Tillerson was here

It could only happen, I dare say, under the tumultuous presidency of Donald Trump. Rex Tillerson was as at the beginning of last week strutting the African continent as United States Secretary of State on a multi-nation tour, of which Nigeria was his last whistle stop. But he might well have saved those exertions, because just hours after, he was out of office – fired by way of a presidential tweet, and from indications while he was still airborne from his African round.

Tillerson was in Abuja last Monday for a couple of hours, during which he locked down with President Muhammadu Buhari and later held a media parley with his Nigerian counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyema. He had started out that morning from Kenya, stopped over in Chad, and was only breezing through Nigeria having cut short the original schedule of his African tour to head back home same day. Still, he brought with him a bouquet of typical diplomatese.

He offered his country’s support for Nigeria’s counter-insurgency drive, especially the ongoing efforts to secure release of recently abducted Dapchi girls. Asked what that meant in concrete terms, he cited U.S. assistance to Nigerian security forces in areas of capacity building and equipment supply. “The United States is ready to engage and coordinate (rescue) efforts. But we have been supporting, equipping, training and, when we can, providing information. That is the best way we’ve been helping the government of Nigeria to secure the release of the girls, which we hope will be done in a peaceful manner,” he told journalists. In practical terms though, you could say it’s all down to the run of existing relations, with nothing particularly new on offer.

Among others, Tillerson also lauded the Buhari administration’s anti-graft crusade and pledged his country’s assistance with upcoming 2019 general election in Nigeria. A major message he had borne for African countries during his continental swing was that they be wary of Chinese loans, and he explained further thus in Abuja: “It is important to clarify that we do not seek to stop Chinese investments from flowing to countries that need those investments. What we are cautioning countries to do is check carefully the implications of the level of debts, the terms of the debts, and whether arrangements around the local financing are intact – creating jobs and local capacity, or whether the projects are being carried out by foreign labour brought to your country.”

Tillerson’s admonition was, of course, apt and timely. Only you could hardly blame needy African countries – if shamefully so – for navigating their way around shortfalls created by United States’ retreat from global consequence under the Trump presidency’s ‘America First’ doctrine, or indeed China for stepping up to fill up the vacuum. But it also noteworthy that the top diplomat’s visit was just days after he announced a new $533million U.S. aid package for Africa, out of which $128million was voted for Nigeria and other countries of the Lake Chad region.

Subsequent course of events since Tillerson left this country suggested that his audience with President Buhari last Monday was a hollow façade hardly worthy of the presidential hours devoted to it. He might well have offered the moon, because by that point in the African tour his principal had effectively withdrawn his mandate. Whether or not he was properly briefed accordingly is another matter though.

‘With Trump’s apparent disdain for African countries he once famously dubbed ‘shitholes’…it seems plain naïve to count on validity of any deal by Tillerson on Trump’s behalf without Tillerson being around’

President Trump early on Tuesday tweeted the ouster of Tillerson and his planned replacement with Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo. Reports said the Secretary of State landed back at Joint Base Andrews to have a State Department official inform him the president had tweeted his sack; and because Tillerson is not on Twitter, the president’s tweet had to be printed out for him. At his farewell media conference in Washington later on Tuesday, Tillerson denied being advised early of his removal, saying: “I received a call today from the president of the United States a little after noon time from Air Force One,” which was about three hours after Trump tweeted to announce his departure.

White House officials however gave a different account of the procedures, insisting that Tillerson got a phone call preceding Friday from Chief of Staff John Kelly notifying him he was being let go. They said it was Tillerson who requested that the announcement be held until his return from the tour of Africa; in which case it could well be a major reason Tillerson’s team reported him unwell on Saturday and pulled some of his schedule engagements in Kenya.

Even with that controversial circumstance of his departure, the Buhari presidency last week headed up with assurances that the deals struck with Tillerson during his visit weren’t in any way hazarded. Foreign Affairs Minister Onyema on Wednesday told State House correspondents that Nigeria expected all negotiations during the visit to remain binding on both countries. “Rex Tillerson’s sack won’t affect the discussions held because government is a continuum, as we all know. When he came, it was the United States that was speaking, and clearly we expect with every expectation that everything he has said regarding U.S.-Nigeria relationship reflects the position of the United States, reflects the position of the president of the United States. So we don’t see any change happening,” he reportedly said.

Well, it is true the authenticity of state policies ideally should be without regard to particular officials holding fort at particular points in time in public offices. But I wouldn’t be optimistic at all on the Tillerson deals considering publicised frays on policy directions he’s had with his principal, which Trump himself put down to differences in personal chemistry. Speaking to reporters outside the White House last week, he said: “Rex and I…got along actually quite well, but we disagreed on things. When you look at the Iran deal: I think it’s terrible, (but) I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same.”

And just to be clear: the Iran deal is only one instance and not the sole point of departure between the two men. The ‘commander-in-tweets’ sometime last year famously wrote on his handle that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea; and now that he’s determined to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the coming months, he preferred to leave Tillerson out of the loop.

With Trump’s apparent disdain for African countries he once famously dubbed ‘shitholes,’ which was apparently underscored with his hacking of Tillerson in the midst of an African tour, it seems plain naïve to count on validity of any deal by Tillerson on Trump’s behalf without Tillerson being around.