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In September 1962, a Blackman,
James Meredith applied for admission into the University of
Mississippi.
Academically, James Meredith was qualified. However, he was
disqualified because he was born black. The University
Meredith applied to was supported by public funds. He went
to court and all the way to the United States Supreme Court;
the ruling was in his favour, with each Court ordering his
admission. Ross Barnett was the Governor of Mississippi and
it was unthinkable for a man from a colour race to be seen
in their all white University. It took a federal troop of
Marshals deployed by John F.Kenedy for James Meredith to be
smuggled into the University amidst raging riot by racial
supremacists baying for the blood of the man they felt would
contaminate their school with his black blood.
On June 11, 1963 Governor George Wallace, the racially
sensitive Governor of Alabama, stood defiantly by the door
of the registration office of the University of Tuscaloosa
to ensure that two Negro students were not admitted. It took
the US Federal Government's federalization of the Alabama
National Guard for the two to be successfully admitted.
On August 28,1963, 230,000 blacks and liberal whites
gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the largest protest
congregation ever witnessed. It was a move that culminated
in the oratory by the famous American civil rights leader,
Martin Luther King, in which he declared his dream of an
American Society where equality and social Justice would
reign. He dreamt of the America where the sons of former
slave owners and former slaves would share in a common
heritage of freedom, visualizing that that day would usher
into America racial harmony, where equality, love would
prevail.
Today, forty-five years after that dream, the realization is
gathering steam. Today the supreme sacrifice of men like
Abraham Lincoln, the author of the first Emancipation
Proclamation, is being celebrated. The authors and founders
of the American society that sort a society where all men
are born equal are today being vindicated by their vision.
Today the American dream is becoming an open dream for all.
Thanks to the evolving American society mankind is being
remade. Thanks to the boundless possibilities of the
American society, a black blood is set to join the rivers
and streams of other races that have irrigated one of the
greatest hegemonies ever known to man. It has taken an
American society, built on the sweat and blood of toiling,
degraded and humiliated black slaves, often regarded as not
human enough, to tell us that even the blacks, even Africans
can reach any height ever attained by men of whatever colour.
Barrack Obama has come to represent history in its rawest
form. He has become a reference point in life that anything
is possible. He is the future of the black race, that we can
still rule our world tomorrow. It does not matter whether
Obama makes it to the White House in November or not. He has
fast tracked the movement of the black world to world
attention. When Rev. Jessy Jackson sought nomination as the
Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in the
eighties, he was a revelation. His performance was seen as
something that has never happened, though it was a race that
he was clearly beaten, but he pointed a way that has lead
Obama to where he and the black race are today.
In the most unlikely event that he fails to make it to the
White House, he has raised the stakes. Who knows, if he
misses, next time, an African-American may just have a
smooth ride all the way to the ultimate spot. Barrack Obama,
to me represents the beauty of a society where the content
of a man's character and intellect, rather than the depth of
his pocket or even skin pigment defined how far he can get
politically. He represents a society where issues form the
basis of political contest; where the ability to prove that
your vision, your programmes best approximate the national
expectations of the people. Obama's America has once more
proved that the black man is not inferior.
America has shown to us that we also have greatness running
in our blood; that the suffering, the ignorance, the poverty
and the hopelessness that manifest everywhere you turn to in
Africa are only self-inflicted. Barrack Obama has proved
that there is nothing in our blood that makes us selfish,
cruel, wicked and perpetually retrogressive in our approach
to leadership.
The lesson of Obama's nomination is even more apparent in
Nigeria. I wonder how long an Ibibio man would live in
Abeokuta to ever contemplate seeking election into the Ogun
State House of Assembly. I wonder when that time shall come
when an Ibo man can contest the councillorship election into
ward II in Uyo Local Government Area, or when even an Oron
man would think of becoming a Local Government Chairman in
Ikot Ekpene.
For close to one year since the candidates started their
campaigns across America, there were no incidents of
violence. Yes indeed, there may have been some verbal slips,
here and there, but at the end superior arguments easily won
among the electorates. The Democratic Party as well as the
Republican Party in America had party elders and leaders,
yet not once did we hear or see them interfere in the
process. The party leadership recognized the supremacy of
the people and left them to make their choice.
In some of the states hotly contested, the Democratic Party
had sitting Governors. These Governors allowed the people
their freedom to choose. One wonders what would have
happened in our own land. The Governors would easily have
dictated who votes and how. They would have called the shots
and “delivered” the candidate that appealed to the them. A
Governor in Nigeria is a King who must be obeyed without any
dissenting voice. In our country, the silly contraption
known as consensus would have come to play and a candidate
foisted on the people.
In Nigeria, Obama would never have any chance of wining. His
roots would have been his greatest undoing. He would have
been rejected even before the votes. But America is America
and Nigeria remains Nigeria. Can we begin to learn that the
man who faces election would be accountable to the people,
and not the cabal that brought him in? In Nigeria, it would
have been possible for a man who has not even campaigned for
one day to emerge as candidate through consensus. Notice the
country's misfortune of having a political arrangement where
a presidential candidate emerged without asking anybody for
votes, without telling anybody about the programmes he
intends to pursue if elected. No wonder, for one year, we
are still waiting to hear what our own President has to
offer.
In Nigeria of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Vincent
Ogbulafor strolled into the Wadata Plaza office of the
Party's headquarters without a fight. While people like
Senator Anyim Anyim and former Governor Sam Egwu were going
from village to village, town-to-town, Ogbulafor was waiting
for the invisible hand to raise him up. Today he has found
himself where he never thought he could. How can such a man
fight for true election?
If Obama becomes American President tomorrow, he would have
made history, a history that would change the course of
mankind. It would be a history that would, if we care to
learn, teach us that the beauty of democracy lies in the
ability of the people to be able to choose who should rule
over them. It is still a long way to the White House, but
Obama the African, remember that he is not even the son of a
former slave, has come of age. We can be all we can. The
choice is ours either to continue in our self-imposed chains
of poverty of leadership, or learn from Obama that the best
can be found among us.
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