Seated on the dais behind the lectern at the Capitol Rotunda where Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th American President on Monday were the wealthiest men in the world: CEO of Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), Mark Zuckerberg, Apple boss, Tim Cook, CEO of Alphabet Inc and Google, Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos. Others included Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, CEO of Tik Tok (the social network at the centre of a banning controversy), Shou Zi Chew, former executive chairman of Fox Corp., the legendary Rupert Murdoch and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, who also owns X (formerly Twitter). Placed a row behind members of Trump’s immediate family but one row ahead of members of his in-coming cabinet, these powerful men also joined Trump at St. John’s Episcopal Church across the White House shortly before the swearing-in ceremony. There was nothing accidental about their presence at these events and the placement of their seats.

Due to a mild cold, I decided not to go to the office on Monday so from noon till 7pm, I was glued to the television, watching the CNN coverage of the inauguration of the 45th American President and now its 47th. In many ways, the proceedings were like the opening scenes in the movie, ‘The Godfather’, where Don Vito Coleone (acted by Marlon Brando) was giving out the hands of his daughter in marriage. The movie was based on the novel of same title by Mario Puzo. On that ‘glorious’ day, all that Don Coleone sought of the high and mighty who gathered for his daughter’s wedding was their ‘friendship’ which, of course, was not cost-free as we saw in the dialogue with a central character called Bonasera. By telling Bonasera who sought revenge for the fate that befell his daughter that he had to join the community of ‘friends’, the Don was demanding fealty, and he made that clear enough: “You never wanted my friendship. And you were afraid to be in my debt.” As the Don would later say after the deal was consummated, “Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.’’

Both the scene in the movie and the one at the American Congress on Monday centred essentially around family, friendship, loyalty, wealth and power. “In the first term, everyone was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month as powerful men and women from across the globe visited one after another to ‘kiss the ring’ of a man to whom family, ‘friendship’, loyalty, wealth and power are indeed everything.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, 82-year American biographer, historian and author of ‘No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt-—The Home Front in World War II’ which won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History, was one of the commentators on CNN. Like others, Goodwin conceded that Trump’s return to the White House is quite remarkable, but she also expressed reservations about the influence of the ‘tech oligarchs’ who have now become part of the presidential inner circle. That reservation is shared by no less a personality than Senator Bernie Sanders. “When the three wealthiest men in America sit behind Trump at his inauguration, everyone understands that the billionaire class now controls our government,” Sanders posted on social media.

Instructively, Trump was inaugurated on the day the 2024 Oxfam International report revealed that the wealth of global billionaires rose by $2 trillion to $15 trillion within one year. Titled, ‘Takers Not Makers,’ the report stated that there were 2,769 billionaires worldwide in 2024, an increase of 204 over the previous year, while three-fifths of this wealth came from inheritance, monopoly power or crony connections. “The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated—by three times—but so too has their power,” Oxfam International Executive Director, Amitabh Behar, said. “We present this report as a stark wake up-call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few.”

In the immediate case of the American ‘tech oligarchs’, the real concern is not about their bank balances but rather in the control that they have over the information we all consume and how Trump could leverage on that to reshape our world in the coming months and years. Besides, the rise of AI as a new force in the use of technology for the advancement of human progress means that Trump, as an aspirant to ultimate world power, needs the ‘friendship’ of these tech oligarchs, just as they need him for their businesses. But the overriding lesson is perhaps that Trump has made his personal interests to become synonymous with America’s national interest. To offend Trump is to annoy America which he is positioning as the ‘Godfather of nations’. To be the enemy of one is to court the ire of both. “For now, folks are estimating that it is better to be on his good side than not—the problem for them is that his good side changes frequently,” Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University, reportedly told AFP.

Nothing perhaps demonstrates that better than the fact that among the several executive orders Trump signed on Monday was halting the law banning TikTok for 75 days “to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action.” Not many remember but three months before the 2020 presidential election which he lost, Trump had issued an executive order that the spread of mobile apps developed and owned by Chinese firms “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”. Targeting TikTok and WeChat, he said both “capture vast swaths of information from its users” and  “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information” for the purpose of tracking US government employees and gathering information for blackmail, or to carry out corporate espionage.

