Lai Olurode is a first-class graduate of Sociology from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Lagos State. The erudite scholar also studied Law at the UNILAG. He was called to the Bar in 1991. Beyond lecturing and researching for decades, he has made impact as a former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and as a voice on issues of governance, public policy, and social development in Nigeria. In this chat with GBENGA SALAU, he spoke on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela, its implication for international politics, noting that Trump has shown that American institutions are not as formidable as they make the world to perceive them.

With the invasion of Venezuela and the seizure of its President together with its oil fields, and what happened in Nigeria, do they not suggest a feeling that President Donald Trump is a threat to global peaceful co-existence?
Let’s put Donald Trump in one basket. He is resorting to the use of force to seek compliance and intimidate other countries.

He is somebody who has demonstrated ‘poverty of diplomacy’. He has also robustly displayed ‘poverty of ethical resources’. He has also displayed ‘poverty of moral persuasion’. He is abridging international laws. His action is unsupportive of democracy globally. He is subjecting others, he is using acts of global terrorism to use force to make other countries to kowtow to him and to fear him to be afraid of him. Even if the president of Venezuela had done some wrongs, there is the international criminal court, where he could have been taken for prosecution, and if he is found guilty, there are procedures, known procedures, for bringing him to justice, and not through the resort to self-remedy, self-help, and gangsterism, which is the language that Donald Trump is promoting.

America applauds itself as a protector of citizenship, as a civilised nation, and Donald Trump seems to be a realist. A realist in the sense that he just believes this is the way to go. There cannot be any alternative path. It’s either you subscribe, you have to buy in into his own way of viewing the world or you get out of existence. And that’s a wrong approach. The world is complex, it’s not as simple as Donald Trump is making the world to seem.

Trump warns of more strikes in Nigeria if attacks on Christians continueEven now that he has invaded Venezuela, he’s targeting Mexico and other countries in the Latin America. After his invasion, what next? What is he going to do? How can he become a moral force for the promotion of popular empowerment, democratic governance, and for the promotion of peaceful coexistence globally. He cannot be an agent because, he cannot canvass for a peaceful world, his ways are unknown to civilisation.

The ages of barbarism and colonialism seem to have gone. This is badly done. One cannot explain it; it is beyond comprehension. It’s even unbelievable that somebody in this century will resort to self-remedy to seek compliance of other countries. It’s a great trespass.

So, the fact that no other leader in the world has endorsed Trump’s actions shows that consensus has not been built by Trump. Nobody is supporting his actions. It’s outrageous. It’s an uncivilised action. It must be condemned by all.

No notable state leader in the world has endorsed this action. I have not seen one. I don’t know whether you have seen one. Nobody has endorsed it, which means that it is an affront on the sensibilities of other countries of the world. And it is a rejection of his attitude. If he has a sense of shame, he should withdraw from Venezuela and let Venezuelans govern themselves.

The other thing is that some Nigerians are calling on America to come and intervene in Nigeria so that America can stop internal colonialism. I don’t know what is known as internal colonialism. But it is bad, because how can America come. We may have our differences. We may have challenges, but we coexist. We are all nations. America too. America is a country founded by six nations of the world. But they decided to come together on different terms. It’s not even a perfect country.

There are more internal crises between the blacks, the white and the non-white in America than what we have between the different ethnic groups in Nigeria. So, we have to build a nation. And building a nation is not a walk in the park. Whatever challenges we have, whatever differences we have, it’s clear that there is no genocide against Christians in Nigeria.

Only if somebody who is not reasonable enough, we say that is the argument. Both Christians and Muslims have been killed. The thing to do is to condemn any form of killing that is illegal. Any killing of anybody should be condemned whether they be Christians or Muslims. But nobody can say may be that more Christians have been killed or whatever. I don’t have the statistics. But it’s not as if Christians have been singled out for elimination in the country and only by Muslims. So, we must be careful in what kind of solution. I’ve seen some statesmen who are highly placed calling on America to come and end internal colonialism.

