Goals Behind Obama’s Visit to Ghana

On Saturday, July 11, 2009, the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, visited Accra, the capital of Ghana. Obama gave a formal speech in which he praised democracy in Ghana and the country’s role in solving conflicts in Lebanon, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Barack Obama also asked the African people to set straight their governments and fight corruption in their countries while he promised to increase the U.S. funds for countries on the African continent.

It is for certain that the hidden strategic goal behind Obama’s visit to Ghana is to compete with the Chinese giant for the African oil resources that some African countries have plenty of, Ghana included. Obama plans to embrace an approach that is completely different than that of his predecessor, Bush. The new approach is similar to that of China: it is based on effective partnership and mutual interests, not on military interventions or political statements coming from American strategists in Washington.

It is also clear that there is a tactical goal behind Obama’s visit to Ghana. The goal is to praise the successful democracy being formed in Ghana and to send a political message to some of the African capitals that are being overwhelmed by civil wars because of competition to possess power and wealth. The message implies that it is the right time for countries to adopt a different approach, a more democratic one.

Despite the strong feelings some Africans have for Obama, the first African American president, it is for certain that Obama is not the president of the Divided African States. Obama is the president of the United States of America and therefore he is commissioned to adopt any kind of politics that represents America’s interest. So it is not politically ideal for Africans to worship American politics and promote them to the skies, nor is it better to step on them and crush them. There should be some African strategic contemplation that seeks to adopt fair partnerships either with the U.S., Russia, China, or any other mighty entity.

For those Africans that are being targeted through Obama’s tactical message, you need to understand that fighting for power or wealth using Kalashinkovs (AK-47) or any other weapon is politically primitive. This behavior implies that those Africans cannot politically distinguish what is wrong and what is right, let alone possess the political maturity that Obama addressed during his speech in Ghana!

Either way, Africans need to rely and depend on themselves and solve their own political and social conflicts using their own abilities. They should not bet on the foreign horse, even if it is American, Russian, black or white.

It is not rational, nor is it acceptable, for an anthropology study to conclude that Africa is the place from which human beings originated while evidence from modern politics clearly states that Africa is home for diseases, famine, civil wars, and political stupidity. There is not even one grain of political maturity in Africans asking Obama to be more African than Africans themselves while some African political figures stoop to primitive fighting and barbarian wars over power and wealth in a number of African capitals.