That marked the beginning of the problem for Tik Tok, eventually culminating in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Bill overwhelmingly passed by Congress in a bi-partisan manner and signed into law last April by President Biden. ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent company, was to divest its interest in TikTok by 19 January 2025 or face a nationwide ban. Without divestiture, penalties would prevent updates or distribution of TikTok via platforms such as Apple and Google. And in a unanimous decision last Friday, the US Supreme Court affirmed the law.

Now, Trump is singing a new tune because, as he has publicly admitted, the app helped him to win over many young voters during the election, even though the future of the company remains unclear. “This is one of those things where the domestic politics has become so upside down and crazy that it turns out there’s only upside for Trump now,” Bill Bishop, a China expert told the Associated Press (AP). If the ban ends up being enforced, according to Bishop, Trump will put the blame on Biden. “And if it does come back, then Trump is a savior. And he will be rewarded both by users” as well as the company, which is now “beholden to Trump”.

Indeed, the fear of Trump is now the beginning of wisdom in Washington DC and may be also in several capital cities across the world. Essentially due to that fear, President Biden’s last decision in the White House was one that tarnishes his reputation and further diminishes him in the eyes of many Americans. He issued blanket (and anticipatory) pardons to his brother, James Biden, James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Valerie’s husband, John T Owens; and his younger brother, Francis W Biden. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” stated Biden who had last month also issued “a full and unconditional” pardon to his son, Hunter Biden. “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

There may be justification for Biden’s fear about retribution from his successor. Shortly after his inauguration on Monday, the official portrait of retired General Mark Milley was taken down from the Pentagon hallway where the paintings of all previous chairmen Joint Chiefs of Staff are located. In September 2023, Trump had written on his social-media network, Truth Social, that Milley’s two phone calls to China on 6 January 2021 in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” Yet, all Milley did was to assure his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady” as revealed in ‘Peril,’ the 2021 book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The phone calls, which riled Trump when he learnt about them, were said to have been authorized by top-level officials in his government. It is just as well that Milley also secured one of the pre-emptive presidential pardons from Biden in his last days in office.

Several books have been written about Trump in the past years. I have read quite a few. Many more will be written about him in the years and decades to come. But for now, it is safe to conclude that with him back at the White House, Americans are effectively under the ancient Chinese curse: They are now living in interesting times. We can say the same for the rest of the world.

Still on The GDP of Sex, Drugs, Rituals

Following the publication last Thursday of my column, ‘The GDP of Sex, Drugs, Rituals’, I got a message from the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) Chief Executive Officer, Tayo Aduloju, that the Statistician General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, would want to meet with me for a discussion on the issue. I found the idea refreshing. Since we inhabit a country where people judge others by their own standards, I would not have been surprised if I had received an intrepid rejoinder laden with abuse and allegations of how I was being “sponsored” to knock the exercise. I am delighted Adeniran didn’t go through that route. Last Friday, I was at the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) head office in Abuja where he was waiting for me, along with all his directors and eminent professors, who were working on the rebasing exercise. Aduloju also joined in the discussion.

It turned out that the current exercise to rebase the economy started in 2018, and Adeniran and his team took me through the rigorous processes of recent years. They also explained the conversations that brought about whether to include proceeds of the ‘Shadow economy’ in the rebased economy and the whole essence of the exercise. At the end of an interesting conversation that lasted about 40 minutes, I was assured that even when there will be a comprehensive report on the proceeds of illicit flows based on data collected from the relevant government enforcement agencies involved, they will not be accounted for as economic activities and would be decoupled from the total computation of the new GDP of Nigeria. That way, people are left to do their arithmetic. I was also told the report will be released by the end of the month, which suggests it is ready.

