By Eniola Akinkuotu, in Abuja
With Trump in the White House, Ballard Partners is expected to be one of the most influential lobbying firms in the world. Its Africa office, headed by the former Information Minister and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed (CON), will ensure the continent is not left out. When American lobbying firm Ballard Partners announced in June 2023 that it was setting up shop in Africa with former Nigerian information minister Lai Mohammed as its managing partner, not many in Nigeria’s political space understood the full implication. But with US President-elect Donald Trump returning as the world’s most powerful politician, the picture is becoming clearer among those within Africa’s corridors of power.
“My phones have been ringing non-stop,” Mohammed tells The Africa Report, adding: “We (Ballard Partners) are number one in Africa and we have what it takes to make things happen”. The Ballard effect
With Trump in the White House, Ballard Partners is expected to be one of the most influential lobbying firms in the world, with US online media Politico reporting that Brian Ballard, the founder of the organisation, is the closest lobbyist to Trump. This seems to be reflected in Trump’s latest picks for his cabinet.
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Susan Wiles, the incoming chief of staff to Trump, is an alumnus of Ballard Partners where she worked for eight years, helping to expand the company’s reach in and outside the US.
Trump’s incoming attorney general, Pam Bondi, is also a partner with the firm that is headquartered in Florida, a state which Trump has transformed into a new political powerhouse.
with many appointments including proposed National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ballard is not left outside the sphere of influence, having led fundraisers for Trump in three consecutive elections.
Nigeria has been a battleground for American lobbying firms in recent years, especially during election season.
Nigeria’s former president Goodluck Jonathan of the Nigeria’s People Democratic Party (PDP) was running for a second term in 2015. He signed a contract with lobbying firm Levick, based in Washington DC, for a deal reportedly worth $1.2m as the administration sought to polish its image amid the Boko Haram insurgency that had led to the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign, according to Quartz.
The main opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC), and its presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari employed the services of Chicago-based AKPD lobbying firm owned by David Axelrod, a chief strategist for then-president Barack Obama.
Jonathan accused Obama of supporting Buhari, who eventually won the 2015 presidential election.
In 2019, Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the main opposition PDP, hired Ballard Partners for a fee of $90,000 per month, according to company filings. Atiku, a former vice president, had been barred from the US for over a decade due to two corruption cases hanging over his head. First, his name had come up in a $500,000 bribe investigation involving former US congressman William Jefferson. Second, one of Atiku’s wives was accused of transferring $40m into the US through shell companies on his behalf.
The inability of the former vice president to visit the US became a major talking point in the 2019 campaign. However, barely four weeks before the Nigerian election, the US granted Atiku temporary entry into the US thanks to the efforts of his lobbyists.
Reuters quoted several US government officials as saying the travel ban was waived temporarily by the State Department after his lobbyists mounted a campaign among congressional lawmakers arguing that the administration should not snub a leading contender in Nigeria’s presidential election.
Sources close to Atiku tell The Africa Report that Ballard Partners was specifically hired because of its ties to the Trump administration. This is likely to become a recurring theme in Nigeria.
The Lai Mohammed connection
Mohammed, who now heads Ballard in Nigeria, is no stranger in the corridors of power. Mohammed served as chief of staff to Bola Tinubu when the latter was governor of Lagos in the early 2000s. Tinubu also made Mohammed the spokesperson for the opposition, a position he held for more than seven years and brought him nationwide fame and notoriety.
After the opposition took over in 2015, Mohammed was named information minister and he was the face of the Buhari administration for eight years until 2023.
Although he is no longer in Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet, the incoming Trump administration and his connections to Ballard have strategically placed Mohammed back into political reckoning.
Culled from the Africareport.com
