A Citizen’s Special Message To President Barack Hussein Obama

President Barack Hussein Obama

US President Barack Obama's visit to Ghana last month received mixed reaction from home and afar. Prior to undertaking his trip, human rights abuses committed by the vengeful and newly immature Ghana government against its own people inside Ghana itself sparked controversies that nearly marred the Obama visit there. These abuses are still continuing now.

Regardless, Obama got to Ghana all right; but not without controversy either. Obama visit to Ghana ought to have been special for a variety of reasons. Although three of his predecessors had been there before, his half blackness and for that matter an African sperm, rewards him instant customary acceptance by black folks.

Nevertheless, Obama's mindset and impression about black African folks inherent in his brilliant half-whiteness raps are distasteful. Foremost, President Obama needs to know that the Republic of Ghana he recently visited, achieved independence from one of most notorious, ruthless, and hypocritical colonialists, the British, in 1957 without a bullet and without a drop of blood; self governance had already taken place in 1951. That is, some ten years prior to the formation of his embryonic development in faraway Hawaii. Ghana had had the Queen's and Eisenhower's political tutorials long before obtaining her independence; hence Ghanaians did not need his belated tutorials he delivered during his 21.45-hour-stopover there.

Obama talks too much with little action. It is this kind of oratory impressionist exposition recently that nearly ignited racial discontent inside the USA itself. The neocolonialist strategy that President Nkrumah had leveled against the west long before Obama was born has now manifested using our own kind. What the white man cannot say directly to black people because of a backlash from slavery and crimes against humanity, they will use a half black to say it, anyway!

In his interview granted to CNN from the Cape Coast slave dungeons, President Obama stated that when African-Americans go to Africa (and Ghana, for that matter), they realize that they do not belong there; and feel better in the United States. Should that send a serious message to Ghana and Africa in general regarding our faulty perception as historically similar and united people in destiny with any black anywhere including black Americans? In Apartheid South Africa, Coloureds and Indians rated themselves higher than the indigenous black kefirs; and executed the demands of their masters (Boers) well for them. Barack Obama's “as-a-matter-of-fact-straight-talk” is not far from “His or Her Majesty's Service”.

There are a number of things that any American president, other than Obama, would have considered when going to Ghana or any best-performing African democracy. One, US has very good relations with Africa, and particularly, with Ghana, in the area of education. In Ghana, for instance, the USA has Peace Corps helping Ghana in the field of education dating as far back as 1962; some few months after he was born.

Ghanaians expected their own kind to use the occasion to delve into US classical educational development; as to how the advanced US-Ghana educational relationship can be carried to the next level, and not the lengthy teachers talk that we were forced to endure. My professor at undergraduate study always advised me to refrain from my teaching skills that are too much of the teachers' talk, which in most cases tend to blur students learning ability into rote learning. I doubt it very much if the “Obama-pupils” seriously learnt anything in his Accra parliamentary lecture hall!

Two, the US-Africa relation has further advanced in recent times. The US senatorial African growth opportunity act (AGOA) is intended to boost African trade and employment. A lot more is desired in such areas to carry Africa to the next level. Ghanaians and the whole of Africa waited for something in that line of economic resuscitation that was vividly absent from the Americans under Obama agenda.

Strategies that can improve Ghanaian trade with the USA and thereby increasing youth employment to sustain democracy were our expectations. Sustainable African democracy in a technologically sophisticated world is possible only when its young generation is kept busy and made economic partners in contributing to its success story. And definitely NOT all the adorable words that we have heard numerous times in our 52-year-old democracy.

Three, Mr. Obama's immediate predecessor, President George W. Bush, had his records set prior to visiting Ghana in 2008. His emergency plan for AIDS/HIV relief (PEPFAR) and Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) were ready on hand and knew what to talk about. If all that Obama had to tell Africa in Accra was “Africans to take their own destiny”, then that could have been said in Washington, DC without taking the trouble going to Ghana in the first place. We would have heard him louder and clearer.

Four, another area that the USA has been very instrumental in African development is security. The US-African command (AFRICOM) has provided the needed protection of the African continent from the close by predatory terrorist dens. We needed his plan as to what new strategies are considered for African advancement.

In her seven-page report titled: “Obama's Africa Challenge”, appearing in May 2009 issue of Current History - America's Journal of Contemporary World Affairs, pp. 195-201 - prior to Obama's 3-nation-tour that took him to Ghana, Jennifer Cooke carefully analyzed real issues for the president, who I doubt had time to read to update himself. Jennifer points out clearly that attending to Africa's agricultural sector would bring hope to the continent. An effective US policy could reduce food insecurity and malnutrition while generating employment for the continent's growing youth population, she stated.

The youth population in Africa is growing extraordinarily fast. In Ghana, for instance, more than 60% of the population is youth, which is too scary in an economy that has nearly 50% rate of unemployment. I am afraid our democracy success story may not last longer; more especially when social vices such as cocaine trade, armed robberies, get-rich-quick, etc. set in our poverty-ridden milieu.

Jennifer Cooke advises that this serious African generic problem would require a comprehensive approach that tackles, among other things, trade capacity and trade barriers, market access for smallholder farmers, technology transfers, inputs to improve productivity, research and development, and climate change adaptation. She acknowledges that USA has potential strengths and assets in these areas, and African agriculture is a promising development arena in which the Obama administration could have a signature impact. But my question is: did he talk about that?

It is clear that the Obama administration inherited major institutional legacies from President George W. Bush years - PEPFAR, MCC, and AFRICOM - (the very same kind of institutions he proposed to his African audience in Accra) and succeeds an administration that trebled the amount of foreign assistance directed toward Africa. The US President Bush has been, by far, the best African friend, who refused to vandalize Africa with the USA military might. He tackled the African problem by empowering Africans themselves to do their own work with the above-mentioned institutions.

Barack Obama will have to exceed our full-white man friend's performance in order to maintain his place of acceptance in African minds. Nevertheless, Jennifer Cooke concludes that managing, refining, and sustaining Bush's institutions and investments in Africa will require Obama's strong White House backing, particularly at a time when [inward-looking] American Congressional Appropriators will be looking for easy spending cuts.

This notwithstanding, Obama's own mindset that can ready him to formulate African-oriented projects is faulty. Perhaps, we will have to give him time to prove himself. The Obama-led US-Africa relation has not started off convincingly; at least not yet. I am not impressed!

Pieces of advice can be sought from his two immediate past predecessors. President Clinton appointed Secretary of State Madeline Albright of Eastern European descent to solve Eastern European problems of the 1980s. President Bush also repeated that strategy in African advancement by withdrawing all US diplomats in Africa and carefully replacing them with Afro-centric ambassadors, who understood the African problems and took responsibility to be part of the solutions. In Ghana, for instance, Mary Yates was recalled and Pamela Bridgewater was brought in and results were produced. Does Obama have anything similar?

This kind of Obama cold-shoulder attitude to Africa will force Africans to be selective on future foreign leaders, who must visit Ghana. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinijad of Iran had pleaded to visit Ghana several times without success; and Murmur Gaddafi of Libya was recently stopped from his visit to Ghana within 24-hours by the Ghana government. Obama must be extremely careful with his approach to African issues; and should not hide behind his “Africanization” or “Brotherliness” that he himself does not recognize anyway. He should not be surprised to get a stop from visiting the motherland the next time he tries one again.

Konongo Fordjour, Boston-USA
E-Mail: [email protected]