The greatest dis-service Obama did to Africa while in office was that he ignored Africa, especially Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world (one in every five black men in the world is a Nigerian). Obama refused bluntly to visit Nigeria in his eight years.
Obama missed an opportunity to use his star power as the first African to occupy the most powerful seat in the world to influence and inspire the nation that sends the highest number of best brains across to the ocean, not like the time of slave trades. As of 2011, according to Obama, there were over 24,000 medical practitioners of Nigerian descent working in the US - that is one of the highest of any group in American - this is aside dentists, nurses, engineers, professors, athletes, musicians, actors, journalists, scientists,
Obama's argument, I heard, was that he was not happy with the backward position of Nigeria and the corruption of its leaders. So, because of this, he ignored visiting Nigeria. What Obama did not realize was that his visit would have inspired Nigerians more than the perception of endorsing any corrupt politician or leader at the seat of power in Nigeria then. His visit would have being for Nigerians and not Nigerian leaders. That alludes to the fact that his inquisition about his roots that led him to find his father's family in Kenya was probably to satisfy a personal sense of loss and emptiness in America than his love for the continent that bore his father, and father's father before him.
Successive emocratic presidents in the US since Clinton have repeated the same mistake over the decades. Democrats claim to be pro-African Americans but have neglected Africa - perhaps, their posture is more for political gains than for the true sense of emancipation. Bill Clinton did the same thing while in office - he neglected Africa when the continent needed him and his country most, and he watched while Utus butchered over 800,000 of their Tutsi neighbors. The United States, under Clinton's leadership in 1994 was so angry about how one American soldier was killed in Somalia that he turned a deaf ear to the cry of the UN envoy in Rwanda to come to their aid to stop the killing.
The questions, we should be asking ourselves as Africans is that, how long are we going to rely on outsiders to help us stop the bleeding and carnage, the ill-treatment of one another, the sit-tight leaders who refused to leave office after decades of leading their countries to ground, the elevation of incompetent leaders when there are capable hands. Until Africa Arise for itself, it will continue to take the back seat and the rest of the world will continue to build charity organization out of its woes.
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