The Trumped Trump, the Triumphant Biden, and Our Old President -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

My revulsion for old people in government, especially in leadership position, is not without basis. It is based on the fact that modern conventional wisdom abhors it. It is conventional that a civil servant retires at the age of retirement; this is 66 in the United States. In Nigeria, it is 60 or 35 years in service—whichever comes first.

One of the determinants of retirement age is life expectancy which is currently 55 in Nigeria. It is 79 in the United States. This implies that gerontocracy is very bad for Nigeria; it is not too bad for the United States. In other words if you live beyond 55 years in Nigeria, you are lucky not to have died. You can see why it is wrong to elect old people for general leadership.

Let’s look at it this way, what is the logic in electing old people to the position of power? How can someone who has retired from service as a civil servant be entrusted with leadership position to become a governor, a senator, or a president that is more demanding? He retired from the micro office where he worked and was considered to have reached the equilibrium point and already diminishing. How would such person effectively manage a taxing macro office of governorship of a state or presidency of a country?

This is not the issue of integrity, sincerity, or good track record; it is the issue of competency. One can be corruption free, sincere, patriotic, and willing to right the wrongs; yet, be incompetent or incapacitated by age. If age is not on your side, you cannot be on its side. This is nature.

One major problem with gerontocratic leaders is there inability to take correction and accept criticism. They consider themselves grandfathers who have seen it all and should be above reproach. It is even worse in Africa where, culturally speaking, leaders are respected. This is the reason why in Nigeria, when you constructively criticize our about-to-turn-octogenarian President, praise singers take a swipe at you with riposte like; ‘you don’t have respect’, ‘is he not old enough to be your grandfather?’ ‘Can you even achieve what he has achieved in life?’ ‘Who born you to criticize the President?’

What does respect for elders have to do with expressing grievances against bad government policies or the poorly implemented ones? Who should be criticized for the general insecurity in the land? The masses surrendered their right to carry arms to the state for the state to protect them. So, when the state fails to protect them, who should they criticize? Put differently, how do you separate bad governance, inexpressible hardship, and general insecurity of life and property from the leaders who were elected purposely to solve these problems? Do we keep quite because they are of the same age with our grandfathers? What kind of logic is this?

Anyway, the power drunk Trump has agreed to have been trumped. He trumped his opponent (Hilary Clinton) in 2016 election because he is Trump. Can we also say that Biden trumped Trump in 2020 election because he is Trump?

Trump has rewritten the democratic history of United States. He added a dark page to the glittering pages of American history book of democracy. Every future student of American history will definitely pause to single out this dark page for questioning. It means Trump will ever be remembered for whom he is.

Now that the mantle is handed over to Biden, is he expected to be different from Trump? Yes. They are poles apart. They belong to different political ideological camps which, of course, make them different. Also, Biden personae is unlike Trump’s. While Trump is arrogant, narcissist, cantankerous, garrulous, and a venomous tongued old man; Biden is humble, self-effacing, affable, and a tolerant old man. What they have in common is old age—Biden even older.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Would old age affect the old Biden? Only time will tell. But a younger president would have been better. It is not safe nor is it wise to entrust such onerous responsibility of managing a complex state like the United States to an old man for the following reasons:

One, gusto declines with age. There will be limitations to his activeness due to his age. Manning a state like the United States is mentally taxing and physically demanding. Two, ability to learn new things and face new challenges is more associated with the young than the aged. Three, dotage sets in as one advances in age—this is mental infirmity that may take a heavy toll on the general administration that has an old man in charge.

And because power is sweet, leaders hardly relinquish it when faced with challenges of old age. Joe Biden, sworn in as United States’ President at age 79, will be an octogenarian for most part of his tenure—all other things being equal. It is not out of order to think that his age is a minus. However, I hope he will reverse some of the obnoxious policies of Trump’s regime.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen writes from Gashua
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
@salahuddeenAbd