Economic Confidential, November 2008

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Obama's Election and the Needed Change

By Olusegun Obasanjo

LET me begin this article by congratulating President-Elect Senator Barack Obama for his well-deserved victory in the just concluded US Presidential Election of 2008. Senator Obama's victory brought with it a new, refreshing and exciting taste in our mouths. Apart from doing himself and his family proud, he has also done his nation proud by crossing a Rubicon that was considered impassable almost inconceivable at least in the then immediate future. Senator Obama has not only made history, he is on course to change history.

The feeling of change that Senator Obama engendered through his campaign for the White House represents a significant theme of change we have all aspired and fought for in different areas, regions, cultures and historical times. The desire for change has never been the question nor has it ever been in question. It is the extent, the range, the tone, the quantity, the quantum and the sustenance of change that has always been the question.

So, what change does the young Senator from Illinois, Chicago propose to his countrymen and women what vision is he seeking to bring about? I do not consider myself a political pundit as such, but it is not too difficult to see that developments in the US and recent developments in the world at large have presented a graphic case for a change. The US needs change, Africa needs change, the developed world needs change, and the developing world needs change, we all need change. The American people have voted for a change that they hope their leader can bring about for them and their society through the aspirations and the administration of President-Elect Barrack Obama. The expectations in the US and indeed in the rest of the world are high and understandably so after the eight years of President George W. Bush.

Rooted in the achievements of Senator Obama is a far more significant theme for people aspiring to lead their communities, particularly for young Africans in Africa. It is the aspirations, the determination, the energy, the strategic thinking, planning and execution that Senator Obama and his campaign team have brought into what is being regarded as a movement. Entire generations have been roused and invited to bring about a change that they and the rest of the world desire.

Senator Obama's unprecedented success is based on a number of factors which are best captured in two-folds - 'Change and Hope.' His campaign was predicated on change - the change we need and the change we believe in. The US like the rest of the world needs change, and this formed an anchor on which the Obama Hope cursor hangs. Obama's election has injected a fresh air of hope, peace, constructive and inspiring leadership into the stale and fouled atmosphere of American international relations, economy, world economy and international financial market. In some ways his election has been described by some analysts as a referendum on George Bush's eight years of unnecessary and totally avoidable wars and the meltdown economy.

What are the ingredients that are responsible for Senator Obama's unprecedented success and what changes should we expect?

Let me relate my first and only encounter with Senator Barrack Obama.

In September 2007, during the Black Caucus Convention in Washington DC, I met and chatted with both Senator Hilary Clinton and Senator Barrack Obama separately, albeit briefly. One cannot but be impressed by Senator Obama's disposition, he was intelligent, quick-witted and smart in his reactions and answers to my few questions. He was also courteous and cultured. He exuded confidence and friendship even though it was our first meeting. I was left in no doubt that if he could become the President of the US, the world may be better for it. At that point I naturally wondered if he could, most especially with the expected discrimination his name and colour might provoke. Nonetheless, I also recalled that when he first contested for political office in Illinois, though his funny name raised questions for him but it did not make him lose the election, he won.

His background was as interesting as his life so far. He was the outcome of a bi-racial relationship, love and marriage between a young African man from Kenya, who voluntarily went to the US in search of the Golden Fleece and he found love in a liberated white young woman.

By birth, he was a citizen of two continents and, by upbringing and education, he became better exposed and a true citizen of the world - a background and situation that shaped his outlook for public service and which made him "a nice guy who should not have desired to go into a dirty and nasty thing like politics" as he wrote in his book, "The Audacity of Hope". Certain issues never go away from his head; his experience and surroundings - the problem of race, societal division, war, poverty and relations between the sexes. Obama remained in close bond to his mother and grandmother who made him not to feel the adverse impact of his absentee father. The greatest loss he seemed to have felt in life was the loss of his mother and maybe the second was the recent death of his grandmother.

On one hand, he was a product of Ivy League higher educational institutions, the quintessential breeding ground for future leaders in public life globally. He had earlier made history by becoming the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review. Truly, it takes a village to raise a child and a proper one at that.

On the other hand, Senator Obama's nature, wit, intellect and intelligence had set him aside and increasing his marketability for wide appeal across the various divides. He is a man of faith and his faith never deserts him.

