If Obama was a Nigerian

“If Obama had been a Nigerian, his race, colour and age would have been an intractable problem.” Reuben Abati writes via Nigerian Guardian recently about the Obama phenomenon.

This is a statement of fact that is valid not only in Nigeria, but pretty much across Africa. The following excerpts from Reuben’s articles even provide more contrast:

We saw the candidates going from state to state, city to city seeking the people’s support, begging for their votes. This or that candidate may have been endorsed by established figures in the American society, but there was no Godfather telling the Americans who to choose. In Nigeria, the party elders would have resolved the matter long ago by anointing a candidate.

If he had been a Nigerian politician seeking their support, those same Nigerians would have queued up in front of his house to ask for bribe, in exchange for their votes. Those super-delegates would have demanded cartons and lorry loads of money, knowing that they wield the power to tilt the balance. Indeed, here, even if Obama had won the vote and all the delegates, the leadership of the Democratic Party could have chosen to cancel the primaries and start afresh, or even introduce new rules that would exclude Obama or whoever they do not like. We have seen how the candidates engaged the electorate, here in Nigeria we have had cases of candidates emerging as winners of elections in which they never registered as aspirants.

In total Obama has spent just about three years as a Senator, and four years as Senator in the state of Illinois. He is just 46. If he had been a Nigerian, he would have been told to wait and allow older people to run. Obama has the gift of the gab. Here, he would have been told: “na grammar we go chop”. His insistence on change would have been pooh-poohed. His contemporaries out of sheer envy would have said: “is he the only one, who does he think he is?” And they would have struggled to pull him down even without being commissioned to do so by the opposition, or the Clintonites. In the last Presidential elections in Nigeria, Pat Utomi had wanted to be President. He shares a lot in common with Barack Obama. Well-educated, well-spoken, has a good grasp of issues and has demonstrated a passion for the common good over the years. He ran a vigorous campaign criss-crossing Nigeria on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), but what was the main response to Utomi: “oh yes, he is a good candidate, but Nigeria is not ready for a good candidate yet.”

While losing sleep over the US Presidential primaries, Nigerians should ask themselves these questions: when will Nigeria be ready for a good candidate? When are we going to start running campaigns that are issues and merit driven. The energy, the enthusiasm that is being devoted to Obamamania by the Nigerian Middle class should now be translated into sustained advocacy for the growth of democracy in Nigeria. There are Nigerians who claim that they contributed money to the Obama campaign fund. The same persons will be reluctant to put their money where their heart is in Nigeria. Obama’s strongest message was one of possibility: Yes, we can. I will like to see young and old Nigerians stand up in the face of the rot in our lives and consider the option of change, unity and hope and say like Obama: yes, we can. It is through such faith that a Nigerian dream can be constructed.

On the web: The Barack Obama phenomenon (2)