Prof Chinua Achebe wrote his world famous novel, Things Fall Apart, when he was only a 22-year-old youth. He sent his only copy of the handwritten manuscript to a London based typist, who misplaced it for some time. Eventually, in the late 1950s, the original script found its way to William Heinemann, then famed for literary publishing.

While Alan Hill, the editor, thought that this was the best manuscript he had read since the end of the Second World War in 1945, he was not so sure that he should publish it. For, who would read a story from Africa, about Africa, by an African? But courage and hope took precedence. Some 2,000 copies were published in 1958. Things Fall Apart has since been translated into close to 50 languages. The English edition alone has sold millions of copies worldwide.

In an interview with John Pepper Clark in the collection African Writers Talking, Prof Achebe said: ‘I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing.’ And in Hopes and Impediments, he says, ‘At the university, I read some appalling novels about Africa (including Joyce Cary’s much praised Mr Johnson) and decided that the story we had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else, no matter how gifted or well intentioned. Although I did not set about it consciously in that solemn way, I now know that my first book, Things Fall Apart, was an act of atonement with my past.’

For a 22-year-old African youth to hope that he could publish a novel in colonial Africa was to be truly audacious. For him to believe that he could in fact do a better job than a European writer was to go beyond the audacity of hope. Yet it was Achebe who wrote in Things Fall Apart, ‘But the Ibo people have a saying that when a man says “Yes (I can)” his chi (guardian angel, or personal God) says “Yes” also.’ Achebe dared hope. And in our times, we are witnesses to what the audacity of hope can do, with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th American President.

Tragically, that is just about how far we can go. We can only look at others as they do great things. In another book, The Trouble with Nigeria, Prof Achebe talks of Africa’s cargo cult mentality. This is our belief that one day, and without any effort on our part, a fairy ship loaded with goods will dock at our harbour of hope and that we will live happily for ever thereafter. Nothing demonstrates this cultic mentality than our untamed expectations of the Obama presidency.

Fanny Crosby, President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Chinua Achebe — ‘Yes we can’,

Everywhere on the continent, and especially in Kenya, we have gone wild. In the words of Fanny Crosby, we are ‘watching and waiting, looking above‘ for manna from America. Even African heads of State and Government give a start each time the phone rings. Their hands tremble as they lift the receiver. They hope it is a call from the White House. The day they get their first call from President Obama, they will call the Press to announce to the world that the big man has spoken to them. It is hard to believe that a people could sink so low, complete with what are called their leaders.

When the children sing lavishly about the father of some other house, you don’t join them. For, it is your own fatherhood that is in question. It ought to worry you when they claim kinship with the other gentleman. If you were father enough, you would do something to restore your reputation, lest another man should pitch his tent in the little chamber in which your fatherhood counts most. Why, pray, should those in whom a people have invested its leadership shamelessly peddle their inferiority in the chilly streets of foreign capital cities?

After the fanfare, the razzmatazz, and VIP idling in Washington dance halls, Kenya requires a reality check. Obama is the US President and we do well to wish him well. But he will not fix our problems. If President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and their train cannot fix our problems, then we must all sink with them. Meanwhile we must pity our youth. Where is the audacity of your hope? Even our best youth waste away in night clubs, drowning themselves in alcohol, wallowing in tobacco and dead meats. They watch and cheer as their age mates do wonders on TV. Where decent young men used to dance with ladies, ours swing on the floor with bottles of alcohol. They don’t read, they don’t hold quality debate, they don’t dream, they don’t hope. At election time they jump on to the tribal bandwagon.

No, President Obama, you owe us nothing. You must not worry yourself over our cargo cult mentality. Prof Achebe taught us how to say ‘Yes we can‘ even before you were born. And he was only 22. But we love free things. We therefore do nothing for ourselves. Don’t let us bother you. It is up to Africans to liberate themselves from greed and laziness and from the thieves and dictators they call leaders. It is up to them to fix their countries. Meanwhile here is wishing you well. God bless you. God bless Africa.

—————————————————————————————————
About The Author: Barrack Muluka is a publishing editor and a media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers. Hidden Email Address
—————————————————————————————————

—————————————————————————————————

By John Oywa and George Olwenya

He loved style and elegance. A tobacco pipe, a parted hairdo, and generosity were some of his conspicuous trademarks.

A Harvard-educated economist, Barack Hussein Obama Snr, was as charming as he was intelligent. He lived big, inspired many of his peers and “died thoroughly” in a freak road accident in Nairobi.

Obama Snr. | Obama Jr.

