WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF DISMANTLING USAID?

It will lead to the direct death of millions across the world and provide an inroad for China to replace America where the U.S. has relinquished leadership…

I wrote about a senior friend here in the US who passed on Dec 26, 2024. I called him Baba because he was my father's age. He was 87 years old when he passed. One thing that was unique about Baba was that he came to the US in mid-1960 on a USAID scholarship for his master's degree at the University of Maine, Orono. After that, he completed a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and went back to Nigeria to work for Shell Corporation until 1999 when he retired.

During the many labor unrests of the 1990s in Nigeria, Baba decided to send all his children to school in America. They became pharmacists, engineers, economists, writer, etc. Six of them remain in America, and the oldest one settled in England. They are all gainfully employed. They work for big companies in the U.S., they support the growth of America, they pay taxes, and contribute to their local communities across different states in the U.S. from Virginia to Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, etc.

What is my point? The single investment the U.S. made in the 1960s in a man they provided scholarship has brought a return of six highly qualified STEM professionals to the U.S. decades later. USAID does not sponsor terrorism as alluded to in the media in Nigeria and elsewhere. They are an aid-providing organization. Many Nigerians have benefited from USAID activities in Nigeria and beyond. It is all gone… those touched by the demolition of USAID in Nigeria will say this is devastating to them… Many vaccine campaigns in Nigeria are supported by USAID, women's genital mutilation effort, childbirth mortality reduction campaign, rehabilitation of Almajiris, provision of HIV vaccines provision at zero cost, renovations of schools in some regions in Nigeria, provision of water, the support for displaced people due to Boko Haram.

The U.S. lawmaker that many people are quoting that mentioned Boko Haram as one of the terrorist organizations sponsored by USAID used what is called "hyperbole" in presenting his case. He said the U.S. spent over $600 million in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power. What he did not tell the audience was that most of this money went to support humanitarian activities that cater to the needs of the most vulnerable within Afghanistan society - children, the sick, and women who have their rights taken by an extremist Islamist government. He did not tell the audience that U.S., under Biden, led the effort to freeze ALL Afghanistan assets since they forcefully took over and have since removed all girl's and women's rights to things such as education.

Authoritarian leaders such as Maduro of Venezuela, Putin of Russia, Orban of Hungary, Lukashenko of Belarus, and even our own Kagame of Rwanda are the ones that are allegedly fueling the DISINFORMATION about USAID. The lawmaker who made this outlandish claim without a single proof is a MAGA. They are trying to justify the destruction of an organization that has been used as a soft tool to turn enemies into friends for decades so that the US can do legitimate business in these countries where they are represented.

I feel sad because we live in a world now where people believe just anything... The line between reality and fiction is so thin that even the educated are deceived. I watched our own Prof. Akinyemi in Nigeria babble conspiracy theories about locals in Nigeria seeing white men dropping money and weapons for Boko Haram, and he used the words of the U.S. lawmaker to conclude that these white men were USAID/Americans who want to destabilize Nigeria because America does not want Nigeria to be a strong country in Africa... I watched his comment on Arise TV with complete shock, that an erudite Prof. with many years of international relations experience can be dissuaded by the Kremlin's propaganda. Does America destabilize other countries in the words of John Bolton, former Trump's National Security Adviser, yes, they do... There is ZERO strategic interest in Nigeria's destabilization for America. America knows that peace in Nigeria means peace in Africa, and they can do more business here when there is peace ...

USAID destruction is one of Trump's transactional approaches to leadership. He is doing the bidding of authoritarian leaders across the world who have called him the new king in America. Co-President, Musk, is yet to provide one single tangible proof that there is fraud in USAID. Everybody agrees about that there is wasteful spending in government... that is not a good reason to axe an organization that has helped the U.S. sow goodwill across the world. This U.S. lawmaker's allegation is stretching facts. Money spent by the U.S. through USAID-funded aid programs, not terrorism or terrorists. It would be foolhardy for the U.S. to fund a country they just lost trillions of dollars perpetuating a wasteful war in for 17 years. It just does not make any sense. Why will the U.S. fund the Taliban or Boko Haram? If you say that Russia which is selling weapons in Africa has a vested interest in fanning the flame of war, I will agree.

The Chinese have copied a lot of things that made America great. Their support of infrastructural development in Africa is their way of doing the exact same thing that the U.S. has been doing through USAID and other aid organizations like WHO, WFP, UNESCO, etc. that they fund. Now that the U.S. has left the stage, they have opened the door for China to take over as the world superpower, using copied and modified American policy to win hearts and minds across the globe.... We will all see how these destructive policies serve America in the near future...