Of ‘shitholes’ and ‘shitty’ jibes

President Donald Trump in his pushback against Michael Wolff’s damaging book, Fire and Fury, touted himself ‘a very stable genius.’ He truly must be. Because with just another of his famously unguarded weigh-ins, he has elevated a hitherto unprintable obscenity into a pervasive print word. That must surely count for a streak of genius! And it wasn’t that he did anything outside of character when he cast his latest slur on those axes of the world he’s negatively fixated with; he had never been reputed for moderating his xenophobic hubris.

The United States leader was lately reported labelling African nations and the southern American states of Haiti and El Salvador “shithole countries.” That, he allegedly did, during a parley on immigration at the White House with a bipartisan group of senators penultimate week. Although he offered tame denials, saying the language he used at the meeting “was tough, but this (‘shithole’) was not the language used,” the remark fitted so well with his personality that many took it as given he did use those words.

And really, antecedent should be a reliable guide. This latest remark that was first reported by The Washington Post matched with previous blusters attributed to Mr. Trump. In December 2017, for instance, The New York Times scooped an immigration meeting that was held in June, where Trump reportedly remonstrated 40,000 visas issued to Nigerians because once they have seen the U.S., they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. At that meeting he also deplored the 15,000 immigrants from Haiti that year, grumbling that they “all have AIDS.” The White House vigorously denied those claims, but credibility deficit weighed too heavily on its side.

That is not recalling the many ‘Trumpscript’ narratives before Trump took office, like when he allegedly said African-Americans were lazy and good at nothing other than gallivanting and making love. And there was the alleged rally in Wichita, Kansas where he purportedly vowed to get rid of Nigerians to make America great again if he won the presidency, saying: “Why can’t they stay in their own country? Why? I’ll tell you why: because they are corrupt. Their governments are so corrupt they rob the people blind and bring it all here to spend. And their people run away and come down here and take our jobs! We can’t have that!”

With such pedigree, the ‘shithole’ comment that came to light recently isn’t anything new. Only that nobody ever gets cozy with insults; and so, there’s been sheer outrage in the global community over Trump’s latest remark – not the least, expectedly, from those nations he called out.

The African Union (AU) was “frankly alarmed” by Trump’s statement. “Given the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the United States as slaves, this statement flies in the face of all accepted behaviour and practice,” its spokesperson said. Individual countries as well weighed in. Botswana slammed the American leader as “reprehensible and racist,” saying it had summoned the U.S. ambassador to clarify whether Botswana is one of those being regarded as “shitholes.” Haiti’s envoy to the U.S. called the comment “regrettable” and deriving from “clichés and stereotypes rather than actual fact.” In the week following the remark, some countries including Nigeria and South Africa summoned respective American ambassador for clarification of the Trump statement. Even the United Nations (UN) human rights office deplored the comment as “shocking and shameful,” and to boot “racist.”

It is noteworthy, though, that the U.S. leader’s comment by no means reflected his country’s collective value. Many Americans openly recoiled at the remark, ruling that it fell far below the ethical standard of the United States presidency. Among other interventions, the Haiti envoy to the U.S. was reported saying he had been “bombarded by emails from the American public apologising.”

There is much that can be said in deconstructing the extreme narcissism of Mr. Trump, which flies in the face of even the most basic norms of international engagement. But we really shouldn’t bother with that, because he will sooner than later return with another rant in affronting slight of persons whose genetic make-up he seems simply unable to muster any regard for. With his fixation, the American president is better left to his self-doting world. Rather, since Nigeria is numbered among African nations he smeared in one brushstroke as “shithole countries,” we should turn inwards to interrogate just how ‘shitty’ we may have gotten.

The Spectator Index headed up on its Twitter handle last week with a gloomy pointer: it reported that Nigeria ran-up after war-torn Yemen as the world’s lead nations with the worst record of electricity supply in 2017. In a survey of 137 countries that the Index attributed to the World Economic Forum (WEF), Nigeria ranked in infamy ahead of natural disaster-prone Haiti and conflict-ridden Lebanon, which came in at the third and fourth places. Insurgency wracked Pakistan fared better at the 23^rd position while South Africa held the 41^st spot. If you wanted some guide on how this survey profile impacted practically, you got one in the Central Bank’s business expectations report issued last week, which showed that 62.6 percent of surveyed firms cited poor electricity supply as a major constraint to their operations in the fourth quarter of 2017.

And electricity is by no means the only factor locating Nigeria on the backwater of civilisation, going by earlier tweets on The Spectator Index’s handle. A survey attributed to the United Nations (UN) placed this county second in infant mortality ranking with 89 deaths to 1,000 live births. In the survey, Nigeria trailed only Angola having 96 deaths, and fared worse than Pakistan (69 deaths), Kenya (59), India (41) and South Africa (38). Another WEF survey on infrastructure quality in 2017 placed Nigeria at the 131^st spot among 137 countries. Other than developed nations in that survey that expectedly ranked better, Nigeria also trailed Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan and Brazil, among others.

Yet another 2017 survey of math and science education quality in 137 countries by the WEF placed Nigeria at the 118^th spot. And the country ranked 127^th in security out of 137 countries in another 2017 survey by the WEF. In yet another survey by the International Telecoms Union (ITU), 25 percent of the Nigerian population were found connected to the Internet in 2017, compared with other relatively disadvantaged countries like Brazil (59%), Turkey (58%), China (53%) and India (29%). And that isn’t mentioning the challenge of corruption going by the last Perception Index (2016) published by Transparency International, which placed Nigeria 44^th behind North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Iraq and Zimbabwe; but ahead of Iran, Russia, China, India, Turkey and South Africa among others.

These and many more survey reports had previously been announced by The Spectator Index. And just to be sure, the Index isn’t by any means a political or partisan platform. It frequently announces survey reports on sundry issues including global unemployment, HIV infection rate, economies and GDP growth rate and, indeed, popularity surveys on prominent world leaders.

And so, even though we could justly take umbrage with Trump’s racist rant, that isn’t what we really need. The rant should rather fire up Nigerian leaders now and into the future to earnestly salvage our country from the ‘shithole.’