Obama Could Never Be President In Africa

By Snowsel Ano-Ebie in Bamenda

 

Africans across the board have celebrated the election of Barack H. Obama as the 44th president of the of the United States of Africa with an over dose of frenzy and euphoria. This is not just another African way of mourning louder than the bereaved but the excitement of the moment has blinded "everybody" to a sad African reality. If Barack Hussein Obama were an African, he will never be president!

 

 

Inspite of his prestigious education at Harvard Law School, the Bachelors degree in Political Science, the merticulous planning, the popularity, the great oratory, and the unparalled articulation of burning issues, Barack Obama is not qualified to be president in Africa. And the one thing that disqualifies Obama and other great politicians like him is the one thing African cultures and by extension African countries are not ready to compromise with - Citizenship and Place of Origin.

 

African citizenship is so jealously guarded that children born to foreign parents cannot expect to share from it. Any child born in the USA is automatically considered as an American citizen, while any child born in an African country is considered a foreigner if his/her parents are from another country. Even when your father is born in a country, the very fact that his own father came from another country makes you a foreigner. If your father's mother is a national, and your own mother is also a national, you are still a foreigner and so cannot run for political office.

 

In some African countries like Cameroon, area of origin is so politically important that citizens are identified by their parent's Province(Region) of Origin and Division of Origin. If your grand parents leave from one part of the country and settle in another, you are still considered a settler or "come-no-go" . You are disqualified for political office and appointments because your presence on a political party's list makes it sociologically imbalanced. Can you imagine how Barack Obama will fair politically if he were born in Cameroon to a Cameroonian mother and a foreign father?

 

The concept of place of origin of parents has ignited and prolonged the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire. In the face of "Ivoirité", what chances will children like Barack Obama have when people like Alassane Dramane Ouattara are being rejected because it is speculated one of their maternal grand parents could have come from Burkina Faso or Mali?

 

In which African country can the son of a foreign father, conspicously bearing his father's complete names, expect to be elected head of state? In Ghana, Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings imposed himself through a  military coup in June 1979, even if he later organised "democratic elections" and won like other African presidents of his generation. It is however a stubborn fact that a Jerry John Rawlings or a Barack H. Obama cannot stand any chance in contemporary Ghanaian politics.

 

A country like Kenya where Barack Obama's father came from, and eventually returned to, is not different. Successful politicians bank on a loyal ethnic following to get elected. If your victory is "stolen" the same ethnic group can fight and shed blood for it.Of course this group expects to harvest huge fringe benefits when their "brother" comes to power or clings to power. Who will want to place the fortunes of his tribe in the hands of the son of a foreigner like Barack Obama? Will he send down the ripe plums to the right quarters?

 

Many people do not know why women don't inherit land in African cultures even in cases where their fathers have no male children. The anthropological explanation is that the woman could get married and her husband will come and stay on the land with her. Later generations will perceive the compound as that of her husband the foreigner, and the memory of the original indegenous family will be wiped out. "God forbid"!

 

All over the world therefore, as Africans celebrate the success of Barack Obama, they should not forget that if Obama were an African this success will never come to pass. The miracle that propelled Barack Obama to the White House is an African impossibility. And the American dream that is now heralded, worshipped and adored across the world, taken within the African context is clearly a nightmare!

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