Joe Biden gestures after speaking during election night at the
Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, early on November 4, 2020.
ANGELA WEISS / AFP
The US Congress on Thursday certified Joe Biden’s win in
November’s presidential election, hours after President Trump’s
supporters laid siege on the Capitol on
Wednesday.
Republican Vice President Mike Pence certified the Electoral
College count of 306 electors in favor of the Democrat against 232
in favor of outgoing Republican President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives
successfully beat back Republican efforts to deny Biden the
electoral votes needed to win, prompting loud cheers when the
certification was announced.
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Denounce Capitol Violence
The affirmation of Biden’s 306-232 victory over Trump in
November essentially closes the door on the unparalleled and deeply
controversial effort by Trump and his loyalists to overturn the
results of the 2020 election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi preside over a Joint session of Congress
to certify the 2020 Electoral College results after supporters of
President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol earlier in the day on
Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on January 6, 2020. Erin Schaff /
POOL / AFP
The president immediately released a statement pledging an
“orderly transition” but suggesting he would remain in frontline
politics, amid speculation that he may run again in 2024.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the
election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an
orderly transition on January 20th,” he said.
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that
only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the
greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the
beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
The certification came hours after a mob breached the US Capitol
and sent lawmakers scrambling for safety. They were able to return
hours later, shaken but determined to complete the task.
Egged on in an extraordinary rally across town by an aggrieved
Trump, a flag-waving mob had broken down barricades outside the
Capitol and swarmed inside, rampaging through offices and onto the
usually solemn legislative floors.
Security forces fired tear gas in a four-hour operation to clear
the Capitol. Police said that one woman, reportedly a female Trump
partisan from southern California, was shot and killed and that
three other people died in the area in circumstances that were
unclear.
One Trump backer in jeans and a baseball cap was pictured
propping a leg up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, as throngs
climbed onto risers set up for Biden’s inauguration.
U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Tasos Katopodis/Getty
Images/AFP
Another held a banner that read: “We the people will bring DC to
its knees/We have the power.”
Biden called the violence an “insurrection” and demanded that
Trump immediately go on national television to tell the rioters to
stand down.
“Our democracy’s under unprecedented assault,” Biden said in his
home state of Delaware.
“This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on
sedition. And it must end now.”
Trump soon afterward released a video in which he called on the
mob to leave but repeated his unfounded claims of election
fraud.
“We have to have peace. So go home. We love you — you’re very
special,” he said.
In a significant new crackdown, social media companies pulled
down the video on charges it aggravated violence and Twitter
temporarily suspended his account, warning the tweet-loving tycoon
of a permanent ban if he does not conform to rules on civic
integrity.
– Democracy ‘death spiral’ –
The chaos at the Capitol came a day after Biden enjoyed a new
triumph, with his Democrats projected to win two Senate seats in
runoffs in Georgia — handing the party full control of Congress and
dramatically increasing Biden’s ability to pass legislation,
starting with new Covid-19 relief.
Donald Trump protest outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in
Washington, DC. ALEX EDELMAN / AFP
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Historians said it was the first time that the Capitol had been
taken over since 1814 when the British burned it during the War of
1812.
For more than two centuries, the joint session of Congress has
been a quiet, ceremonial event that formally certifies the election
winner.
But Trump urged members of his Republican Party to dispute the
outcome.
Congress rejected challenges to Biden’s win in Arizona and
Pennsylvania. Efforts were made to challenge the counts in Georgia,
Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, but after the mob violence Senate
Republicans dropped objections to Biden’s wins there, eliminating
any need for debate.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, closely aligned with
Trump throughout his presidency, had tried to prevent the
challenges. He noted that the election results were not even close,
and that dozens of courts had thrown out lawsuits alleging
irregularities.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the
losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” McConnell
said.
But Senator Josh Hawley, who has taken the lead on the effort
and is seen as a future Republican presidential aspirant, insisted
on going ahead even after the mob attack.
