By Charles Onyango-Obbo
From the East Coast of Africa, as the Americans went into the mid-term elections, we were very worried. Opinion polls had predicted that President Obama’s Democratic Party would be massacred, and lose control of both the House and Senate. In the event, the Democrats lost their shirts – they were bloodied in the House – but kept their vests and some dignity, by keeping control of the Senate.
Now Obama is a child of East Africa. And as a Democratic president, we were shocked to see him let his party be beaten. This is a young man who is from a part of the world where our politicians are experts in retaining power and winning every election they, or their parties, get involved in. The fact that Obama has learnt nothing from his forefathers is proof that he has been bewitched. He has been spoilt by the white man and woman’s ways, and lost his true path.
There are a few things Obama would be told if he had spoken to any president in Africa. He would have been told that first; he should have transported about two million Africans to vote for the Democrats (and worried about their refusal to return home after the vote later). That is what we do; we transport voters across constituency lines.
Secondly, as president of the world’s richest country (although its fortunes are in decline) he would have been told to break into the Federal Reserve, get all the dollars there, and buy votes. If there were no dollars, he would have been advised to print the money. What is a president for, if he can’t print money?
Thirdly, we didn’t hear any news that he transferred the officials in the Federal Electoral Commission, and appointed a Kenyan cousin to the job. Incredible. How can you go into an election without your man in charge of the electoral commission?
(Maybe this a Kenyan problem, because I see President Kibaki is also now confused, and appointed some Somali, not a Kikuyu from Nyeri, to head the electoral commission. And we were told he stopped drinking. I think the Baks is sipping something strong under the covers, and it is messing his head).
Then, every TV station in the US was broadcasting “exit” polls, predictions, and declaring winners on their own. Madness. Take the example of Uganda in 2006. Prof. Kiggundu at the Electoral Commission was doing a good job stealing the election for “The Only One”, when The Monitor stepped into the big man’s soup. It had something called an “independent tallying” centre, which was collecting results from the polling stations, not the ones that had edited by the security services and State Houses.
What did M7’s people do? They visited The Monitor; looked at the tally centre, then went back to town, shut down KFM station that was broadcasting the results, and brought down its internet link so that the rest of the world could not see its website. Simple and effective. End of story. The problem with people like Obama and other Africans who have migrated to live in the white, yellow, and brown people’s lands is that they abandoned the wisdom of their ancestors. They will harvest nothing but heartbreak and tears.
Disgraceful; instead of being out there stealing votes for the Democrats, Obama was at home playing with his dog!!
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Charles “Mase” Onyango-Obbo (born 1958) is a Ugandan author, journalist, former Managing Editor of The Monitor. He is currently Executive Editor for the Africa and Digital Media Division with Nation Media Group, Nairobi, Kenya. He is a political commentator of issues in East Africa and the African Great Lakes region. He writes a column, “Ear To The Ground”, in The Monitor, and a second column in the regional weekly The East African, and a third in the Daily Nation.
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