To my mind, the recent action of the United States’ President has demonstrated that though, externally, America presents formidable institutions that one would have assumed cannot be rubbished by an individual, no matter his status in the society, be it the President of America. What we have seen recently with the brazen and the half-brunt of the American President, but we are now clear that those institutions are not as formidable as they are presented, because there are strong individuals even in America. And President Trump has displayed that he is more powerful than the American institutions, an American institution that has been victimised.

No one in the presidency, no one in the White House could say no, nobody in the Justice Department, or if they had advised him appropriately, those pieces of advice were ignored. How could the action of one person, how could it have brought the world to this mess, to this chaotic setting where nothing is predictable?

So, I think this is the issue to address. How could the American institutions that displace very strong evidence of formidability could have been weakened, overrun by the action of one person? I think it’s a cause for concern for civilised nations in the world, and the world must act collectively so that there will not be a repetition of this. And where does this leave Venezuela? Where does it leave other countries? Where does it leave the killings of innocent people? Of children, of women in Venezuela without any justification at all? How could Trump be brought to book to account for his audacity and his brazenness?

What is the implication of what Trump has done, especially in the face of China-Taiwan relationship?
It is not just China-Taiwan! This is because he has just shown other countries that want to take advantage of their neighbours or smaller countries that haven’t amassed weapons of mass destruction, that this is the way to go: The resort to extra judicial, abridged citizens right and sovereignty.

For him, sovereignty has no meaning. The right of nations has no meaning in his dictionary. It is a rule of force. That is what has been displayed. And I thought we have passed the age of colonialism, where the use of force to possess, to repossess a country, to deny another country of their right to territorial integrity held sway.

But you see, again, it will be sending wrong signals to the third world countries, where you have, in some cases, leaders that trample on people’s rights, you have leaders that abridge the right of citizens, you have leaders and state institutions that do not want smaller parties or smaller individuals to have a breathing space, where they resort to the use of the military.

What Trump has done has wider meaning. He has appropriated or misapplied state security, American resources to subdue, to subvert another foreign power, without any regard, without any respect for sovereignty, without any respect for international laws and protocols on the right of countries.

There was no permission given by Venezuela. They never invited him to come and help them, either militarily or otherwise, or to protect their territorial integrity. There was no permission given to him. So, it shows that even in Africa, small countries like Togo, Benin Republic or whatever, Nigeria can just overrun them in a matter of days or in a matter of hours, and repossess them, and remove the state from the geography of the world.

I don’t think the world should look by and allow Trump to go away with that international assault on a sovereign country. He has seized president of another country. He has no respect for their economy, he’s targeting their oil fields, and he has said so.

So how long is he going to do this? And he’s targeting other countries too. What’s become of the international system!

Do you think the United Nations is failing in its role in all of this?
He has demonstrated this a couple of times. He has no respect for the United Nations. He is not interested in the whole of America; he is just interested in the Caucasian populations of America, just their flamboyancy, conspicuous consumption orientation, big cars, and property accumulation. He wants to sustain that at the expense of the rights of citizens of other countries. For him, other citizens, other countries deserve not to have any rights at all.

It’s very unfortunate. It’s a return to the era of slavery, I will even say the slave era was perhaps, better. He is annulling the right of countries, freedom of the people to rule themselves. By whatever means, Maduro didn’t put himself in power. He was put in power by the people of Venezuela.

He said he was a drug convict, he was this, he was that. So what? There are safer ways of dealing with him, of tackling him, than this bracing trespass on the territory of the people.

So, my message is that smaller African countries should also respect the rights of citizens of their country. They should stop misappropriation of state security resources that belong to the common people of the country. Not to allocate and arrogate it to themselves. Arrogate such resources for themselves, because the consequences are devastating.

Donald Trump has even come up with an argument that, look, these countries are safer under me, than they are under the leaders of those countries, who in any case, will even misapply security resources.

