Trump Reminds Me of an African Politician. Here’s Why.

Observations from an African

African politicians are a rare breed. They are a source of great entertainment and turmoil at the same time.

As Africans, we often joke about how our politicians will promise to build bridges in communities that don’t even have rivers.

It’s all very comical really and for the longest time, I thought that such theatrics were relegated to African politics. Well, that is until Donald Trump became the forty-fifth president of the United States of America.

This has largely been due to Trump. And here is why the man reminds me of a classic African politician:

• African politicians are synonymous with calling for a recount whenever elections take place. This is because many of them, like Trump, are sore losers. America is often calling upon African countries to conduct free and fair elections but now the tables have turned and Africans can’t help but enjoy the irony of the whole situation.
• Like Trump, African politicians tend to marry very young wives, examples include the late former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela who was married to a woman thirty years his junior. Trump is married to Melania who is twenty-four years his junior.
• America has a well-entrenched democratic system that promotes human rights including, freedom of expression. But Trump, like many African politicians obviously doesn’t respect freedom of speech and often accused the media of fake news and even went to the extent of booting out journalists from some of his media briefings.
• Trump may face criminal prosecution for numerous crimes, including tax evasion after completing his term as president. This is definitely a page taken from African politicians, some of whom are wanted by the International Criminal Court for various heinous crimes.
• It is estimated that Trump has made over two thousand false statements during his presidency. The public has watched him peddle false information and lie continuously it’s ridiculous. Africans are used to being lied to by their politicians. Most recently Buhari, Nigeria’s current sitting president lied to the world about Nigeria’s End SARS protests. This didn’t come as a surprise as it is almost expected that the typical African politician will lie rather than admit wrongdoing.

These are just a few but interesting similarities I could draw between Trump and some African political leaders. Trump referred to African countries as shithole countries, so there isn’t much love there. It could be argued that it has been a treat for developing countries to watch Trump lose the re-election he was so convinced he’d win.