A Letter to President Barrack Hussein Obama -- 44th President of the USA

A Letter to President Barrack Hussein Obama -- 44th President of the USA

Dear Mr President;

November 4th 2008: most Africans, especially blacks, woke up from bed in excitement and tension. Why? They were anxious to see a black man becoming the boss of the White House in the USA for the first time in history. In beer parlors, street corners, market squares, taxis, buses, schools and offices, everyone had one name on their lips -- Barack Hussein Obama.

I downloaded most of your campaign speeches and the one that really carried most of us away was the November 3rd Campaign Trail speech in Virginia. After listening to the speech, my friend, a veteran journalist, referring to you, said: "This guy's voice sounds like that of an angel! People like him appear only once in 50 years. It will take us half a century to get someone like him again, someone that can move the world with hope!" Many people who learned that I had your biography and campaign speeches on video came begging, one after the other, to know more about you.

On the 4th-5th night of November 2008, most of us in my neighborhood didn't sleep, since we decided to meditate and call on God to do us good by pushing all Americans to cast their votes for you -- Mr President. I stood up the whole night watching the TV, and 30 minutes before the results were declared, I fell into a nap because of fatigue; I woke up due to a great shouting, as if Cameroon had won the football World Cup. I jumped up and turned my eyes to the TV, and discovered you had won the Presidential elections in the USA. That was about 4 a.m., a risky time to stroll at night, but even the "men of the underworld" forgot about their illicit jobs and were in jubilation for your victory. Peter Essoka, a veteran journalist in Cameroon, said in one of his radio reflections: "It has actually not dawned on me yet, that a Black man, or "what-cha-call-it'-- African American, colored, etc.--is going to take residence at the White House. You must be joking, right? You know, it is like drama, what Shakespeare described as "A Comedy of Errors' and the best shocking joke of the 21st century." Mr. President, black men were proud to be black.

Mr President, Africans, in their majority, thought Africa would be saved from the exploitation and manipulation of their former colonial masters, who had a longstanding tradition of dictating and imposing their own leaders in most African nations. The name Obama is first and foremost an African name, a family name in Cameroon, but it was immediately transformed into what we call a Christian or given name; it was given to many children who were born that night. The name Obama was made equal to Christian names like Joseph, Peter, Paul, and others from the Bible, just because of you, Mr President. All this excitement was because we thought Africa would be saved by its own son, the son of a father who abandoned his family in the blessed land--the USA--to come back and help build Africa.

Mr President, in the year 2000, most people who were against George W. Bush and the Republicans agreed that he lost his election against Al Gore, but that did not stop the USA from accepting the ruling of the Supreme Court; no president of any country of the world, no leader, uttered a word, because they respected the USA and its institutions. Yet today, in the Ivory Coast, most people who are against President Laurent Gbagbo have refused to recognize his victory over his opponent Alassane Dramane Ouattara, and you, Mr. President, openly took sides. You spit in the face of a whole nation, you spit on a constitution put in place by hard-working, intelligent and vibrant citizens.

Mr Obama, you once said you are opposed to wars that are ideologically driven and based on power and politics instead of reason and you regretted the fact that the USA is mired in a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged because you certainly value the lives of your soldiers. American parents just like African parents have the same love for their children and none of them want a war in their territory or senseless wars out of their territory that will take away the lives of their children, which they suffered to raise. You didn't think about this, Mr Obama, because it was not a war fought on the American soil. It's easier to provoke war on some people's land but difficult to do same on your own land because you value you children and close ones.

Mr President, the consequence of your "lack of foresight' is that innocent children -- just like your girls, pregnant women, parents,--have lost their lives; they are still dying today. The list of orphans has drastically increased and many people, through their inhuman acts, have bestowed curses upon themselves just because you want somebody -- Ouattara -- to earn the title "President of the Republic". When this same disputed elections happened in the USA in 2000, nobody died, and we did not hear your voice calling on Democrats to take guns and remove President Bush from the White House so that Al Gore would earn the title "President of the USA". On the contrary, in your speech during the "Take Back America Conference" on June 14 2006, you qualified President Bush as "a good man who loves his country" and said that his administration was "full of smart folks." Your reaction on the Ivorian crisis makes us understand that President Gbagbo and his administration is completely the reverse of what you think of the Bush's -- what an insult on Africans.