You seem to not be comfortable with Trump’s intervention in Nigerian security challenges with the Sokoto experience. What do you consider as the best alternative to getting an effective security system to protect Nigerians and prevent issues across the country around banditry, insurgency, cattle rustling and other security challenges?
We are not even sure of the sequence of actions whether it was true that President Bola Tinubu actually granted permission or whether he actually sought military assistance from America. This is because it was Donald Trump that first of all said that it had struck Nigeria: that airstrikes have taken place in Nigeria. It was later I understood that we got information from the Nigerian authorities. But I don’t think the security situation in the country had reached that stage. Even if it had reached that stage, I would still have preferred that America supports Nigeria by providing technical support and technical assistance. What do I mean? Training, they can lease their aircraft to Nigeria. Their personnel can train our own military people, assuming that they don’t have that capacity. But directly getting involved is dangerous for Nigeria. I can ask you to mention a country where America had gone to and it was able to restore peace. America was in Libya, Afghanistan and America had been in other countries but peace was never restored to those countries. Contrary to that, America made sure that the countries were even not as secured as they were prior to their own intervention. I don’t want us to be too trusting. The Nigerian military has done fantastically well. The funding has to improve. Corruption also has to stop. The military needs to be further encouraged and the president is trying his best to encourage the Nigerian military. I want to believe that things are not as bad. In fact, who are the manufacturers of these weapons being used by the terrorists? It is the same group of countries that are indirectly or directly sponsoring terrorist attacks on Nigeria, they are the ones coming around to say they want to rescue us. They just want to make sure that Africa remains totally dependent on the major powers. We don’t manufacture arms on a large scale in Nigeria. The Western powers, including America, are the major manufacturers of weapons.

And they are the ones selling these weapons to gangsters all over the world. They just want to make sure that a large chunk of our resources is wasted on acquiring and fighting.

No other person can make Nigeria to be safe other than Nigerians. If we need help, let’s seek help through partnership from other countries. How do they know the terrain of Nigeria without the support of our military men and women? I think we should look inward. Africa should look inward rather than being dependent on support from foreign countries.

But, what practical strategies should Nigeria adopt to maintain strategic autonomy without compromising its territorial integrity?
We must make sure that our country is safe for democracy. Nigeria must practice competitive democracy. Through competitive democracy, Nigerians will see the country as their home, whether they are in government or in opposition. And personally, honestly, if you ask me, the kind of democratic practice in Nigeria at present is not encouraging nation building. What do I mean? Winners take all. We have to do a win-win democratic practice.

What do I mean by win-win? A kind of proportional representation. No political party should lose out completely.

Look at our recent election in 2023, the leading parties are All Progressive Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party. I’m sure Nigeria would have been better secured internally if the distribution of seats in the National Assembly, the government position had been shared on the basis of proportional weighting, the scores of political parties in that election. But the way it is, two major parties are kept out of power, they’re shut out of power. There’s no way they will not be angry at this system. There’s no way they will wish the government well. But if you give them a breathing space, you give them an opportunity to come and take something from the table, I’m sure they will say President Bola Tinubu forever. And that will be good for our democracy.

Look at the wasted votes. We wasted so many votes. When you look at the statistics, even when you have major differences, we don’t know how competitive the next election in 2027 is going to be, but the point remains the same. You cannot keep a large chunk of your population of the political stakeholders outside of the realm of the state when you know very well that the state holds everything. And you leave the opposition to their fate. There is no way they will not be fighting back. And we may not be able to contain the consequences of their fighting back.

We can have something that is reflective of our culture. So, when a person wins, he looks back and extends hands of friendship to other political parties, no matter how small they are. So that we build a nation, a country.

It’s not we versus them again. We can all be winners in the Nigerian political system. That’s what I have been advocating for. I will even say that if that is the situation, you don’t need to hold elections every four years, because elections are like going to war in Nigeria.

It’s like going to the slaughter slab. But those who lose out, they will not rest. They won’t allow you to focus on governance. They can be sponsoring hooliganism, terrorism because they have lost out.

But you will find a space to accommodate them. You don’t lose much. They are Nigerians. How can we keep a strategic group, strategic parties out of power? It’s not just a question of winning, winning majority. It’s more than that.