I left the NBS fully satisfied that the Statistician General of the Federation and his team know what they are doing. I also appreciate their decision to engage me on the issue. But, as I told them, I will await their report before I make my judgment call. Meanwhile, I have also received some messages from readers who disagree with my position on the issue. Below is one of them:

Why Illicit Activities Matter

By Olufemi Adeagbo

The Nigerian illicit economy straddles formal and informal sectors, and its opaque nature makes estimation difficult. Nonetheless, the outputs buy goods and services alongside legitimately derived monies, and have therefore been considered by many as a simmering explosive weapon placed visibly in the room, whilst many economic planners at the tables of deliberation and decisioning stoically ignore the deadly presence in their midst
 
One of the more disturbing aspects has been the exponential growth of the sex industry, which has since evolved from whistling street sellers, to sugar girls, and then a retail and technology enabled  ‘hook up’ economy, to what we have now: a normative transactional sex environment where money is expected to change hands for sex and where sex has increasingly become weaponized and prostitution brazenly peddled. This industry, when some extrapolation is done, may be as big as N10 trillion Naira or even more, specifically in terms of amounts that change hands between buyers and sellers of sexual services, howsoever packaged. (If only ten in a hundred between the ages of 17 and 29 within the 26 million demographic that falls in that range collect N100k per month for sex, that is already an annual sector GDP of N3.38 trillion).

Some observers have concerns about giving illicit activities such as sex, drugs and other unsavoury criminal trades more prominence and visibility by attributing economic numbers of heft to them. It is indeed true that some jurisdictions have refused to capture same within their GDP computations, underscoring support for this philosophy. However, others have taken a pragmatic view of reflecting them, as they are integral aspects of the economy. The drug dealer or prostitute also buys provisions in the supermarket. In 2014, the UK for example estimated that sex and drugs added £10 billion to its economy, and as such could not be ignored any longer in economic computation. Many EU nations have since followed suit. The Dutch in 2021 attributed over 4 billion Euros to drugs and prostitution representing 0.5 % of total GDP.

Whilst the timing in the Nigerian case may have political undertones, given our recent GDP position decline, there is a strong argument for transparency about what we have become, if we are truly to solve our myriad problems. We simply can’t continue to indulge in ‘brand protection’ when that brand is already badly damaged. The normative nature and breadth of availability of sex for sale and drug use can no longer be minimized or ignored. They are issues requiring mainstreaming and declaration of National emergencies in the view of many. Deemphasizing focus on them arguably led us to this pass. Recognizing and dimensioning a disease are prerequisites to finding a cure.

Furthermore, denial of the impact of illicit activities in economic make up simply robs us of timely responses to curb what we perceive as unsavoury pathways to wealth, making them attractive as time goes on, until they become normative. We are all witnesses to the desperation for riches as rituals, yahoo, pillage of government resources, political gangsterism, and other ills have marched steadily and brazenly with the passage of time, whilst we have chosen to deny the evident reality of looting development resources to the extent that it is now a ‘Tsunami’ that threatens to submerge the nation. Rather than confess our sins and act, we have often tethered to abstracts like restructuring, military written constitution, sponsored demarketing; and all sorts of excuses that helps us avoid looking at ourselves in the mirror, and seeing the issues for what they are.

The overall lack of rigorous introspection has denied us insights into why such practices have become prevalent, and the appropriate responses to deploy. For example, the justification arguments about lack of job opportunities and economic conditions are one dimensional. There are other dimensions including drug addiction funding, simple greed, a history of sexual abuse, collapse of the family structure, cross cultural infiltration, failure of religious institutions and government to set a moral agenda, human trafficking, and many others. Understanding these dimensions provide insights for solutioning. Denying them simply affords more time for the illicit activities to grow to uncontrollable proportions. Many argue we are already there, despite the best efforts of government agencies and well-meaning entities within society.

The economic insights are also critical, though difficult to unravel. Where does the money actually go? If a portion goes into the local economy, and a huge chunk pursues vanities and unsustainable lifestyles -that are now magnified by social media- what are the economic implications considering alcohol, clothing, fake nails and lashes, clothing, hair, drugs, and all sorts sought by these ‘practitioners’ are largely imported and consume billions of dollars? Could this mean that our young women and men are serving as a conduit for transferring wealth to other climes and draining society of its moral stock at the same time?

