7th November, 2017
On Wednesday, 8 November, 2017 at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, a book titled ‘How to Win Elections in Africa: Parallels with Donald Trump’ will be launched.
The book is the brain work of Chude Jideonwo and Adebola Williams, co-founders of StateCraft Inc., the nation-building company under RED.
The book draws from the decades of experience of its authors working with and understanding electorates across African countries, as well as from global trends and attitudes the world over, to highlight the roles that factors such as legacy, political parties and other establishments play in determining the outcomes of elections.
The book represents a comprehensive guide that will help aspirants, political actors, civil societies, donors, social activists and most importantly, citizens understand the tectonic shifts taking place in the electoral ecosystem across the world.
Speaking about StateCraft Inc.’s successful runs with Presidential campaigns in Ghana and Nigeria, Chude Jideonwo told the Yale Africa Initiative that he “thought this had to be recorded somehow – the insights we had learnt from being at the forefront.”
He credits the election of Donald Trump as a motivating factor saying “many people saw an isolated global incident, but we saw definite threads between the revolutions in Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia et al, and then with Brexit and the American elections.”
True to the theme of the book, the launch will be followed by a panel discussion dedicated to charting a reasonable course for the future of Africa’s democracies. Despite the recent electoral successes of citizens in Nigeria, Ghana, the Gambia and more recently, Liberia, two key nations in the Sub-Saharan region – Kenya and Rwanda – have unfortunately experienced setbacks in their presidential elections.
This discourse will be moderated by Yinka Adegoke, the Africa editor for Quartz amongst Eddie Mandhry, the Director for Africa at Yale, William Casey King, the Director of Capstone programmes at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Lorna Solis, the Chief Executive of the Blue Rose Compass at Yale and Jeremy Seekings, the Director of the Institute of Democracy, Citizenship and Public policy in Africa at the University of Capetown.
“On Wednesday, exactly a year after Donald J. Trump swooped into the American Presidency in a hard-fought election, we will launch our new book at Yale. Writing this book was a very bold step for us considering how electioneering and much of Africa’s political process is often shrouded in secrecy, but we had to. And now, we cannot wait to share it with the world,” said Adebola Williams.
“At the event which will take place at the Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Bishop Matthew Kukah will deliver a keynote address,” he said.