You keep a large number of people outside, outside the mall, the eating arena. They have no opportunity. It’s an invitation to chaos, disorder and lawlessness. The only way to make Nigeria to be safe, the only way to project ourselves internationally as a country is through creating room for everybody to participate so that even if another government comes to power, at any other time, you are sure that you’re not going to be completely excluded from this struggle and have a bite in the big cake. Nigeria is a big cake. It’s a big nation of many tribes, of many ethnic groups, of multi-religions. So, you can’t keep those strategic members of the state out of power and hope that everything will be all right. No, it’s difficult. Let’s be more inclusive in our governance approach.

You have said we should be more inclusive in our governance approach. Looking at the voting population and those who actually cast their votes, we’ve seen a downward trend in every turn of election cycle. Do you link that to not having inclusive governance in our system?
Voter turnout in any election is a function of many factors. Prominent among those factors is people’s perception of the connection between the state, the synergy that exists between the state and citizens.

If there is a complete disconnect, people have been voting for years, and it has not impacted them positively, of course, they will ask the question, why do I waste my time? Why do I queue up to vote? Does it really matter that, this party will always win whether I vote or not? So, it has to do with building synergy between the state and society. The state must connect the society in terms of electoral fulfillment. People must see that every election where they participated improved their lifestyle, improved their life chances, put more food on their table and enhanced their income. If that does not happen, why should they be bothering themselves to go to the poll at all?

Number two is the time that it takes to vote. If voting is an ordeal, you have to spend hours. You know, at a point during the era of Prof Jega, we were doing accreditation separately from voting. But soon after Jega and his team left, the two were merged. Voting time becomes streamlined. Voting time reduced, you know that you’re not going to waste a whole day going to the polls. You’re not going to waste a whole day queuing up to vote. So, the voting time has reduced. And if voting time reduces, it means that you have more time for your business.

Because when you go to vote, nobody pays you. You are not compensated. It’s a loss of your time. Even though some people take money from politicians, but not many of the voters are interested in taking money because they know when they take money, they will not have any ethical ground to question the government, to complain that government is not responding to their needs.

The third element is the fear of violence. Once people know that elections might turn out to be violent, they will not go to the polls. Why should they lose their life, because they want to cast their vote. They will not.

And when they see that elections are not going to be competitive, when the government in power demonstrates that whether you vote for us or not, we are going to win at all costs. Once they see signs of intimidation, they see signs that the state is going to use force. It’s going to use state security agencies to intimidate, to chase people away from polling units, once they see signs of violence in the pre-election period, then it means that on the day of election, people will stay away from voting. These are some of the factors. So, the only way you can restore sanity, you can restore people’s confidence, you can bring people back to the voting arena, and you can therefore increase and enhance voter turnout is through making sure that the ballot box matters, making sure that people’s vote count. Once they get contrary signals, they will not come out to vote at all. So, you can have a government in power, but the government will not have legitimacy. Of course, it’s a democratic government in the sense that people elected it, but it could be the minority of the people that have elected it.

So, if there’s anything that the current Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be careful about, it’s legitimacy of the ballot and the government that it returns to power.

The government might be there, someone might be there as president, as governor or whatever, but it may not have legitimacy. And that will be a big challenge because that government that is installed might not be able to galvanize the people, resources, loyalty to command their respect. And without commanding respect of the people, without the level of believability being high, it’s most unlikely that the government is going to perform or function in the maximum sense.

As a former INEC commissioner, what should be Nigeria’s position to INEC’s pledge of conducting credible election in 2027?
It depends on the conduct of INEC, If INEC is not at the beck and call of government, people will know. If INEC has autonomy, people will know. So, the perception of the people matters a lot. But I hope this INEC should be able to do a credible and a good job. And I think the president of the country, President Tinubu, being a fighter for democracy, I’m sure he is going to respect the people’s wishes as they express their wishes through the ballot box. So, once we don’t allow free and fair election, if INEC compromises, that’s the end. It will be too bad.