Finally, we must develop a culture of data driven societal management and governance. We need to quantify things to make appropriate remedial decisions. I point to the petrol subsidy issue as an example. Did the statisticians provide leadership with how many litres of PMS are consumed by petrol generators used by millions of small businesses, and the GDP contribution of those users? Did they provide details on the various engine car sizes to explore other approaches like carbon tax imposition to support the subsidy scheme? Did anyone actually disentangle the scheme to identify what was GDP supportive, what was smuggled, what was wasteful petrol burning, and what was likely fraud? If so, this is not in the public domain and ought to be.  The outcomes may still point to a decision to scrap the regime, but a scientific base would have been established to ensure broader support

Too many of our young ones are now making porn at scale, normalizing half- naked dressing, routinely selling their bodies at every turn, using and dealing hard drugs, and ready to kill – at least so it seems – once money is to be made. These are facts and we can’t exculpate the adults and leaders who failed to shape the culture of society.  What one can safely say is that the device in the room has pretty much exploded, and part of the containment strategy has to be transparency and solutioning before we lose more young people to the powerful magnet that the culture of illicit activities has become.

To this extent, the NBS ought to be supported and mandated to provide detailed explanations on how it arrives at whatever numbers it eventually presents in its rebasing exercise so that credibility isn’t lost. Transparency, and truthfulness signpost a societies intent to deal with a problem, and we can no longer deny or ignore what the entire world now knows about Nigeria. Continuing to do so simply means that the fabric of society will be so torn that a thousand stitches will be needed one day, instead of a hundred.

• Adeagbo is the CEO of Comnavig ICT Advisers 

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com   

In response to the outcry over their manner of handling the sons of Nigerian billionaire Chief Razaq Okoya, Subomi and Wahab, over alleged naira abuse versus their priors, the EFCC finally issued a public invitation for those boys to appear at their office on Monday. Respectfully summoning those boys for an investigation was a far cry from their approach to confronting the same “crime” when it involved the child of a non-billionaire just last year. The same EFCC that wrote a tame letter to the Okoyas ferociously stormed Pinnock Estate to arrest Bobrisky (Okuneye Idris). They were so carried away by the sensation they generated that they turned Bobrisky’s arrest into the defining trophy of their institutional life. So, what happened to all their boasts about “we are very serious about restoring the dignity of the naira”? They even mentioned setting up a department dedicated to tackling naira abuse.

In any case, I do not think that the Okoya boys did anything that warranted their invitation. Their act was not that serious, and it would not have been taken as such by the public if the EFCC had been reasonable. I have always thought of the whole idea of criminalising “naira abuse” as specious. Abusing a currency cannot be achieved by pursuing those who indulge in harmless fun with money; it is always about the (in)actions of the agents and institutions whose activities torture the economic value out of it. Restoring the dignity of the naira will not be achieved by elevating the paper notes into a national fetish but through serious political and economic activities that enhance its value. The EFCC must know this already, but they still had to invite the Okoya boys because they set themselves up to an iberiberi standard which they must now uphold. That is why you do not make ridiculous laws. Enforcing them makes you look stupid.

The EFCC is not the only organisation that finds itself in the crosshairs of Nigerians over the Okoya boys’ issue. Even the police whose officer appeared in the video helping the boys to hold the bales of naira as they played now must explain themselves to the public why they did not act on the supposed naira abuse. In justifying themselves, the spokesman for the Nigeria Police Force, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, noted that the officer had the duty to prevent a crime or at least not participate in it. On that score, I agree with him one hundred per cent. Even if there is no offence called “naira abuse” listed in the books somewhere, the officer should still have known better than to participate in such a silly display. If he let the boys use him as a prop, you can bet his interaction with them off-camera will be unprofessional.

Where I depart from Adejobi is his failure to recognise himself and his organisation in that officer. If he looks well enough, he will see that unnamed officer as a metonym of the police impotence when interacting with a higher power. The Nigerian police is one organisation that knows how to rage, but only at people who have little or no power. There is a reason that the people they serially arrest, detain, and on whose behalf they even defy the courts to incarcerate extendedly for frivolous crimes like “cyberbullying” or “cyberstalking” in a matter involving the rich and the poor are mostly the economically weaker party. Their understanding of what constitutes crime and punishment is driven by personalities and not necessarily principles, and that is why it would never have occurred to anyone in either the police or the EFCC to storm the Okoya mansion to arrest those boys. Their postured zeal always capitulates to a higher power (aka money, which, of course, buys the political capital that protects the Okoya family from police indignities).