Randa

Friends remember him saying with his decorated academic resume, he wanted to live a good life so that when he was to die he would die ‘thoroughly’.

“I want to do my things to the best of my ability. Even when death comes, I want to die thoroughly,” they recall him say.

Like his celebrated son, Barack Obama, who weathered the storm to make history as the first black man to become America’s President, Obama Sr was an intellectual per excellence, according to his friends.

They remember him as an extremely proud man, a go-getter, a womaniser, and a generous person, who shared his resources with friends to the last penny.

He drove the latest car models, wore the best suits, and drank the most expensive whisky brands.

Known as Barry “Wuod Akumu Nyanjoga” (the son of Akumu daughter of Njoga), Obama Sr towered over his peers with authority. He was a man of the people and always spoke of big dreams.

The seed he planted in 1961, in America, is today the toast of the world.

A beneficiary of the famous airlifts to the US, organised by the then Planning Minister Tom Mboya in 1959, Obama Sr went to America, saw and conquered. By the time he returned in 1964, his son with an American college mate, Ms Ann Dunham, was bubbling with energy.

Okoda

Obama Sr wined and dined with both the lowly and the mighty. By the time of his death, names of his friends read like who was who in the Government.

President Kibaki was among the top politicians who topped in Obama Sr’s list of friends.

“He was a great man. He was popular, jovial and always calm. There was some air of uniqueness around him and I am not surprised when his son emerged from nowhere to shock the world,” says former Kisumu deputy Mayor Benjamin Okang’ Tolo. In 1978, Tolo hosted a party for him in Kisumu to appreciate his academic achievements.

“It was a big party and many of his friends were at my house. On that day he brought with him a beautiful woman known as Jael, who was to become his fourth wife,” says Tolo.

The 75-year-old adds he knew Obama Sr when he worked for BP/Shell in Nairobi.

“One of his friends was President Kibaki. One day when I was walking with him in Nairobi, Kibaki, then the Minister for Finance stopped his car next to us and offered him a lift,” says Tolo.

He adds: “The President rode with him to his office and I am told that was the day he got a job in the Treasury as an economist.”

Kibaki was to later come to Obama Sr’s rescue when he was sacked for allegedly protesting the assassination of his mentor — Tom Mboya — in July 1969.

Tolo says Obama Sr will be remembered for his love for education.

“He always told his friends to educate their children. To him education was the best investment one could make. Because of him, I spent all my resources in educating my children and I am now reaping the fruits,” says the former civic leader.

Hundreds of senior politicians and friends attended his emotional burial in 1982. Luo leaders present were the former Foreign Affairs Minister, the late Robert Ouko and former Education Minister Oloo Aringo, among others.

A former political detainee and a long time aide to the late opposition leader Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Mr Odungi Randa, who met Obama Sr on many occasions, says the economist, was cut for bigger things.

“Obama Sr did not realise some of his dreams but his son has made him proud in death,” says Randa.

He adds thoughtfully: “What Obama has achieved is a direct result of good education. We must thank the late Mboya and Jaramogi, who organised these airlifts to America and the East.”

“Mboya took Obama Sr to America. His son is now the US President. Jaramogi took Raila Odinga and others to Germany, Russia and other Eastern block countries. Raila is the Prime Minister,” he says.

But no one has fonder memories of Obama Sr than Mzee Sebastian Peter Okoda; a former senior Government official, who shared his residential house in Nairobi with him for a year.

Okoda and Obama Sr stayed in the same flat at Dolphin Court Flats near Caledonian Shopping Centre.

He says that when he joined the Treasury in December 1974, he was given a Government house where he stayed with his wife.

He and Obama worked together and could occasionally interact since they both hailed from Alego in Siaya District.

Obama, one of the leading economists by then, was a senior officer in the planning department. Okoda was an assistant secretary at the fiscal and monitoring department.

The 70-year-old says one evening; Obama asked him if they could put up together because he had not got a house.

“I did not bother to know where he had been staying, but I obliged. We stayed together for more than a year,” he says.

The duo lived together from 1976 to February 1977 in Flat 5; a three-bed room house reserved for senior Government officers.

“I gave him one of the bedrooms. When my wife came from the village she cooked and we could eat together when we were not visiting friends,” recalls Okoda.

The old man says he was 45 then and they were age-mates and he never bothered to discuss about their marital background, but he knew Obama had more than one wife.

He can remember Obama’s first wife Kezia and eldest son Abong’o Malik visited them at the residence. “Kezia visited us once and she even spent a night.”

Okoda says Obama had access to top civil servants and business executives who treated him as one of their own.

