Nigeria and Trump’s misplaced comments

Sir: President Donald Trump recently denigrated Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora with his snide remarks on the proclivity of
Nigerians to overstay in the United States beyond the period prescribed in their visa.

The U.S. and other European countries have become the destination choice of millions of Nigerians who usually migrate through series of devil-may-care methods and when they lawful migrate, they tend fail to return to their country.

Trump made a sweeping generalisation about Nigerians, failing to acknowledge the residency of thousands of Nigerian professionals who have legal residence status in the United States, whose professional inputs have contributed to the greatness of America.

On the flipside, however, President Trump’s derogatory generalisation could be perceived with some measure of factuality given the state of the Nigerian nation. I’m sure most Nigerians in Diaspora would hardly fault Trump on his pejorative downgrade of Nigeria with derogatory epithet of inhabiting huts.

A hut is a small, single-storey house or shelter, a depiction of a glorified shanty.

Trump was not remiss to describe the most populous black nation as a republic of infrastructural shanties, not because he has  visited any African country in his life, but rather could conjecture the gravity of underdevelopment from the exodus of Nigerians into the U.S. and other European countries coupled with the recent scandalous slave trade in Libya that puts Nigeria on spotlight of infamy.

Trump must also be aware of the quantum of stolen Nigeria’s commonwealth domiciled in U.S. banks, and traceable to affluent cluster of American real estate.

Trump  is not alone in this diplomatic denigration of Nigeria, President Obama’s only official visit to the continent of Africa deliberately excluded Nigeria from his itinerary, Obama found it most repugnant to visit a nation laden with corruption and state sponsored thievery.

The whole world is watching Nigeria in her trajectory of reversed development that perpetually puts her citizens in a vulnerable state of refugee status.

Nigerian leaders including President Muhammadu Buhari have not grasped the depth of depravity the nation has sunk into partly because of the insensate privilege attached to their offices and partly because they approach governance with vision and mission that fails to pass the  reducible minimum in global standard.

For Nigeria to overcome this negative global image, there must be a transparent approach to governance at all levels of government.

The same resources deployed to make Dubai (UAE) what it is have been pillaged in Nigeria and nothing seems to have changed especially at the states and local government levels.
Bukola Ajisola.