So, for Adejobi, if the police organisation right up to its topmost cadre cannot maintain principled professionalism, why should that lowly officer be different? If his bosses get so regularly swayed by money power that they hold themselves back from the ethical discharge of their duties, what can anyone expect from an officer confronted by billionaire sons holding cash he has probably never seen before? I do not know why Adejobi thinks the officer could have straightened out those boys when even his own bosses do not have a record of doing so in their dealings with rich people. If the police find the picture of their officer serving money cringey, it is good because they at least get an idea of how the public views their lack of self-assurance.

Instead of merely scapegoating him, they should take some time to consider how the psyche of the officers they send to the houses of wealthy Nigerians is impacted by being in such an environment. Poorly paid officers cannot but be intimidated by the wealth and power of folks who are also (often) haughty, making it hard for them to be consistently professional. That is why police officers assigned to wealthy Nigerians usually become servants.

There are countless cases of police officers who have become gatemen, drivers, nannies, and even handbag carriers. Female politicians (or consorts) use policewomen to carry their accessories like designer handbags. They must derive satisfaction from accessorising themselves with an officer of the state serving their vanity. Remember that video Davido posted of himself where, in his background, a police officer was washing his Rolls Royce? If not an ego trip, who buys a vehicle like a Rolls Royce and uses untrained hands like that of a random police officer to clean it?

These things happen every single day across the country. When the manifestation of police servitude cuts too close to the bone in its depiction of their organisation, PROs like Adejobi throw a fit. They recall that one single officer while the rest of his poor colleagues continued to wash plates for the madams at the top.

If there is any reason that the officer in the Okoya mansion could not challenge those boys as his bosses expected him to, it is because the police system does not autonomously run as an agency staffed with professionals who approach their duties with the self-assurance of knowing the law and enforcing it detachedly. They are vulnerable to the intimidation of power and that spirit percolates right through to the smallest officer deployed to the spaces occupied by rich and powerful people. If the EFCC and the police could not confront the Okoyas, do you blame a powerless officer for not being able to stand on his two feet before those boys?

In justifying why the police officer had to be recalled and punished, Adejobi reportedly said he was never attached to the young men. He was supposed to be on guard duty at the Okoyas’ family business, Eleganza. Several things are instructive here. One is that Eleganza is a private company that has been in business long enough to pay for the services of a security agency to guard their facilities. Why impose an officer on them at the expense of the public already starved of efficient policing too? The fact that the Eleganza administrators forwarded the officer to their house to serve their children suggests they find police security redundant. Why retain him then? There must be some self-glorifying feeling to having a police officer in your house to run your errands.

If the officer’s bosses knew that the family had reassigned him and they did not withdraw him, it demonstrates the poverty of their organisational self-understanding. If they had no idea that the officer was reporting at the Okoya mansion instead of at Eleganza, then it calls into question their operational efficacy and their ability to provide “security.”

Last week, I was invited to the presidential villa to meet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA).

The reason given was that I am an “important Ogoni Stakeholder” and I was really surprised to have received such a flattering summons because I have been a vocal opponent of Tinubu since 2022.

OK so I made my way to this meeting on Tuesday alongside other senior Ogoni stakeholders. 

We were told that the government wanted to find out what it could do to persuade us and our brethren back home to support its interest in resuming oil operations on our ancestral turf.

Ogoniland quit producing oil in the early 1990s at the height of the Ken Saro Wiwa crisis – a very complicated situation that cannot be adequately summarised in a few newspaper paragraphs. But let me provide a potted history anyway for newcomers to this tragic story.

Saro Wiwa was the face of a robust campaign that focussed on Shell Petroleum’s environmental abuses. The Ogoni leadership was deeply divided. Some moderate Ogoni leaders (my late father Ignatius, for example) favoured negotiation with the authorities. Saro Wiwa and the youths he controlled favoured a more radical approach. 

