Barack Obama’s tenure as the President of the United States of America will end in few hours, in come Donald John Trump as the 45th President of the most powerful and advanced nation on earth, while in nearby Gambia, a despotic leader as about to be forcefully ejected from office.
Trump, a billionaire businessman and television personality rose out of nowhere to becoming the President of United States. He stunned the world to emerge as the Republican nominee despite a lot of damaging revelations against him. The bigger shocker was his defeat of long time favourite and the Democrats candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
Trump fought many battles on his way to the Oval Office and it wouldn’t be out of place to say he comes top in all the challenges placed before him. Though controversial in many ways with his conducts and utterances, he never shies away from expressing himself either acceptable or not. A number of negative terms have been used to describe him-racist, demagogue, xenophobic, anti-Islam, sexual harasser, etc.
Before this political accomplishment, Trump considered the idea of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012, and for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, but did not enter those races. On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United States at Trump Tower in New York City. In the speech, Trump drew attention to domestic issues such as illegal immigration, off shoring of American jobs, the U.S. national debt, and Islamic terrorism, which all remained large themes during the campaign. He also announced his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”
In his campaign, Trump said that he disdained political correctness, stated that the media has intentionally misinterpreted his words, and made other claims of adverse media bias. Trump trounced 16 other Republican candidates to emerge as party nominee.
On November 8, 2016, Trump won the presidency with 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232 votes. Trump received a smaller share of the popular vote than Clinton, and he is the fifth person to become president without winning the popular vote. The final popular vote difference between Clinton and Trump is that Clinton finished ahead by 2.86 million or 2.1 percentage points, 48.04% to 45.95%, with neither candidate reaching a majority. The last time the Electoral College winner lost the nationwide popular vote by over two percentage points was the election of 1876.
He will be inaugurated as the 45th President of United States.
Meanwhile, the political impasse in the Gambia will reach a crescendo this afternoon. ECOWAS, the regional force charged into Gambia after the inauguration of Adama Barrow as the country’s new president and the U.N. Security Council voted to approve the regional military intervention.
Barrow, who won Gambia’s presidential election in December, was sworn into office at the Gambian embassy in neighboring Senegal, where he was for his safety.
