Ozekhome, other highlights implications of Trump’s third term bid for Africa

A third-term attempt by United States President Donald Trump would have far-reaching implications for democracies worldwide, particularly in developing countries with sit-tight leaders, lawyers have said.

In Africa, leaders like Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda have been in power for decades, raising concerns about authoritarianism and democratic erosion.

For instance, while Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea has been in power for 46 years, Biya of Cameroon has been serving for 43 years, Museveni has ruled Uganda for close to four decades, even as Nguesso has served as leader of Republic of the Congo for 39 years.

On Sunday, President Trump stated that he’s seriously considering serving a third term as US President, sparking debate about breaching the constitutional barrier that prohibits a president from serving more than two terms.

He said he was ‘not joking’ and was considering ways to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029.

“There are methods by which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club.

He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged.”

The Guardian reports that the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, explicitly states that no person can be elected to the presidency more than twice.

In an interview with The Guardian, constitutional lawyer and civil rights activist Prof. Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the news did not come to him as a surprise.

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He hinged his argument on the several Executive Orders issued by the US President since assuming office early this year.

His words: “For those who are very discerning like myself, I’ve always believed that President Trump will go for a third term, having regard to the fact that he’s been using Executive Orders to erode provisions of the US Constitution. And also changing the very template and nuances of American democracy as we knew it in 1787 when they had the American convention in Philadelphia.

“So asking for a third term was a natural consequence of his belief that he’s President of the world, threatening to annex Canada,saying he would raid Palestinians in Gaza and make it a tourist attraction, and trying to take over Greenland.

“A dictator can emerge from any clime and at any time. When Hitler emerged as dictator in Germany, no one saw it coming.”

Prof. Ozekhome said the domino effect of Trump’s pronouncement is that African leaders may attempt to tinker with their constitutions to stay in power in perpetuity.

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria described the development in the United States as a ‘beautiful signal and good music’ to the ears of sit-tight dictators who will want to elongate their tenures, “believing erroneously that they are God’s gift to mankind, with a lot narcissistic idiosyncrasies that without them, their countries will not prosper.”

The legal luminary added: “I will not be surprised therefore if some African leaders who have successfully bamboozled their populace into a state of stupor, melancholy, and subservience now begin to try to attempt to tinker with their constitutions.”

He cited the case of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who made futile attempts to tinker with Nigeria’s constitution, even as he urged President Bola Tinubu and other African leaders seeking tenure elongation to perish the thought.