Obama's movement which began in the US and which had seen the Senator through to victory in the election has swept all over the world. He out-campaigned, out-strategised, out-funded, and out-debated his Republican rival, Senator John McCain. The crowd drawn by Obama during his visit to Europe was nothing short of a movement and it was simply electrifying. I must express my admiration for the managers and advisers of Senator Obama during the campaign. They were cautious, meticulous, and painstaking; they left nothing to chance. They checked and crosschecked everything and every milieu. A friend of mine and his wife were invited for an Obama event, few hours before the event took place, the organisers phoned my friend to inform him about his background and their findings that he is a lobbyist and that they would appreciate his refusal to attend the event but his wife could still come. My friend accepted it well and concluded "that is the extent to which they go to avoid embarrassment for their candidate."

The ability of the Obama campaign team to understand the strategic imperative of conscientising and mobilising young people particularly of African American and Latino extraction is a further tribute to the ingenuity of the strategists. Throughout the campaign, Senator Obama was preferred by foreigners everywhere to his rival John McCain and the Republican Party except in Europe, Georgia; Obama's movement was spearheaded by the fastest growing generation of US electorates (millennia generation) of ages 18-29 years. They carry no baggage of fear, doubt and prejudices of their parents and those before them. They are better educated, more exposed and they know the world better than their forebears. In the same vein, the ability of the campaign managers to facilitate the quick healing of the wounds of the presidential primaries should be a lesson for most political managers across the world, particularly in Africa. Getting Hilary and Bill Clinton to campaign for Senator Obama is a tribute to political maturity and adroitness on both sides. As I look at the whole development, I cannot but marvel at providence in Obama' journey to the highest political height in the world. The economic crisis with financial meltdown was fortuitous, auspicious and certainly providential. Indeed success in life is substantially preparation and perspiration with a complement of good luck. Obama, sweated for his victory but providence was on hand to give history a gentle push in the right direction. Although the world at large could not cast vote in the US election, globally people know what they expect of America and who among the contestants could deliver what the world expects. America should not completely ignore the interest of the world.

Again, I see this as a growing movement rather than just a political party. Maybe, what Obama's managers and advisers should address their mind to is how to channel this movement for the good of a world that is crying for change to make the world fairer and more peaceful, equitable, just, cooperative, friendly and brotherly and responsive to the yearnings of the poor, the oppressed and the vulnerable.

The world needs a global movement to work hand-in-hand with the world leaders to raise awareness and to work in tandem with the public and the private sectors to make the world a better and more genial place for every human being on earth. America as the most powerful nation of the world must accept the responsibility of leadership in making the world a better place for humanity.

Obama represents an ability to move from realms of dream to reality. He represents Hope for the global minorities who are being or feel oppressed by the majority. He represents Hope for the women who see a glass ceiling, with the assurance that all glass ceiling can be broken. After all, hope is the only thing we freely give to ourselves and it is the only thing that we are left with when all else has been taken away. Obama pursued his dreams and his hopes relentlessly and diligently. For him, nothing in life is beyond everybody's reach. This was the driving force, which became his great vision and dream to be what everyone now reckons with in the world - Icon of Hope for a world devoid of racial discrimination, but filled with acceptance of diversity and recognition of differences. Part of his hope and dream is to facilitate the emergence of a post racial America. I believe embedded in that will be a pointer for divided countries to create the needed golden bridges across traditional divides and gaps of tribal bigotry, ethnic chauvinism, religious allegiance and other primordial considerations. It is a signal to us that we can gradually begin the movement towards an Africa that accepts everyone for what and who he or she is.

All the changes mentioned so far are good initiatives for individual countries - rich or poor and for the world as a whole. For me, the mental, psychological and ethical changes that Senator Obama's election has started to bring about are as important if not more important even in the political, social and economic sense. The Americans have crossed a very important frontier and made history. For the most powerful country to be ruled by a minority, man of "colour" makes colour to recede into insignificance and cease to be regarded as an important consideration in American life. Most nations of the world have a lesson to learn from this historic US election.

The sky should be the limit of all Americans and all citizens of the world no matter the colour of skin, sex, religion, and language because what has happened in America is for a man to be seen for what he is - human and what he is capable of delivering - removes the consideration of minority-majority as a major debate or factor. People should be seen, accepted, judged and placed for what they are and what God has endowed them with. Those who preach the sermon of superiority of Intelligence Quotient or simple intellect based on colour, race, tribe or language must start to review and indeed change their sermon. My joy, as a member of the human race and a citizen of the world, knows no bound that the Obama phenomenon happened in my lifetime. I am confident that Martin Luther King would feel warm in his grave that his dream has eventually come true.

Senator Obama does not have any inferiority complex about his background; he makes it clear that he is an American, a citizen of the world and a member of the human race. He maintained that he would not blame discrimination of any sort, if he had failed to win the election, rather he would blame himself for not putting his ideas and programme across to the electorate properly and adequately. This would make him feel at home anywhere as a member of the human race and he will deal with anybody from any part of the world as he or she should be dealt with - a man or woman who is a member of the human race. That augurs well for the world at large.

