U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has acknowledged the contributions of the African-Americans to his election, saying they gave him the highest votes they had ever given a Republican nominee in recent times.

Trump, at a “Thank you tour” of Ohio, said the African-Americans had nothing to lose in his presidency, a correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

“Remember when I was making speeches, I said what a hell do you (African-Americans) have to lose?

“The African-American community was so great to me in this election; they were so great to me; amazing!

“I couldn’t believe it that I saw them in their large numbers and every week, ‘boom, boom, boom’.

“And I got up added up to a number that’s higher than all of the Republican candidates for years and it was great!,” he said.

While addressing the cheering crowd, the president-elect again pledged to unite Americans, noting the divisive presidential campaigns between him and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“We are not going to be divided for long, I have always brought people together; I know you find that hard to believe.

“But we are going to bring our country together, we will come together and we will get the job done properly,” he pledged.

Trump, who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, said: “we won a landslide, we won big”, condemning prejudice and hatred that had arisen from his election.

“We condemn bigotry and prejudice in all of its forms; we denounce all of the hatred and we forcefully reject the language of exclusion and separation.

“We are going to come together; we have no choice, we have to and it is better,” the president-elect said.

Trump, who used the tour to roll out his plans in office, promised to fulfil his campaign promises.

He re-emphasised that he would repeal and replace the “Obamacare”.

The president-elect also pledged to reduce taxes for companies and the working class saying, “we’re going to massively lower taxes and make America the best place to do business”.

Trump promised to usher in a new industrial revolution saying, “we’re going to bring jobs back to Americans” and “we’re going to have a simple rule: buy America and hire America”.

“On defence, we will begin a major national effort to rebuild our badly battered military.

“We have no choice; we want a strong military and we don’t have to use them, although we will destroy ISIS,” he said”

The president-elect also pledged to reform America’s foreign policy, saying “we will stop overthrowing regimes and stop changing governments; our goal is to promote peace in the world.

Trump also said that “we will finally end illegal migration; we will construct great walls at our borders” to keep out criminal cartels and drug traffickers from entering the country.

“We will ask Congress to reform our visa and immigration programmes to protect jobs and wages for American workers”.

He said “we don’t want another Nice, we don’t want another Orlando and we don’t like what is happening in Germany. We don’t want refugees, we already have enough problems”.

The president-elect, however, said the change was not going to be easy but urged Americans to “be the agent of good and positive change for our country”.

NAN reports that Trump had earlier at Indiana, where he commenced the tour, said the tour was a “thank you” one to the American people, especially, the battleground states at the election.

(NAN)