“Violence is not how you achieve change,” the 41-year-old
senator said, insisting that he wanted to offer a “lawful process”
to Trump supporters to assess their unfounded claims of fraud.
– ‘Everlasting shame’ –
Senator Mitt Romney, one of Trump’s most vocal critics inside the
Republican Party, pointedly said that the best way to respect
voters “is to tell them the truth.”
“Those who continue to support this dangerous gambit,” Romney
said, “will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented
attack against our democracy.”
With Democrats already in control of the House of
Representatives, there was never any chance that Congress would
overturn Biden’s victory.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who is set to become majority
leader after Tuesday’s election victories, described the violence
as an attempted coup and said it would be remembered in US history
much like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
“This mob was in good part President Trump’s doing, incited by
his words, his lies,” Schumer said, adding that Trump would bear
“everlasting shame.”
Former president Barack Obama called the violence “a moment of
great dishonor and shame for our nation.”
“But we’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total
surprise,” Obama said, adding that it was “incited” by Trump, “who
has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful
election.”
Former president George W. Bush also did not mince words,
saying: “This is how election results are disputed in a banana
republic — not our democratic republic.”
– Calls to remove Trump –
Trump has only two weeks left in office but, with little on his
public schedule for weeks and multiple reports he is losing his
grip on reality, several news reports said his cabinet was
whispering about removing him as unfit for office under the 25th
Amendment to the Constitution.
“President Trump’s willingness to incite violence and social
unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet this
standard,” all Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote in
a letter to Vice President Mike Pence.
In an angry, rambling speech outside the White House before the
violence, Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and
demanded that Pence, who ceremonially led the session, intervene to
reverse their loss.
The vice president refused, and it was ultimately Pence standing
before the joint session of Congress who announced his and Trump’s
loss to Biden and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris.
Thousands of Trump supporters headed to Washington at his urging
in recent days, with downtown businesses boarding up in fear of
violence and Mayor Muriel Bowser ordering a curfew Wednesday
night.
AFP
Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah,
has called for a sense of urgency in trying to salvage the
country.
![image](/2020/10/lawreport.jpg")
He said the frustration in the country is rising by the day,
adding that this could be seen in the rise in domestic violence and
inter-communal conflicts.
![image](/2020/10/NWLRland.jpg")
In his sermon at the wake mass for Archbishop Peter Yariyock
Jatau at St. Joseph’s Catholic Cathedral, Kaduna on Tuesday, Kukah
rebuked corrupt politicians, accusing them of adopting
contractocracy as a governance mechanism.
He said: “Today, our dear nation is like the proverbial farmer
searching for his black goat. He has to do it with a sense of
urgency because darkness is setting in as the sun quickly
recedes.
“Our nation has become one huge waste land, huge debris of the
deceit, lies, treachery, double dealing and duplicity. Nigerian
politicians have turned our politics into a huge trojan horse, a
hoax, a hall of guile and dissimulation.
“The levels of frustration are rising by the day and we can see
all this in the rise in domestic violence and inter-communal
conflicts. A combination of all these has turned us unto a nation
at war with itself,” he said.
Kukah, in the sermon, also spoke about shortcomings in governance
and how the failings have imparted negatively on the citizens.
In the sermon titled, “A Nation in Search of Its Soul”, Kukah
mocked corrupted government officials who pretend to be religious
while wallowing in sinful lifestyle.
“Nigerians complain that the country is full of churches and
mosques and they cannot find the values of these religions in
everyday life. We sin at home by stealing the nation’s resources
but we seek repentance and forgiveness in Saudi Arabia and
Jerusalem in the guise of lesser or higher pilgrimages,” he
stated.
Kukah said remembering Jatau is an opportunity to recall the
contributions of Christian missionaries and Christian education to
laying the foundation for the production of the quality and calibre
of men and women of yesterday whose legendary moral fiber still
resonates in Nigeria today.