The Significance of Obama’s Election to Nigeria and its diaspora

INTRODUCTION

On November 4, 2008, a remarkable event occurred in the United States of America: a Kenyan-African-American named Barack Hussein Obama, aged 47, Federal Senator from the State of Illinois, was elected to be the 44th President of the USA in its 56th presidential election since George Washington was first elected in 1789. He is the first African-American so honored, and the second Illinois legislator ever to be elected president [after Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)].

This was a keenly-fought contest against white Senator John McCain from Arizona, war hero with a military family pedigree. Needing only 270 Electoral Votes to clinch the position, the result was a big national mandate for Obama: 64,975,682 million popular votes (or 53%) and 364 Electoral Votes for Obama to 57,118,380 million (46%) popular votes and 174 Electoral Votes for McCain. The Democratic candidate Obama won the highest votes EVER recorded by ANY president of the United States, winning in states like Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado and Nevada that were considered too Republican for a generation now to attempt a win. He competed well in many other states even where he lost the popular vote, winning almost every demographic imaginable. To this writer, a Nigerian immigrant with five children all born in the United State, who has lived in the United States continuously since December 1978, who has now witnessed the last eight US presidential contests, who voted in last four of them, who actively participated in some little way in this year’s contest, and teaches in a historically black college (Howard University) right in the heart of the nation’s capital where one almost sees the Capitol and the White House on a daily basis, the outcome is of immense socio-cultural and political implications, both to Nigerian/African immigrants as well as to Nigeria/Africa.

OUR CHILDREN CAN ASPIRE WITHOUT NAME AMPUTATION OR ABANDONMENT...

Raised by his white mother and grandparents, and for a time living with an Asian step-father, Barack’s life trajectory is a remarkable one. His Black father may not have been with him all his life, but he (Obama Junior) knew where his father was from (Kenya), even his ethnic group (Luo) and visited with his extended family in Kenya. Yet he was American enough to love his country of birth, participate fully as a citizen and now attain its presidency WITHOUT changing his name to fit the majority White-Anglo-Saxon orthodoxy. Although he went by “Barry” for a while, a cultural epiphany made him to change back to his original “Barack” (for “thunder” in Hebrew but “blessed one” in Arabic/Swahili) – not “That One” as he recently joked in backhand reference to .

Obama joked throughout his campaign that whoever gave him his names obviously never thought that he should aspire to become the president of the United States of America. But we can all look at him now, and tell our children born in the US that provided you live a clean life, go to the best schools that you possibly can, do the best in school that you possibly can, even possibly become a mere community organizer somewhere before beginning your political career ANYWHERE in the United States – and along the way possibly marry a beautiful or handsome African(-America) spouse and loving partner - you too can become a legislator (state or federal), a governor of a state – or the President of the United States of America, WITHOUT amputating your family-given first and/or last name out of recognition.

OUR COUNTRY CAN LEARN (ONCE AGAIN) FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS OF FREE, FAIR AND CREDIBLE ELECTIONS…

Participatory democracy is a desideratum for any country that wishes to develop socially and politically, and free, fair and periodic elections are a grund-norm for such a democracy. Although the United States unilaterally declared its Independence from Great Britain in July 1776, it did not become an operational (con)federal government with a ratified Constitution until March/April 1789, whereupon it elected its first president in George Washington who took office on April 30, 1789.

There have been periodic four-year terms for the presidents ever since each begun with an election - exactly fifty-six of them including Barak Obama’s. Ever since, no military coups, nothing…..unlike Nigeria where we have had more than dozen successful and failed coup attempts since Independence in 1960. One sincerely hopes that one has seen the last of military coups in Nigeria – the last successful one against an elected government was against President Shehu Shagari by Mohammed Buhari in December 1983, and the last successful one against a military regime was against Buhari himself by Ibrahim Babangida in August 1985. [Abacha’s coup of sorts of November 1993 was against a transition civilian government of Shonekan following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election.] In Obama’s election, no election-related violence, nothing…in eighteen months of a tough primary contest within each of the two main parties (Democrats and Republicans), and about four months of the general contest between Obama and McCain, to the best of the knowledge of this author, no one was knifed or gunned to death specifically over the campaign. Even the hint of an assassination attempt against Obama by a deranged pair of Neo-Nazis was quickly squelched.

In Obama’s election, no rigging, nothing…..For the first time, as many as thirty-four states out of the fifty and the District of Columbia in the US permitted early voting (distinct from absentee voting) in this year’s presidential election, with 31.7 million people out of the total of 124 million people that voted. There were fifteen candidates by the way, not just Obama and McCain. The various states had various closing times since America has different time zones, with each STATE secretary being in charge of their elections – no central INEC, no Maurice Iwu. By 10 pm EST, on November 4 election day proper, the election had been called by the TV networks; within an hour, Senator John McCain had conceded and sent his congratulatory message; soon after Senator Barack Obama had given his victory speech; and to cap it off, President Bush also sent his congratulatory message and pledge to ensure a smooth transition between now and Inauguration Day January 20, 2009.

To be continued...

Author: Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD