to admit, however, that Barrack Obama is not Jesus and can never be, but if you follow his life with as much passion as I do, you are bound to come to the same conclusion like I have done. The Republicans would self-destruct in their efforts to rubbish the man because the good Lord has honored him. The Republicans would soon realize after the man leaves office that they have only scored a Pyrrhic victory in 2014 just like they did in 2010. We all recall how the man came back in 2012 to defeat the Republicans and their nominee, Mitt Romney one more time because the Republicans were too blind to know they were fighting God. Who can say no when God says yes?

The Republicans have won the battle again in 2014 but would lose the war in 2016 without any doubt in my mind because they are fighting God. They have hated the anointed of the Lord so much and they are going to pay for that with their defeat and humiliation in 2016.

Why am I saying that? I am saying it because it is the truth. The Republicans are bluffing when they tell Obama not to play with matches because he well might burn himself. I say back to sender. The advice should be directed to their rank and file for their racial bigotry against a president who wants to use the power that God has given him to do good.

Obama wants to leave a legacy that the Republicans could only dream of. The Republicans are very jealous that Obama is not one of them. If the young man were completely white, the Republicans would have been more tolerant of him just like they have been more tolerant of Bill Clinton. The Republicans threw everything including the kitchen zinc at Clinton before they left him alone. The same thing is going to happen to Obama after the man leaves office. You don’t touch the anointed of the Lord and get away with it. If I was one of them I would have seen the hand writing on the wall a long time ago.

All the people that saw Obama become the man God wanted him to be all died before the man became President. His father died. His mother who earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology and raised her only son to become The President of the greatest country on Earth also died. His grandparents who raised him to think and behave not like your typical black man in Harlem but the average white boy all died before the man was crowned the leader of the Free World. Who says Obama is an ordinary human being? If you think so you are making the same mistakes the Republicans have made in seeking to pull him down.

I have got just one advice for Obama this morning. He should go ahead and use his Executive Order to throw the Republicans off balance by issuing his long awaited executive order on Immigration so the whole world and the Latinos and the Hispanics and the minorities in America would come to understand who their true friends are between the Republicans and the Democrats. If he does he would be living up to the ideals of Abraham Lincoln the man he has claimed to be his favorite President.

Republicans are scared to death that in another 50 years the White Majority may lose to the minorities in the melting pot America has become. Whether they like it or not, if America is truly the God’s own country it claims, we are all Americans even if we become citizens by naturalization. We know some of us may not qualify under the Constitution to run for President but our children and grandchildren like Obama can be President. That is all that counts.

I don’t blame the Republicans for wanting to close the gate to other immigrants. Their fear is justified but that is the price America has to pay for being the greatest country on Earth. Who wants to go live in Russia or any of the Communist countries like China or North Korea? The Bible has said we can claim this country “toripe ti Oluwa ni Ile ati ekun re” meaning this land like any other land belongs to God and all of us as children of God can claim it as our own, come rain or shine.

Professor Ozodi Osuji always claims it without mincing words even though his parents may have come from Umuagwu in Orlu or Ifite Oraifite in Anambra. I make the same claim following his lead because he is my Professor and I am his student. I love that man.

Once we are here we have as much right as the white majority to claim this land as our own just like the white immigrants from Europe and all over the world came here to subdue the Native Indians and the aborigines who owned the place. If they could do that so can the rest of us.

The democracy America has embraced has within it some provisions that would not allow America, a nation of immigrants to close its gates to other immigrants wanting to share out of the American dream. America cannot remain the leader of the Free World if it preaches isolation and segregation. Barrack Obama understands the role of America in the world and why that role cannot be compromised by some of the policies Republicans have embraced.

They better get over it because America belongs to all of us who are law-abiding enough to live and to work here and to shed our blood for the safety of the country. I am too old to serve but I have two my boys serving very proudly today in the US military and I would forever be grateful to America for looking after me at my old age better than any of my children can ever guarantee for me. If Obama can do it I look forward to one of my grand or great grandchildren becoming President someday.

President Obama has the power under the American Constitution to use his veto power to check some of the excesses of the Republicans. The founding fathers put the provisions in the Constitution for that reason. Barack Obama must not be intimidated to use all of the powers vested in him by the Constitution. If the Republicans impeach him for using those powers they are going to fail in a country governed by the rule of law just like they failed when they tried to impeach Bill Clinton for a non-impeachable offense. Bill Clinton is more popular today than all of the charlatans who tried to impeach him. Newt Gingrich or Livingston or Rush Limbaugh will tell you that. “Allahu Aqbar” God is truly great!

If Obama is able to stand his grounds against the Republicans, he is going to laugh last and laugh best. He must never cave in. The sooner he carries out his promise to grant Amnesty to Latinos, Hispanics and minorities who have lived here long enough to deserve the amnesty the better for him. The Republicans can invalidate his executive order by sending to him a comprehensive immigration bill the president would be happy to sign.

Now that the republicans control both Houses of Congress the ball is now in their court to do what they have been telling the world they wanted to do but have not done even when a bi-partisan bill was sent to them from a Senate presided over by the Democrats.  They can end the gridlock today by crafting a bill the President could sign. Barack would only become a lame duck President if he allows the Republicans to make him one.

He remains president till January 2017 when a new president would be sworn into office. If I found myself in Obama’s shoes I would follow thru on my promise now that the election is over. Whether the executive order is big or not is not the bone of contention. The issue is doing something that nudges the Republicans to want to jump into the train before it leaves the station.

If Obama can muster the courage to issue the order, the beneficiaries would never forget who push them over the edge. The President and the Democrats would reap the full benefits in 2016 and for many more years to come, and Obama who signed the Affordable Health Care Reform Bill into Law would have earned his place at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota as one of the best Presidents of this century just like Bill Clinton.

I rest my case.

The writer, Dr. Wumi Akintide, writes from New York City, US

Babatunde Akinsola
Babatunde Akinsolahttps://naija247news.com
Babatunde Akinsola is aNaija247news' Southwest editor. He's based in Lagos and writes on the Yoruba Nation political issues, news and investigative reports

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