Former foreign affairs minister Bolaji Akinyemi has warned President Bola Tinubu to avoid getting under the skin of the new U.S. President Donald Trump and to avoid being bullied by the latter.

He advised President Bola Tinubu to avoid confrontation with Mr Trump “even if the new U.S. president does things that infringe on the interests of Nigeria.”

“If I were President Tinubu, I would try to steer clear of antagonising him because there is nothing a bully likes better than taking on people who are not strong enough to resist him.

“You know there is that African proverb that if you are not strong enough to take on a bully and you take him on, you are just even going to suffer more for it,” Mr Akinyemi stated.

According to Mr Akinyemi, Nigeria is not a focus of Mr Trump’s administration. He urged Africa not to expect anything spectacular from Mr Trump’s presidency.

Mr Akinyemi condemned Mr Trump’s inaugural address, describing it as “shocking.”

“The worst inaugural address I will hear in my life is the one I heard today. There was nothing there for the rest of the world. It was more of an address threatening different parts of the world,” Mr Akinyemi said in an interview aired on Channels TV on Monday.

Mr Trump, 78, was sworn in as the 47th U.S president on Monday, succeeding Joe Biden, four years after an electoral defeat that stymied his second-term ambition.

Mr Akinyemi said that instead of promoting the collective prosperity that the world eagerly requires for survival, Mr Trump’s speech was a “rabble-rouser to a mob in the U.S.”

The former Nigerian minister added, “This is not an address calling on the world to be a partner to the United States.

“I have never in my life heard of an inaugural address that strips naked all the achievements of his successors and predecessors while they’re sitting. It’s such a crude address.”