The speech has gone down extremely well touching every issue facing African nations. Ghana is a country that has been enormously proud to play host to Mr Obama and referred to him as a brother. People say endlessly that he is part of the family and they are expecting a great deal of him.
It was a very broad-ranging speech but Mr Obama has an ability because of his heritage, his Kenyan father, to reach out and speak to Africans in a way that I think most foreign leaders would find very difficult.
There are very few barriers for Mr Obama in this conversation that he is trying to initiate with Africans and I think that this speech will have ticked many, many boxes. This is Mr Obama trying to link Africa into the international community.
ON AFRICA'S IMPORTANCE
“I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world - as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children.” The key analysis here is a wake up call, or reminder to African nations rather people that let them not lose hope for the sake of their poor leadership ideologies, of which many first world nations and its leaders have been giving a blind eye for quite sometime now even others have ended up calling the Africa continent the “Dark continent” due to its poor governance and lack of accountability and transparence in their governance.Obama here he was trying to show the world and other African nations leaders that, despite of the poor record of governance in Africa, there are a few nations like Ghana, who are better and can be liked to the international community, so that the rest of African nations to follow its examples.
ON COLONIALISM AND RESPONSIBILITY
“It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants.
In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many.”
The key analysis here is that Obama was clear to African people who keep on thinking that it’s the colonialism’s responsibility for the all Africa nations’ today’s turmoil, despite of the impact they left there during those era. Instead it’s the poor governance that has really affecting most of the African nations today, with mass problems of corruption, genocide, tribal terrorism, leadership greediness, simply the new form of colonialism from African leaders to African people. For the case of independent Kenya it a well know fact that corruption is a daily fact of life for all its leaders, and tribalism is the weapon of the day to become into power, best example 2008 violence in Kenya after the general election. Where voters were robbed their votes in a manipulative forms. And to others it was hard to wait for their turn to come into power.
ON GOVERNANCE
“Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.”The key analysis here is that African leaders need to transform the [GDP] to — Good Governance, Development, Protection; However, to be able to achieve this objective, they must first of all ensure good governance. Like any other upright leader, firmly believe that it is honesty, probity, transparency, accountability, efficiency and devotion to duty among the people engaged in governance at all levels, which makes the greatest difference to the quantum and quality of a nation’s progress. Without these attributes, the gains in development and security will be either inadequate or distorted and reversible. Which is why, after evaluating the experience of the various governments both at the National and in local level during the past few decades, We have come to the firm conclusion that the present and future challenges before Africa nations can be effectively met only by reorienting their polity on the basis of three imperatives: Good Governance, Development and Security.
ON CORRUPTION
“Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers... No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end. ... Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” The key analysis here is while most of the nations were under the military dictatorship, some did boast of a kind of ‘democracy’ token elections which were neither free or fair. The corrupt rulers were only interested to remain in power and looting the nation.
Formerly, the African nations could blame their former colonial rulers for their troubles. To a certain extent, this was true. But it does not hold any water at all now, instead the black or the African rulers are now swapping the positions or even better they are now the real ‘white colonial’ in the name of democracy and they are revenging and terrorizing their fellow black, accomplishing unfinished business from the white colonialism Empire regime.
ON AID
“As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we will put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves. That is why our $3.5bn food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers - not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed.” The key analysis here is that the African nations should think beyond the Aid that they are being given during emergency time, because the Aid given to them its end up benefiting the have ones as the have not keep on suffering due to poor governance and lack of transparence and accountability in governance, who thinks that aid is a means to an end in itself, instead is just an enhancement of life during the emergency times.
ON HEALTH
“Yet because of incentives - often provided by donor nations - many African doctors and nurses understandably go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease. This creates gaps in primary care and basic prevention. Meanwhile, individual Africans also have to make responsible choices that prevent the spread of disease, while promoting public health in their communities and countries.” The key analysis here is, Golden Quadrilateral in education and healthcare’ is needed. This is an area that need to receive highest attention is massive expansion of opportunities in all spheres of education, which I believe is critical for making economic growth both inclusive and sustainable. If we look at the educational landscape in Africa today, we cannot but notice that while the license-quota-permit, may have made a partial or full exit from various sectors of the economies, it is alive and kicking in the education sector — especially in higher and professional education. Currently, as one study has noted, “the education system remains suspended between over-regulation by the state on the one hand, and a discretionary privatization that is unable to mobilize private capital in productive ways”. First, the various regulatory bodies in the field of education have not only become corrupt and highly bureaucratic, but they have indeed constrained the growth of educational infrastructure in Africa. They need to employ the sharp knife of reform to remove every layer of control that is unnecessary, while strengthening every regulation that enhances quality and accountability.
Second, capacity creation, in which the private sector and philanthropic institutions will need to share the major economic cost of subsequent expansion. If successfully implemented, these measures will ensure that our talented girls and boys are able to have adequate and quality seats in engineering, medicine, management, agriculture, veterinary sciences and scores of new areas that have sprung up in recent years. Finally, in order to make higher and professional education inclusive, we shall increase the number of scholarships and attractive educational loans by such an order of magnitude that no deserving student is deprived of an opportunity to have an education of his or her choice. I believe that democratisation of education is the key to democratization of social and economic growth. It will, in short, be our resolve to have the equivalent of the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ in education and healthcare.’ And at the end we will be able to control the common diseases the we face today in Africa.
ON CONFLICT
“Now let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war. But for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.
These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck. We all have many identities - of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st Century. Africa's diversity should be a source of strength, not a cause for division.” The key analysis here is the cruelty and killings have become the hallmark of a number of African nations. Ethiopia and Somalia, if not engaged in border skirmishes, continued to decimate their local populations. Kenya is having its own internal civil war regarding rigging of the votes and many are killing each other, not forgetting that down under Zimbabwe the same crisis is building up, and cholera taking up the emaciated ones. The savage tribal wars in the tiny states of Rwanda and Burundi had killed the millions of people. Why all this are happening?? These nations simply followed the survival for the fittest theory. The tribe which was stronger did not hastate to slaughter every member of the members to the weaker/weakest tribes not spearing women and children. The weaker tribes awaited their turn to become stronger and then took equally blood revenge .So the blood bath goes on.
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