Obama comes home to mama Ashanti

On Friday, July 11, Ghana will be the first sub-Saharan African nation to play host to the US President, Barack Obama and his wife. Mr. Obama will be making the trip after a visit to Russia and a meeting with the G8 in Italy. The US president would not be the first American president to visit Africa when he land in Ghana, Sunday, for a one-day visit. Matter of fact, his two immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton and George Bush almost made the continent their own - both men tagging thousands of air miles across the continent. Yet, the first official visit of Mr. Obama to his ancestral continent as the president of the United States is generating a lot of controversy because of his choice of Ghana. Though Mr. Obama was in Egypt last month, but neither himself nor African leaders saw that as a visit to Africa, for the trip was designed to appeal to an Arab audience. Mr. Obama neither picked Kenya, his father’s country; South Africa, the continent’s economic power house; nor Nigeria, its political giant as recipient of the visit. He chose Ghana, a small country with a large history behind it, as his hosts. Nairobi’s Daily Nation said “in skipping Kenya, the first African American president is signalling that he puts political values over ancestral allegiances.” The paper quoted Kenyan foreign minister, Moses Wetang’ula as denying that Mr. Obama had snubbed the country. “Mr. Johnnie Carson, President Obama’s top Africa official, recently made a stop in Nairobi where he delivered a stern warning to President Moi Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to get the reform process on track or face unspecified sanctions,” the minister said. The New York Times quoted a senior official as saying that, ideally Mr. Obama would have preferred a longer trip to Africa. But time constraints meant that such a trip would have to wait until later in his tenure. “So his advisers agreed to tack the quick Ghana stop onto the end of his Russia-G-8 trip to at least get a marker down before too much time passed,” said the paper. The paper also quoted the official as saying Ghana offered an opportunity to promote important values, even on a one-night visit: “We have limited time and we tried to figure out where we could get the most out of limited time,” the official said. According to a White House release ahead of the trip to Ghana “one of the things the President wants to highlight is that Africa’s capacity to address all of those issues pivots on sound governance. And in order to underscore the importance of that, he’s stopping in an African example of extremely strong governance that deserves support and attention. Considering that there have been some worrying trends in Africa recently and a number of coups: Mauritania, Madagascar; Guinea; a problematic election in Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe and also the third-term bid that has led to a rule of emergency decree in Niger.” Michelle Gavin, special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs said “the President wanted to stop in Ghana particularly because he’s interested in emphasizing the importance of governance for making developmental progress, the importance of governance for stability. And Ghana is a truly admirable example of a place where governance is getting stronger, a thriving democracy.” Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka said Obama’s choice of Ghana is a wise decision. “If Obama decides to grace Nigeria with his presence, I will stone him,” Mr Soyinka said. “The message he is sending by going to Ghana is so obvious, is so brilliant that he must not render it flawed by coming to Nigeria any time soon.” Of course, the Nigerian government said it took no offence at the American president’s choice of which nation to visit because Ghana is not only a friendly country, but also a member of the ECOWAS. “Which country to visit and when, is entirely the prerogative of a country and Nigeria has no problem whatsoever with whom Obama visits and when, we cannot predetermine it,” an aide of the president said. Jibrin Chinade, the special foreign policy adviser to Nigerian president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, however, said: “Soyinka’s statement, which he is entitled to, is most unfortunate and undiplomatic, particularly since he chose the wrong venue to make it and ended up embarrassing the Italian Ambassador who had invited him to an art exhibition.”