BY JIBRIL TURE

The election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States has been broadly welcomed across Africa by the general public and most political leaders—both current and former—but some leaders who share traits with the unruly defeated U.S. president Donald Trump have extended what amounts to lukewarm congratulations to the next president of the United States.

Muhammadu Buhari, president of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, tweeted: “Congratulations to US President-Elect Joe Biden on his election at a time of uncertainty and fear in world affairs. His election is a reminder that democracy is the best form of government because it offers the people the opportunity to change their government by peaceful means.”

Buhari’s message also pointed to the welcomed prospect of the next U.S. president’s foreign policy being the opposite of Donald Trump’s “America First” ideology that translated to the United States standing up for itself unilaterally by disaffecting other nations on issues of global interest such as trade, climate change and immigration. The Nigerian leader urges the next U.S. president “to deploy his vast experience in tackling the negative consequences of nationalist politics on world affairs—which have created divisions and uncertainties—and to introduce greater engagement with Africa on the basis of reciprocal respect and shared interests.” It goes without saying that this is a stark contrast to Trump’s political stance that underscored his resolve to reduce America’s engagement in bilateral and multilateral activities that, from his perspective, do not produce short-term material benefits for the United States.

For his part, former Nigerian president Olsegun Obasanjo congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice president-elect Kamala Harris by stating: “It is the victory of good over evil and it is not a victory for you and the people of America alone, but a victory for most people of the world, majority of whom watch helplessly as the world that had been steadily and painstakingly built since the end of the Second World War was being pulled down.”

In sharp contrast to Nigeria, no such words came from President Yoweri Museveni of Ugada whose reaction was rather muted. “The USA, with its black population of 47.4m people, as well as a large Christian population linked with us by faith, could easily be a natural ally of Uganda and Africa,” the Ugandan president tweeted.

Nigeria is a democratic country where, over the past two decades, baring a few low-scale election-related outbreaks of violence, power has changed hands smoothly since the democratic process was ushered in in May 1999, when President Obasanjo took charge as the country’s first civilian president that fully served his terms. That is not the case in Uganda, a country that has been led since 1986 by one man, Yoweri Museveni. Donald Trump’s penchant for the world’s strongmen is no secret. Sure, he does not care a bit about a Yoweri Museveni as he does other strongmen, the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey—a country where Trump has business interests—or the Vladimir Putins of the world. But Yoweri Museveni made no mystery of his admiration for the outgoing U.S. president by stating in January 2018: “America has got one of the best presidents ever … I love Trump because he tells Africans frankly. The Africans need to solve their problems, the Africans are weak.”

Nana Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana, another important nation in West Africa, echoed his Nigerian peer’s hope for strengthened relations between the United States and Africa:

“I am hopeful that over the course of his presidency, relations between Ghana and the United States of America will continue to grow from strength to strength, relations which have, over the years, been based on a shared agenda of freedom, development, progress and prosperity.”

In Kenya, a country where Biden is no stranger, since he visited the East African country in 1998 in the wake of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy there, President Uhuru Kenyatta stated: “On behalf of the People and the Government of the Republic of Kenya, I congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris for their emphatic win and wish them all the best as they prepare to lead the United States of America into a future of prosperity.” He added: “His win therefore presents an even bigger and better platform for our two countries to collaborate more closely for the prosperity of the people of our two nations.”

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, wrote: “We congratulate President-Elect @JoeBiden and Vice President @KamalaHarris and the American people on your election. We look forward to working with you and deepening our bonds of friendship and cooperation.”

The defeat of Donald Trump, who is wildly unpopular in Africa, except in Nigeria, was good news for the African elite and others who felt insulted by Trump’s calling their continent a “shithole” back in 2018. In a column published on the website of Jeune Afrique, a Paris-based French-language newsmagazine that is very popular in Africa, Aminata Touré, Senegal’s former prime minister, writes that “Biden’s election ushers in a renewal of relations between the United States and Africa, which is much expected by Africans, and the strengthening of cooperation rooted in respect, mutual interest and solidarity between the African and the American peoples.”

Trump’s disparaging words about Africa and his student visa and immigration policies have not spared Nigerians. After meeting with Buhari at the White House on April 30, 2018, Trump was quoted by close aides as referring to the Nigerian president as “lifeless,” and reportedly told three people familiar with the matter never to make him anyone like that. The disdain is clear, but that did not stop candidate Donald Trump on November 3—the day of the U.S. Presidential election—from tweeting a video of dozens of Nigerians holding a parade in support of his 2020 campaign, calling it “a great honor!” Ironically, Trump’s fans in Nigeria were saddened by their idol losing to Joe Biden.

That comes as a stark contrast to the reaction, more typical of the continent, of Ghanaian American IT expert living in Delaware, Osei Badu-Nkansah, who wrote a harsh poem about the defeated president.