A fellow Nigerian wrote a book review about tradition recently, and just as in many things I was at cross-purposes with most of those who commented. While I am not a total antitraditionalist (and certainly not an out-and-out contrarian), I will always enjoin caution about undue revelling in age-old conventions and attitudes.
Africa is shot though with proverbs and saws. One of the Yoruba sayings that I have always taken exception to is ‘Wherever you are in the world you must return Home’ - that is your hometown in Yorubaland. I do not like this and I always replace it with the Confucius-inspired saying that ‘Home is where you are able to get a livelihood and be happy.’ I was born in Nigeria and I may or may not return there, but I wonder what my child who was born in the UK would feel about being called a Nigerian. Precedents abound: both Sade Adu and Seal reject this description, and not that they think Nigeria is not worthy of being their country, but because they are well and truly Britons.
We must take a closer look at Obama’s statement, ‘Kenya is not my country. It’s the country of my father. I feel a connection but ultimately, it’s not going to be me...’
Fine that his father came from Kenya, and all progressive people of the world should celebrate it if and when Obama becomes American president, but I doubt whether President Obama would like to be excessively advertised as a Kenyan - nor would a Japanese-American like to be seen as a Japanese if he became an American president. This is undertandable.
I wish Obama well, and I hope he is sworn in next year as American president. But I think I’ll be more concerned with what our leaders in Africa are doing than spend more than reasonable time being cock-a-hoop about an African-American who has become the president of the United States.

Eric

You might see some analogy with the efforts by many US presidential candidates since John F Kennedy to claim some ancestral connection with Ireland. Kennedy, who made a triumphal visit to Ireland during his presidency, and addressed the Irish parliament, was seen as an important icon for the Irish people’s determination to succeed in the world after a difficult history of poverty and colonisation. A major reason, however, for American presidential hopefuls to claim strong family links with Ireland was the fact that around 40 million US citizens claim ancestral links with the country.

I’m not sure if this will have any major effect on the final outcome this time around, but good luck to Kenya!

I was reading an article written by Kathenya about original heritage as regards Obama, most likely America’s new dawn that is if it come to pass. I beleive we should in this twenty-first century disaburse our minds of celebrating tribes. I suggest mankind encouraging acts or arts that will be bring the world together, whites, blacks, Japanese, Nigerians, or any other tribes and countries in America as one, confirming the oneness of humanity and making the world a better place. Who says a blackman can not be the America’s best president? America is an homogenious country with several tribes and that is her strenght. So let them make the world know that their kind of democracy is not discriminatory. Ride On OBAMA!!! And good luck.

Obama has charm, intelligence, and the vitality of youth. I spent my childhood in Ghana under the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, the self-styled “Osagyefo” who brought freedom to his people mixed in with political repression, financial mismanagement, and corruption on a stellar scale. I remember his overthrow in a military coup and the people of Accra dancing in the streets. He died in exile and was buried abroad. Today, Nkrumah is rehabilitated as his body lies in a mausoleum his name adorning halls and conference centres Africa-wide and ironically hailed for his vision of African unity amidst the internecine warfare that tears Africans apart.  I’d like to go back to Ghana – the land of my birth which was once home. I am Australian only by adoption. Nkrumah’s mausoleum and the hypocrisy of falsified history bring the taste of ashes to my mouth. Yet Ghana remains the friendliest and most welcoming of all African nations – I will never forget it.

History is filled with hypocrisy. The United States stand out for the mass slaughter of Indians and a civil war seeking to preserve man’s inalienable right to enslave his coloured neighbour. Obama’s repudiation of his Kenyan heritage may represent a glimmer of honest recognition that the father who abandoned him in childhood has passed on little other than life (God’s great gift but a brief dalliance for his father). If Obama is elected, I pray he will govern wisely and well. If Kenyans celebrate him, I hope it will be for goodness and not for a meaningless ancestry. After all, Kenya’s struggle for freedom came at the price of the gory depredations of the Mau-Mau. Ugandans must live with Idi Amin, Nigerians with Biafra, and the Sudan with Darfur.

Values, meaning, and spirituality are trans-national and trans-racial. Westerners but barely understand this –Africans must learn from their white brothers’ mistakes.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer . . .  and the gap between is getting bigger as the middle classes become the ‘working poor’ . . .nobody learns from their mistakes . .  . they are too busy calculating the month’s profits or their new, higher net worth. Charles+

Obama is not only celebrated in Kenya but also in Nigeria. The local media is continually giving us a daily analysis on the Obama phenomenon and it’s benefit for Africa. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that idea. If - still a probability - he is elected President, he will have his hands full with matters relating to his country. He is an American - first and foremost - and naturally is responsible to those that elected him.

The problems of Africa have to be solved by Africans themselves. Needless to over beat the messiah expectation of help from abroad. Let those who cherish their ancestry and have a passion for effecting a change do it. Besides that is the beauty of tradition, we not only adapt, but we change. And who says that one’s ancestry is only traced via the father? Most Nigerian women now bear their father’s name (in addition to that of their husbands) even after marriage. And in most cases they are the backbone of their families.

I wish Mr Obama luck, but I still insist that the problems of the African continent can only be solved by Africans who feel committed enough to work for that change. It’s all a matter of choice.

Which country can honestly boast that their presidents or even the people originated from their countries? Even the natives of every country migrated from elsewhere and they get displaced by or sidelined by the new immigrants. If one was to read history, geography and the people’s origin of each country, then there would be many cousins, sisters and brothers all over the world. How did they end up that way?

Reuben Eboh has commented wisely; why harbour on race, colour and origins? If we want to do so, well then get the facts correct, how mankind came into being. God did not place the various groups in different locations but it was man who migrated around the world in search of his dreams.