Eventually, 4 blameless Ogoni chiefs – my uncles Edward Kobani, Albert Badey, Theophilus Orage and Samuel Orage – were murdered.

Some Ogonis blamed the Nigerian army for this fratricidal outrage. Others blamed Ken and his fans. The then head of state, General Sani Abacha, also regarded them as guilty; and they were executed.

Shell Petroleum, which was accused of colluding with the Federal Government, was forced to retreat. Numerous attempts to resolve the impasse have failed. The rift with Shell was never healed. Other companies that have expressed an interest in taking over from Shell have been rejected. And Ogoniland has yet to recover – politically, socially, financially, psychologically – from the trauma, bloodletting, bitterness and absence of significant economic activity.

Most members of the delegation that went to meet President Tinubu on Tuesday bear emotional scars linked to this sorry state of affairs.

I frequently find myself furiously dwelling on the fact that the bodies of my assassinated uncles have never materialised. If I feel like this, imagine how the children of the disappeared victims feel! Anyway, I applaud Mr President for including both pro- and anti-Ken individuals on his guest list and for appealing to all of us to put the past behind us and embrace the spirit of reconciliation.  

He urged Ogonis to set aside historical grievances and work together to achieve peace, development, and a clean environment.

“We cannot in any way rewrite history, but we can correct some anomalies of the past going forward. We cannot heal the wounds if we continue to be angry,” the president said.

I and most of the Ogonis I know feel neglected, marginalised and cheated. There has never been an Ogoni Governor, Deputy Governor, Chief Judge or Speaker of the State House of Assembly.

The President promised to prioritise peace, justice and the sustainable development of Ogoniland, then directed the NSA to coordinate inclusive negotiations with Ogoni leaders. The Rivers State Governor, Sir Sim Fubara, was also at this meeting and made all the right noises and sounded sincerely committed to working with us to enable Ogoniland to enjoy a brighter future. 

A separate meeting at the NSA’s office was immensely cordial, though too short (because it was quite late in the day) to accommodate those who had hoped for in-depth discussions about the best way forward.

The Chief Executive of NNPCL,  Mele Kyari, and Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, the DG of the DSS (who is married to a Rivers woman!) joined us and assured us of maximum cooperation.

I personally think, on reflection, that the best way forward is for Ogonis to create a detailed and sophisticated masterplan for our region, in conjunction with expert development consultants.

All that remains now is to keep one’s fingers tightly crossed that regular consultations at community level will ensue and that Mr President, the NSA, the NNPCL CEO, the DG DSS and our Governor will keep their promises and not try to be too clever by half!

I am trying my best to give all of the above the benefit of many doubts (my own doubts as well as doubts expressed by other Ogonis who don’t trust this government or ANY Nigerian government).

I will maintain an open mind. But I will be the first to complain very loudly if this project is not handled ethically and efficiently.

President Joe Biden within seven weeks from December 1, 2024, granted over 2,500 pardons including for his son,  Robert Hunter Biden.

Hunter had been convicted  on a nine-count charge   for  tax felony amounting to $1.4 million,  evading tax assessment  and filing false tax returns. He faced a maximum 17 years in prison.  His sentencing was scheduled for December 16, 2024. But fifteen days before, Biden  not only pardoned his son, but also granted him  immunity  from additional or new charges that can be brought against him especially by the Trump administration. It stated that Hunter  has immunity:  “For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024”

His predecessor and successor, President Donald Trump in one day, on January 20, 2025, issued over 1,500 pardons. Both men within seven weeks granted over 4,000 pardons. The process the two  political rivals are basically abusing,  is the power of pardon granted the United States, US President   under Article II Section 2, Clause 1   of the American constitution. This  provides that: “The President…shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except  in Cases of impeachment.”