Always neat in his dressing and sometimes sporting a brown leather jacket, he says Obama, whom they referred to as Barry, would go for the best drinks and finest brands of cigarettes.

“If people could be made and cut out for anything in particular then one could say that Obama (Sr) was actually made for the best, he would go for nothing short of that,” says Okoda.

Adding: “He loved the bottle but was very choosy. He would only touch whiskies such as Johnnie Walker and Vat 69. For cigarettes, Barry smoked 555, State Express and Rex.”

And his orders came in double tots, a characteristic that earned him the name “Double Double” from his friends.

His taste for the very best was not restricted to smoke and drinks, Okoda says.

“Executives would call on us at our residence and we could go out for business lunches and entertainment,” he says.

Among his friends, the old man remembers, was former Cabinet Minister Nicholas Biwott, who was then Personal Assistant to the VP and now retired President Moi.

Friends

He also remembers Mr Joseph Kipsanai, the then under-secretary, fiscal and monitoring division at the Treasury and Mr J B Omondi, the then deputy secretary at the External Aid department in the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

“They were so many and it is now a long time since I retired in 1980 and left the city. I cannot remember some of them since many have also died,” says Okoda.

And because Obama enjoyed some of the best places in the city Okoda says they could find themselves at the Nairobi Serena Hotel, and Hotel Boulevard among others.

He recalls Obama was a generous man and would always give gifts to friends and the needy.

He remembers one day in 1976 when Obama got his allowances ready to travel abroad on official duties while still at the Treasury.

Obama, he says, was to fly out at night and was paid Sh7,000 pocket money.

Pipe and drink

“This was a lot of money then and he decided to take friends out in the evening before the trip.

“We spent the whole evening at the Revolving Tower restaurant, KICC. He entertained us and bought drinks until the money ran out,” says Okoda.

After spending the whole amount entertaining friends, Obama had to use other sources for pocket money before he dashed to the airport.

For the period they stayed together, Okoda says Obama was never annoyed most of the time, but he recalls one day he expressed disappointment with his employer.

He says Obama told him he was being under-paid yet he was more educated than other people getting huge salaries.

In his own words, Okoda said Obama told him “Pesa michula en pesa ma ahingo” (I’m being paid peanuts).

Okoda says he does not know if Obama Sr ever had anything to do with Islam during the time they lived together.

“Except the name Hussein, Obama cared little for religion and denominations.” One occasion he said, “When I die, I die thoroughly.” Okoda says this suggests a disbelief in after-life.

The duo parted ways when Okoda was transferred to Nyeri to become the Personal Assistant to the then Central PC Simeon Nyachae.

Since he had to hand over the house to the Government, Obama moved to Mawenzi Gardens (Upper Hill).

“I am so impressed when I heard the son of my old friend has captured the highest office in the world.”

The man Barack Obama Senior

Barack Hussein Obama Sr was born in the sun-baked terrains of Kanyadhiang’ village, Rachuonyo District in 1936. His father, Onyango Obama, who later moved to settle in Alego-Kogelo in Siaya District, was a colonial cook.

Those who knew him say it was because of his hard-line domestic policies that turned his children into achievers.

Although he and his son Obama Sr were buried in Kogelo, where his stepmother Sarah Obama and other family members live, Onyango spent his early life in Karachuonyo.

Onyango was recruited to fight in the Second World War.

When he returned, he had converted to Islam and acquired the name Hussein. His first wife — Akumu Nyanjoga — the mother to Obama Sr died, and he married Sarah Ogwel — the now popular granny who brought up Obama Sr. Obama Sr was the second born in a family of four.

It was in Karachuonyo where Obama Sr married his first wife, Kezia in 1956. “We met at a party on December 25. I was 16 and he was about 20. He picked me among many girls.

We danced and a relationship blossomed,” Kezia says. Obama Sr loved education and politics. He had his early education at Gendia Primary School, near Kendu Bay, before moving to Ng’iya Intermediate School in Siaya.

He capped it at the Maseno School, where teachers described him as an exceptionally bright student. Records at the Maseno School show Obama Sr was promoted from class B to A because of his good grades.

He was 23 when he was shortlisted for the famous airlifts to the US. The road accident that killed him was the second. He had earlier broken his legs in another accident.

US Ambassador, Mr Michael Ranneberger, said Obama’s win would have tremendous impact on Kenya.

Kenyans have welcomed Senator Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for the November US presidential elections.

Proud Grandma: Mama Sarah Obama and one of her grandsons, Mr. Wycliffe Omondi read The Standard at her Kogelo village home, Siaya District, Kenya on Thursday. Mama Sarah is the grandmother of Senator Barack Obama. Picture by Titus Munala.

