By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

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How much destruction can be wrought by an individual occupying the office of president for eight years?

I started wondering about this issue when I heard Joe Biden the other day announcing his candidacy for president in 2020, effectively saying that were Donald Trump to be given another four years in office, the United States would never be the same again, adding that next year’s election would be “a battle for America’s soul.”
It is his statement that, “If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.”

That caught my attention, because I found it most incredible that one man could be credited with such destructive potential in a country that is almost 250 years old and has built robust institutions to undergird its ideals and guarantee its principles.

So, what is Biden talking about? Is he suggesting that the USA can be laid low and made to abandon its most sacred values just because a flawed electoral system allowed a bumbling bully who did not win the popular vote to nevertheless win the White House?

Do all the legislative and oversight powers of Congress, the judicial systems, the think-tanks, Silicon Valley, the intellectual/academic dynamos, the FBI, the CIA, General Motors, General Electric, NASA, etc, count for nothing when it comes to reining in an overgrown toddler whose only potent weapon is the Big Lie?

Apparently Biden has the same apprehensions as we have, we the denizens of banana republics, where the man styled “president” is actually a monarch who can ignore the constitution and all the laws of the country, issue edicts that instantly become laws, redirect national budgetary allocations, and do pretty much what he pleases without anyone daring to say a word against him.

So, Trump could easily have been an African president, at least according to Biden’s words, a far cry from, say Emmanuel Macron of France, who this past week was doing his mea culpas, after a fashion.

Speaking to the French public after six months of the Yellow Vest protests in French cities and towns, Macron acknowledged the legitimacy of the marchers’ demands even as he defended his government’s policies.

He regretted the fact that people felt bad at the hiking of taxes and living conditions becoming more costly, the growing levels of inequality, lack of trust in elected officials – “First of all, myself,” said Macron.

He was clearly eating humble pie and taking one for the system that he found in place and which he had no role in bringing about but for which he was clearly being attacked for the simple reason that the public perception of him is one of aloofness.

For our African monarchs, aloofness is what is needed if the people are going to be made to fear their rulers.

Our rulers love looking tough and ruthless, even when the individual playing that role is in fact a spineless coward who would run at the mere sound of breaking glass.

For many, it is anathema to display signs of conciliation or recognition of weakness in any area.

The African ruler knows everything, and that is why the office of “advisor” has never existed in our countries; those individuals with strings of academic qualifications after their names and who are called advisor are in reality cheerleaders for the big man, who needs to be congratulated on every nonsensical thing he says or does.

Like Trump, the African monarchs have no time for contrition, such as the one shown by Macron, albeit in a forked-tongue manner.

When the Africa ruler makes a mistake that he is forced to acknowledge, he will find a scapegoat to blame it on. That is why the longevity of those rulers who have been in power for three or four decades has never been associated with accumulated knowledge or wisdom.

All you see are spent and bloated old men, whose major activity while in power was to plunder their countries’ resources.

It is no accident that the Sudanese are unearthing caches of cash in Omar al-Bashir’s bunker, which is the loot that this man stole over the 30 years that he was the ruler of Sudan.

And that is what the great majority of African monarchs who call themselves presidents are busy doing. At least there, even Donald can’t trump our monarchs.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]