by Alexander O. Onukwue

Straight after saying hello to the New York Times reporters who were in his office to have a chat with him, Trump, asked by the reporters about his lunch with Republican Senators, went straight for Hillary Clinton, “Look, Hillary Clinton worked eight years in the White House with her husband as president and having majorities and couldn’t get it done.”

He credited her as “smart” and as “tough” but there seems to be that cloud about the 2016 rumble with Clinton that would not just get off the subconscious of President Donald J. Trump.

Is it the Popular Vote?

Trump is the legitimate 45th President of the United States by the same criteria that the 44 men before him earned it: victory at the Electoral College. For a man whose brash campaign was written off as having absolutely no path, he not only scaled it but sealed it with sweeps across traditionally Democrat swing states.

However, Clinton, by more than 2 million votes, was the more popular candidate in the November polls. It would have been her replacing Barack Obama in the White House if the one man one vote system that is run in most part of the world was applicable in America.

In defending himself from the criticisms of most of American media, Trump has constantly referred to the fact that he was the underdog against Hillary but turned around and won. It is a narrative that has almost made him fixated on analyzing his Presidency based on what her Presidency could have been. For instance, when faced with the issue of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, taking his seat in his temporary absence at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, President Trump quickly shot back that Hillary would have done same for Chelsea.

It does not appear to be a healthy obsession, this impulse to deflect to a comparison to Hillary. It is the same with the Buhari administration’s two-year blame game on Goodluck Jonathan for all the ills in the country – and Nigerians don’t want any more of those excuses.

There used to be the time when Trump could, perhaps legitimately, accuse Hillary of being complicit in the problems that the US faced; that period ended before noon of January 20th. From the moment he took that oath of office, every minute of public office spent on referring to the supposed “nothingness” of Hillary’s days in and around the White House – as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State – do not amount to any direct and equal advantage to him.

It’s just you Donald; just you.