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Who Do Politicians Serve?

Discussing Barack Obama, Rishi Sunak, and others with a Nigerian friend

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readOct 5, 2023
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Recently I was having a conversation with a Nigerian friend. We talked about the British influence on his country and I compared it to their influence on India.

British influence continues to manipulate Nigerian politics, according to my friend. I think their machinations, along with those of other countries, such as the United States and China, still affect nations unfortunate enough to have resources that the more powerful desire.

In the case of America, we don’t have to go too far back to remember the Iraq war. Were we really outraged by the despotism of Saddam Hussein, or did we just want access to Iraqi oil fields?

Similarly with Great Britain — my friend pointed out that often British backed regimes in Africa are corrupt. In Nigeria, he claims, the only reason the current politicians are in power is due to British-backed corruption.

Photo by Jeremy Alford on Unsplash

“Yet, it’s not the common people in the United Kingdom who are the problem,” I pointed out. “Most do not want to see their tax dollars used like this, just like most Americans do…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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