However, there remains a problem Trump  still needs to solve over the Capitol Hill violent invaders against whom he claims “ a grave national injustice” had been perpetrated. The US Constitution grants the   President power to pardon people convicted, but not power  to halt on-going trials. Now, some of the judges have merely dismissed the cases. This leaves open the possibility that charges can brought  against the accused in future. There are still some 300 such cases pending which judges might be holding up or delaying.  Perhaps Trump can learn from Biden granting  his son immunity from any prosecution.

Biden with his total 8,064 pardons granted from 2021 -2025 holds  the record of granting the most pardons in US history. While the pardons granted this week by Trump, were basically to free convicted criminals  who levied war against the state in an attempt to reverse the 2020  Presidential Elections which he had lost, some of the pardons by Biden were  to correct cases  of historical injustice the White establishment had visited on American Indians  and African Americans in its  bid to maintain supremacy and dominance over the country.

I first heard the name, Leonard Peltier on August 12, 2024 at the  International Conference to End Colonialism In The World which was held in Abuja.  The Opening Address was  from  Puerto Rican freedom fighter, Oscar Lopez Riveria who had spent 38 years in US jails. I had remarked that Africa’s Nelson Mandela had spent 27 years in jail   and that as far as I knew, Riveria had been  the  longest serving political prisoner in history. But Kazi Toure, of the International  People’s Senate National Jericho Movement, USA and, former US political prisoner, corrected me.  He told me about the then 79-year old Indigenous American Indian freedom fighter called Leonard Peltier who was in his 49th year in US jails.

Peltier was serving two life sentences for allegedly killing two Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams on June 26, 1975  in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  The immediate dispute was over the Indians insistence on self-determination and,  Native Treaty Rights.  The agents had gone to serve arrest warrants. The American state and system including  the FBI knew Peltier was innocent of the crimes. The FBI had forensic evidence proving that the shots that took the lives of the officers did not come from Peltier’s gun, but chose to suppress  the fact at the trial. It also manufactured fake affidavits and distorted facts.  

Peltier  had been  denied parole including at a  July, 2024 hearing  and, was not  eligible again for parole  until 2026. He was a leader of the American Indian Movement, AIM  which the state wanted to destroy. AIM had in 1973 taken over  the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation. This led to  a 71-day standoff with federal security forces. The increased clashes led to the face off two year later for which Peltier was sent to prison.

The injustice done to Peltier had turned him into the symbol of the indigenous peoples’ resistance  and a living legend. It was for this and the insistence by the FBI for a pound of flesh from the American  Indian people, that saw him spend half a century wasting in prison.  Appeals by international  figures  including Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the actor, Robert Redford did not move the American establishment.

As the Biden era was winding up,  the local and international activists who for decades had pushed for presidential pardon, decided to make a last second push. On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, Kazi posted an appeal by freedom activists titled “Tell Biden: FREE Leonard Peltier!” The appeal was that people should call President Biden that day and the next  on 2024561111 or text the White House on 302404 0880   with the simple message: “Grant Leonard Peltier Clemency” I thought the campaigners for a last second clemency were simply  optimists. 

I did not think a Biden would have the courage to grant Peltier pardon  especially when the FBI and the establishment were  openly opposed.  In fact,  FBI Director,  Christopher  Asher Wray wrote Biden this month saying that Peltier must  not be granted clemency. He repeated the false claim that: “Peltier is a ruthless murderer who has shown a complete lack of remorse for his many crimes.”

But as Biden was handing over power to Trump on Monday, January 20, 2025, the White House issued a statement that Peltier was now a free man!  He is to be released from a Florida federal detention on February 18, 2025.  Biden’s release of Peltier, is a healing process for the indigenous American Indian people who have faced genocide.  Another healing process Biden set off  was his posthumous pardon for Pan African Prophet Marcus Garvey who was falsely accused in 1923 of mail fraud.

Garvey who wanted to unite all Black people in the world, had set up empowerment businesses. When one of them, the large Black Star shipping line collapsed, the racist American establishment used that as an  excuse to charge him with “mail fraud” over the sale of the company’s shares. Using a corrupt judicial system, he was railroaded into prison. His connived conviction was then used in December 1, 1927 to deport him to his native Jamaica. Pardons in the US have essentially become weapons to be wielded for political purposes rather than to further the aims of justice.