Congratulatory messages continued to pour to The Standard newsroom from Kisumu, Nairobi, Mombasa, Garissa and even Moyale, with Kenyans wishing the Illinois senator the ultimate victory in the November election.

President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga were not left behind. In a statement from Arusha, President Kibaki congratulated Obama, saying the victory was a manifestation of the faith and confidence the Democratic membership had in his leadership.

On his part, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Obama’s victory was a momentous occasion in history.

“Barack Obama’s success will inspire us all to break the shackles of ethnic preoccupations in determining political leadership,” Raila said in a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Salim Lone.

Obama’s grandmother, Mama Sarah, 86, led villagers of Alego Kogelo, Siaya, where the senator’s father — Barack Obama Senior — was born, in thanking American voters for no,inating her grandchild.

At the home of Obama’s father, relatives, neighbours and students celebrated the triumph, whose campaign now promises to capture the psyche of Kenya in the run up to the presidential elections.

Obama’s Kenyan Kin Celebrate

   Barack Obama speaks to residents of Nairobi’s Kibera area,
   Kenya, in August 2006.

   Obama and Kenyan Grandmother (Mama Sarah)… Earlier Visit

   Kenya Flag

   Obama and Kenyan Relatives … Earlier Visit

Mama Sarah spent most of on Wednesday morning talking on the telephone to her relatives in America, UK and South Africa about Obama’s victory against Mrs. Hillary Clinton in the hotly contested primaries.

“I will travel to America to witness his swearing in because I know he will win. But I will not stay in the country for long,” she said.

Vice-President, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, hailed the victory as historic, saying Obama had won the nomination with dignity.

“Indeed, he may make history as the first American president with African roots,” said Kalonzo in Nairobi.

US Ambassador, Mr Michael Ranneberger, said Obama’s win would have tremendous impact on Kenya.

“Over 350,000 Kenyans live in the US, with another 7,000 traveling there annually, which explains the great interest in the race,” Ranneberger said.

Back at Obama’s father’s home in Siaya, residents basked in international glare as CNN led other international media teams in airing to the world live the joy of the village.

   Barack Obama Jr. / Barack Obama Sr.
CNN was live at Alego Kogelo at 10am, showing villagers holding bottles of ‘Senator’ beer to celebrate the Illinois Senator’s win.

Journalists, armed with sophisticated satellite equipment, began arriving at the sleepy village from as early as 6am on Wednesday.

Many installed their equipment at the home as they waited for permission from the family to interview the senator’s grandmother.

Other international media at the home included BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera.

However, the media had to wait for more than two hours before they could get access to Mama Sarah, who has become the biggest local celebrity.

The number of people claiming to be related to Obama also increased as the news of his victory filtered into Nyanza.

More ‘relatives’ show up

Mr. Tom Ombaka, a Kisumu businessman, said: “Everyone now claims he or she is a cousin of the senator. I have met more than ten people this morning who tell me they are Obama’s blood relations.”

Amid song and dance, Mama Sarah announced she was preparing for an epic journey to America to witness the swearing in ceremony of her grandson as the country’s first black president.

She said: “I will go there to witness the swearing in ceremony, and to pray for him, his family and the people of America for demonstrating unity and love beyond race and colour by picking a black person to lead them.”

She went on: “I love Africa. I am too old now and America is too cold for me to settle. So I will only be visiting once in a while if I am still alive by God’s will.

“I was highly elated when his sister, Rita Auma Obama, in South Africa phoned me to break the news. I said glory be to God,” she said, beaming with joy as she greeted the journalists.

She quipped: “I know what brings you here this early. But don’t worry, feel welcome. I will attend to your needs,” she said as she ushered in visitors to her compound.

“I had prophesied that Obama would win and my dream has partially come true. I am sure he will also win the final contest, God willing. This is my honest and humble prayers,” she said.

She said of her grandson: “His father loved people, development and education. These are the traits that Obama inherited and I can assure you he will go far.”

At the nearby Senator Barack Obama-Kogello Secondary School, which neighbours Mama Sarah’s home, students danced, sang and shouted: “Obama Juu! Obama Juu!”

The school principal, Ms Yunita Obiero, said she announced the good news to the students at assembly in the morning after hearing of Obama’s victory on BBC’s Swahili Service radio.

In Nairobi, ODM congratulated Obama for clinching the Democratic presidential nominations. Secretary-General, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, said the primaries were free and fair and Obama won convincingly.