His position of going for force of persuasion rather than persuasion of force must sound like sweet music in the ears of those who have agonised in the unilateralism of the use of force under the guise of fighting terrorism by the Bush administration. The change that such a disposition will ultimately bring to the conduct of foreign policy by a President Obama should make the world more peaceful, more cooperating, and more collective in solving the many problems of the world such as the ongoing world economic crisis, international financial market, climate change, HIV/AIDS, high prices of food and poverty. The MDGs, which are seven years away, must be substantially achieved. Talking with adversaries without pre-conditions and substituting the force of diplomacy for the military force will open a new specter of relationship in the world. If the US is at peace with all its adversaries, I believe the world will see a new dawn of peace, stability and cooperation.

The flow-out to Africa as the poorest continent of the world will be that the world led by the US can collectively work together with the rest of the developed world to solve the issue of diseases, corruption, poverty and inadequate infrastructure in Africa. Senator Obama's name, background and colour which could have easily been liabilities, hard to surmount, may turn out to be some of the factors that will assist in helping him to bring about the changes directly needed at home and those he would have to singularly or collectively initiate across the globe.

Obamanomics, which will have to deal with the economic situation in the US, must bring about changes in taxation policy and tax regime, creation of jobs, curtailing the excessive consumption of every American and on cheap credit provided by the rest of the world. There must be change and internal adjustment to the limited world resources of fossil fuel, pollution of the atmosphere contributing inordinately to climate change.

After putting his economic house in order, President-Elect Obama will have to lead in putting the global economy in order, stock markets must be stabilised and international financial markets must be regulated and monitored. With over three trillion dollars being transacted on a daily basis, the international financial markets have been left too much on their own, hedge funds are very good examples of lack of control and monitoring in the international financial market. Access to health insurance by all Americans and stopping foreclosure on mortgage properties are also two major pillars of Obama's social change and adjustment.

Africa may not expect President Obama to open the US treasury to them to wipe out their deep-rooted poverty and misery, but they must have the historic joy that a member of the human race, a true brother in the real African sense, presides over the affairs of the most powerful nation of the world and by extension leads the world. This alone has brought great hope for every man and woman all over the world.

Africa can get a catalyst from the rest of the world but Africans will have to continue to be the architect of their own fortune or misfortune. We Africans must gird our loins and draw encouragement and inspiration from the Obama phenomenon.

This is a precursor of more changes brought about by the story of hope that will continue to spread across the globe through which the world will become a true village of harmony, love, peace, equity, caring and sharing. It has begun and it will be unstoppable. Let us see how Obama with his advisers will move on. His team of advisers and collaborators on critical issues of National and World Economy, Climate Change, Energy, conduct of foreign policy including relationship with Europe particularly Russia.

The issue of the Middle East, Asia and the emerging economies and Africa's poverty including 923 million malnourished people of the world must be heard at work to begin to fulfill the national and global expectations within the shortest time possible. At the same time, the current global financial crisis must not be used as an excuse to divert resources from Africa as it was done at the end of the Cold War. Obama's advisers and managers must help him to do as good a job in governing as they have done in campaigning. Everyone knows that there is difference in governance and campaigning, the indication today is that Obama has the making of a fine and determined president that will bring the desired change for his nation and the world because he has stayed firm on his hope and dreams.

If Senator Obama knows the changes that we need and has stood solidly in fulfilling his dreams, then there should be no standing to stare and hand wringing. Let him move actively from rhetoric into action. Obama always said "we will do these together" let me give the leadership to inspire doing together nationally and globally. Destiny, vision, hope, good fortune and change, are the driving force for all his actions, reactions and intentions. Let him move expeditiously as the world is eagerly waiting for inspirational leadership from the US, the country whose action and inaction affects the rest of the world.

Although it is usual in the US for an incoming president to be assessed after the first 100 days, President Obama may not be given that luxury with urgent matters in his waiting tray from his first day in office. His nation and the world will start assessing his performance within the first 30 days. I believe that a prudent and wise choice of collaborators and advisers and the creation of team of collaborators and advisers who believe in his message of change and who are ready to swim with him will make the ride less bumpy and more smooth sailing. His first assessment will come from the quality of his team. He has a good stock of them and he can pick from across the political party line, if necessary.

The Obama victory is great evidence of what the American dream, American spirit and American system is all about - certainly of change for good and hope for everybody. The world is welcome to the post racial America with all the hopes and aspirations that it portends for America and the rest of the world particularly the African world.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,

Nigeria's former president (1999-2003)