US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed a parade by his supporters in Nigeria, describing it as a great honour.
Trump made this known when he shared a video of the parade on his Twitter handle with a caption, “A parade for me in Nigeria, a great honor!”
The video shows a procession by men and women chanting different songs in support of the Republic candidate in today’s US election.
The supporters were seen with placards with different inscriptions including, ‘Trump 2023’.
Americans went to the polls today to decide the next President between Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden but Nigerians are as much as interested in the outcome of Tuesday election as Americans.
However, Nigerians are divided on their support for candidates in the election.
A former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, wrote, “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is with you. The Holy One of Israel is your strength. He is a man of war and He is irresistible in battle. He is your shield, your glory and the lifter if your head! He will show Himself mighty today! Congratulations in advance!”
A social commentator, Gimba Kakanda, tweeted, “As a Nigerian, I feel utterly embarrassed by this circus. This is not a reflection of Trump’s popularity in Nigeria, for those curious. We are a country of about 200 million people, and not one to endorse a far-right demagogue.”
Meanwhile, the verbal attacks continue with Trump blasting Biden. “A vote for Sleepy Joe Biden is a vote to give control of government over to Globalists, Communists, Socialists, and Wealthy Liberal Hypocrites who want to silence, censor, cancel, and punish you,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Biden, however, fired back, “If we give Donald Trump another four years in the White House, our planet will never recover.”
The United States is more divided and angry than at any time since the Vietnam War era of the 1970s and fears that Trump could dispute the result of the election are only fueling those tensions.
Despite an often startlingly laid-back campaign, Biden, 77, leads in almost every opinion poll, buoyed by his consistent message that America needs to restore its “soul” and get new leadership in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people.
But Trump was characteristically defiant to the end, campaigning at a frenetic pace with crowded rallies in four states on Monday, and repeating his dark, unprecedented claims for a US president that the polls risk being rigged against him.
After almost non-stop speeches in a final three-day sprint, he ended up in the early hours of Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan — the same place where he concluded his epic against-the-odds campaign in 2016 where he defeated apparent frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.
Despite the bad poll numbers, the 74-year-old Republican real estate tycoon counted on pulling off another upset.
“We’re going to have another beautiful victory tomorrow,” he told the Michigan crowd on Monday, which chanted back, “We love you, we love you!”
“We’re going to make history once again,” he said.