By Dionne Searcey –nytimes.com
Riva Levinson, a political consultant once employed by Paul Manafort, has worked for both opposition parties and governments in Africa
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
ABUJA, Nigeria — When a Nigerian presidential candidate landed in the United States in January after years of being subject to a visa ban because of corruption allegations, he had a team of Western consultants and lobbyists to thank for the warm American welcome.
One of those who helped was Riva Levinson, who was mentored in the art of political consulting by Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump’s presidential campaign, sentenced this month to more than seven years in prison for a host of crimes.
Ms. Levinson, who now has her own firm, KRL International, is among the many American political consultants with ties to President Trump who have become regular fixtures in African political campaigns, seizing on the region’s turn toward democracy.
For decades, countries in sub-Saharan Africa changed governments through coups that left military juntas in charge. But increasingly, in places like Nigeria, elections are supposed to determine the will of the people, though sometimes they are not fully free and fair.
Yet as elections become more common and competitive — complete with polling and social media campaigns — African candidates are hiring Western firms to sway voters and influence the media coverage of their candidacies.
Consultants with perceived ties to Mr. Trump are especially valued by their political clients, even in countries that he disparaged with a vulgar phrase, and which are largely off his administration’s foreign policy radar.
From the sidelines at a recent election event in Nigeria, Ms. Levinson reminisced about the old days when Mr. Manafort would dispatch her across the globe to enlist unsavory leaders and help them clean up their international reputations, for a hefty fee.
“Paul was a master strategist. He could hover above at 30,000 feet and see how all of the moving parts fit together and then move each one with precision,” she recalled. “I learned that from him, and he gave me a front-row seat to watch history. I’m grateful to him for this.”
Ms. Levinson was in Nigeria to help the opposition party in the country’s recent election. The party’s presidential candidate was Atiku Abubakar, and her client was a powerful Nigerian senator who was managing Mr. Abubakar’s campaign.
Mr. Abubakar lost. But during the campaign, Ms. Levinson and a team of other American lobbyists and consultants with ties to Mr. Trump helped their client secure meetings with legislators and with powerful American lobbying groups. He stayed at the Trump International Hotel, a five-star hotel near the White House.
Those small victories, in which Mr. Abubakar won access to Washington power centers, were impressive for a candidate who was named as a prime example of overseas corruption by a United States Senate subcommittee in 2010. Its report said that he had funneled tens of millions of dollars worth of Nigerian oil revenues into foreign shell accounts. Mr. Abubakar has never been prosecuted, but for years he was prevented from traveling to the United States.
“These firms help candidates launder their image in Washington, London and New York, shifting outside attention away from the bare-knuckle reality of their election campaigns,” said Matthew T. Page, a former State Department official who is now an associate fellow in the Africa program of Chatham House, a British research group.
