Opinion: Donald Trump, meet your Nigerian doppelgänger, Ayo Fayose

There was a meme circulating on Nigerian Facebook a few weeks ago.

Accomplishments of Governor Ayo Fayose:

First governor to eat corn on the road side.
First governor to drive a tractor while in office.
First governor to eat ‘amala’ (local flour meal) with an old woman.
First governor to invite students into the government house swimming pool.

Fayose is the governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states, Ekiti; heir to the office once occupied by Kayode Fayemi, a man so serious and accomplished he was profiled by the anal Economist as ‘one of Nigeria’s most refined and articulate governors’.

Fayose is however cut from a different cloth. Pushed out of office more than four years ago for such corruption and failure that he was most remembered for spending government money on a poultry with non-existent chickens, he returned to office two years ago on a wave of populist rhetoric, and quickly gained prominence by doing everything you would accuse a demagogue of doing (see above).

Then began his vicious all-out war on the then-candidate for Presidency of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, as his party’s proxy. He accused the now-president of being brain-dead, of not having a high school certificate, challenged him to run around the national stadium to prove he was fit, and in a bit to out-do his own sense of indecency, accused him of being so old, he poos in his adult diapers.

Of course, Americans can’t possibly turn their noses up at any of this. Currently ahead with 755 delegates in the Republican Presidential primaries is a man who accused Hillary Clinton of being disgusting during a debate about the future of America… because she went to pee.

Read: Pay attention Nigerians today Donald Trump became the U.S. republican nominee

Bringing reality television values firmly into politics, he has alluded to a TV journalist’s monthly periods, accused a female candidate of (physical) ugliness, attacked the looks of another’s wife, threatened to get physical with protesters at his rally, and, of course, promised to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of America… and then have Mexicans pay for the privilege of being rejected.

Considering how out of the mainstream demagogues are said to be, what can possibly be their appeal? The answer that intellectual journalists and the entire posse of high-minded thinkers hate to accept is the one reason demagogues are wildlife successful: truth.

With the demagogue, there is always a kernel—scratch that, a mound—of truth.

Demagogues are always ready to say ‘the truth’, or what they consider to be the truth, or what they suspect the mass considers the truth with reckless abandon—exaggerating, obfuscating, contradicting themselves along the way, but always speaking the truth.

They do so in the simple-minded of ways that connects with a fearful citizenry now desperate for politicians with supposed ‘authenticity’: a down-to-earth way of speaking to them, mostly in the language of mutual xenophobia.

Trump isn’t lying when he speaks of the collapse of America’s immigration, and he isn’t lying when he speaks of the fear it sparks in the minds of a large swath of the American population. He isn’t lying about the fear of China beating America, he isn’t lying about the fact that America wasn’t particularly safe under George W. Bush and he really isn’t lying when he says America isn’t winning at much anymore.

Our Fayose isn’t lying when he says Nigeria’s electricity and energy situation is now worse, he isn’t lying when he notices a pattern of parochialism in presidential appointments, he isn’t lying when he notices traces of military-style authoritarianism, and he isn’t lying when he notices a tenuous grip on the economy.

Also Read: Fayose predicts ‘removal of Kogi governor’… says Buhari is like his ‘grandfather’

The problem, is how they speak these truths.

They whip up base sentiments, they exploit fault lines, they appeal to our darker sides, unleash society’s demons. Nothing is too far out of line, too reckless to be said. They are not builders of society; they are arsonists—seeking maximum gain by exploring the truths that people fear.

So why do they succeed? Because they have the deepest respect for the voters, in a way that many politicians — trading in double-speak, patronising speeches and all-out disdain for the ‘common man’ – lack, and have the courage to both validate their humanity, and bond with them in common understanding.

The Fayoses/Trumps of the world don’t see (or see, and refuse to notice) the nuance of the things they speak of, discarding the complex picture for simple arguments that paint everything either good or bad, resonating with an audience exhausted itself with the ambiguities of nuance. They see that, and they connect with it.

That same willingness to speak out of turn also produces a willingness to speak without artifice. And soon enough, because they don’t care where the chips may fall, what they see begins to resonate in the market place of ideas.

“You know,” the editor of an online newspaper, who despises both Fayose and Trump, told me just last week. “These days, Fayose is making more and more sense to me.”

Former United States Speaker, Newt Gingrich told an interviewer last week: “Trump has had the nerve to raise questions in a clear language because he represents the millions of Americans who are sick and tired of being told that they have to be guilt-ridden and keep their mouth shut.”

This I know for sure: the more ‘serious’ politicians consider themselves too busy or high minded to communicate with citizens with the simplicity, regularity and affinity that modern leadership demands, the more ‘common sense’, however destructive, will continue to trump all the logic the world has to offer.

Related: #Budget2016: What Nigerians are saying about Buhari’s signing of the budget

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Opinion article written by Chekwas Orji

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