Give it to the young man with some Kenyan blood living on Pennsylvania Avenue: He liked the job he had, he knew it was good and saw no one better able to do it than he. So he fought tooth and nail, if such a thing makes sense, and, braving all odds, gave the lie to the pundits and kept his job, and with it he gets to keep the mansion.

For many weeks Barack Obama seemed like another one-term president, running down his last sandglass hours toward the conclusion of an experience born of a fluke, an accidental presidency aided in its creation by the incredible ineptitude of George W, and one that was destined to find proper correction with the first electoral occasion.

The American right literally bayed for his blood. All manner of nutcases, not necessarily all of them on the loony fringes, spun yarns destined to discredit him. He was not born in America; he was a Muslim; he was a socialist, an Arab, an Indonesian. At one time I thought they were going to say he was ET, but I think they hesitated because in American pop culture ET was so beloved of children.

For some reason I cannot explain, I wanted him to win again. Maybe it is all that nonsense about a Black man — though he is not really black — running the lone superpower of the world. Maybe there is a thrill about being able to say that the leading imperialist in the world is almost the same colour as you. Maybe it’s because he is, in his genesis, from Kogelo, and that makes him a neighbour that one might go visit one day and have a little nyuka (porridge) with.

But most likely it is about all the nasties surrounding Mitt Romney’s campaign who, in their collective “Romneysia,” as Barack so aptly termed it (after borrowing it) forgot just on whose watch the economic meltdown happened in the first instance, and who started the healing process that is now seen to be bringing some respite.

The Romneysia was so palpable in all the right wing campaigns that you half expected them to one day produce a bearded fellow in flowing white robes, carrying an AK-47. If the guy managed to mouth a few words in Arabic and recite a verse of the Qur’an, that would be more than incontrovertible proof that Obama’s story of Osama bin Laden’s death was a hoax.

I am not one of those who believe that Obama in the White House twice over is an indication of a post-racial America, but, hey guys, it sure has moved on. A Black (well, almost) man winning the presidency twice in the face of such ferocious and bigoted campaigns that never once let the voters forget of his exotic origins?

Quit whining

Well, for me, that is some change that cannot be wholly explained by the smarts and energy of the incumbent nor by the buffoonery and forgetfulness of his challenger. As sure as I know I am not writing this on a typewriter, I know something has changed in America.

It may not be good for Africa, not necessarily. “Uncle Toms”, as we know, can be very useful to the master, sometimes going out of their way to show that they are not on the side of some of their more uppity brothers.

Still, it is absurd for Africans to continue whining about Obama not showing sufficient interest in helping Africa like George W. Bush did. Whatever the latter’s reasons for his exaggerated interest, an American president is president of the American people, not ours, and it is to them and to (and for) them alone that he is responsible. Obama may be part Luo, but for sure he ain’t Kenyan, nor East African, nor African.

Once we get that right we may start getting rid of that debilitating mental ailment that makes us think we can choose useless leaders who do nothing except plunder our countries and then turn to leaders we did not choose, other peoples’ leaders, expecting them to provide us with the services that our leaders have failed to provide us with.

Jenerali Ulimwengu, chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper, is a political comentator and civil society activist based in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]