Chattam House Visits By Nigeria Presidential Candidates: Of What Electoral Value?

It’s hard to comprehend the justification for all the frenzy and wastefulness presidential candidates for the 2023 elections in Nigeria are committing into visiting the Chatham House, to tell the UK Media and politicians what they want to hear.

Of what benefit is that desperation to the elections chances of the candidates taking campaign debates to the UK and US and meetings with other foreign leaders? Will UK Prime Minister and US President help to manage and rule Nigeria if any of them should win the presidential election?

How many times have a US presidential candidate or UK prime ministerial candidate visited Nigeria to campaign? Why are all Nigeria presidential candidates going to campaign in UK and US? Can’t they organise world press conferences to sell their ideologies on global relations on Nigerian soil?

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Why can’t they brief US and UK High Commissioner/Ambassador in Nigeria? Do these countries not have embassies and diplomats in Nigeria to carry their manifestos and messages to their leaders? Are British and US leaders the people to tell Nigerian Presidential candidates what to do when elected president of Nigeria?

Do Nigeria not have conference centres/halls to hold meetings with their US and UK diplomats? Are the Americans and British going to vote for them? Truth be told. Enough of all these foreign jamborees for the three notable presidential candidates of APC, PDP and Labour parties.

Whoever emerges next Nigeria president will rule in Nigeria and not in UK or US. They should focus all their energies on Nigeria to win the election. US and UK have no say in our internal affairs and elections. Whoever is declared winner of next month’s presidential election by INEC and or supreme Court is who they will recognise in UK and US.

All of this ignorance of Nigerian politicians and elites must stop. It is our responsibility to elect good leaders and not the responsibility of US and UK to babysit Nigerians on the choice of who to vote for. All UK and US want is their economic interests and well-being of their countries and not of Nigeria and rest of Africa.

US and UK will never develop Nigeria and Africa. It is our responsibility to develop Nigeria. Nigeria will be developed by Nigerians and not by Americans and Britons. These two advanced countries don’t care about democracy but their interests on what their countries will benefit from.

The best friends/allies of US and UK in the globe are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait,Qatar,Brunei and Saudi Arabia that don’t practice democracy. So visiting US and UK by Nigeria’s three leading presidential candidates is meaningless and waste of resources. Imagine what the dollars spent on the aimless visit with their respective delegations would do in easing lives among the majority people back home.

Is that how they are going to rule Nigeria, with deception and eye-service to UK and US? UK and US leaders will only accord Nigeria respect if Nigerian leaders mean well for Nigeria and not all of this unnecessary trips to their countries.

Zik Gbemre
January 15, 2022

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