“His global leadership is cut out for him,” said Nyong’o, who is also the Medical Services minister.

Win-win situation

Lands minister, Mr. James Orengo, said the Obama victory was a win-win situation for Kenya and US. “The US electoral process offers a rare opportunity for men and women of good character. Any Kenyan should, therefore, be able to win nomination locally irrespective of gender, tribe, race or religion,” Orengo said.

Previous Visit To Kenya

In Mombasa, the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya Organising Secretary, Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, urged Obama to stick to his manifesto which has earned him wide support and to steer away from US President George W’ Bush’s “confrontational policies”.

“Apart from being close to Africa, we expect Obama to move away from confrontational policies and unite the US and the rest of the world if he finally wins the presidency,” Khalifa said.

ODM-Kenya nominated MP, Ms Shakila Abdalla, said Obama’s victory was an achievement for Kenyans and Africa.

“Because Obama has roots in Kenya, we expect the US and Kenya to forge close ties. We are praying for his victory in the presidential poll,” Shakila said.

And North Eastern Province on Wednesday took delight in Obama’s victory. The predominantly Muslim province came to the limelight during the primaries early this year when Obama’s rival, Mrs Hillary Clinton’s campaign team circulated pictures on the Internet of Obama in Somali traditional attire taken in Wajir.

An elder, Mr Mohammed Hassan Mumin, who was photographed dressing Obama during the senator’s visit to Wajir, said they were happy that Obama was a step away from the presidency.

Mr Maalim Hussein, a teacher at a Quranic school in Garissa, said: “He was a victim of smear campaigns from the Clintons for embracing our attire, but we kept praying for his success and we are celebrating today.”

He added: “We also pray that he becomes the next US president so that he can help our impoverished province and Africa.”

Mr Christopher Njoroge, who lives in Washington, Seattle, said on the telephone: “This is great victory. It is victory for all America that wants real change.”

And from Des Moines, Iowa, Ms Nancy Mwirotsi, a key Obama supporter and mobiliser in a State that gave Obama his first victory, shed tears.

“For me, Obama’s victory is not just about himself and his family, it is about many young Kenyans here who look up to him as their role model,” she said.

Support Senator Obama, visit BarackObama.com

Societies that cannot stare the truth in the eye and call it by its correct name will perish. They will pack up under the burden of dishonesty, hypocrisy and multiple standards. For one hears, today, a cacophony of insincere passionate pleas from just about everybody to President Kibaki and to ODM leader Mr Raila Odinga.

The entire world is asking them to “sit down and agree on the formation of a Cabinet”. The truth of the matter is that all these pleas are founded on anything but sincerity. Why, I must remind you again of the great poem by E G White, on the greatest want of the world. For E G White wrote:

The greatest want of the world

Though the heavens fall.

Then I have to remind you of the novelist Ahmadou Kourouma of Ivory Coast, where he has written about the naked truth. He says in the novel Waiting for the Beasts to Vote that nakedness and the truth are two things society cannot squarely face up to. We know you when you are naked. Away from the trappings of fine linen and stuff, we see you as whom you truly are; the naked you. The world is most uncomfortable with this. “The world is for clothed peoples. We cannot enter this world unless we clothe ourselves, unless we abandon our nakedness,” he says. And so we dress up the truth in lies.

We fear the truth in the same degree that nakedness embarrasses us. The only time we accommodate either, is in private whispers. No wonder someone coined the expression “the naked truth”. Those who do not hide either become the mad men and women. Society simply has no place for them. That is why we must go on listening to tired songs about Raila and Kibaki needing to “sit down and give Kenyans a Cabinet.” The naked truth is that President Kibaki is the problem. He is increasingly coming across as a deficient leader. Worse still, you don’t know whether to trust him.

Someday, in Emanyulia village, a man was crying that another one had stolen his chicken. “Why fight over a chicken?” the elders asked the two men. “Kill it and share the pieces equally. Eat it together,” they advised.

They both agreed. The one who was alleged to have stolen the bird plucked off the feathers, pulled off the beak, removed the crop and the entrails and laid them side by side with the rest of the pieces. He counted and saw that they were all 40 pieces, including the feathers (which were counted as one piece). He now divided the pieces into two sets. He offered his friend the set with the beak, the feathers, the intestines, the crop, the diaphragm, the gall, the gullet, the spleen and stuff.

Need for bloated a cabinet

“So that is why you wanted us to have 40 pieces and not 26?” asked the other. “You just wanted them to be many so you could take the real chicken and give me nothing!”

Whatever Raila’s other sins may be, the naked truth is that President Kibaki is not being fair or trustworthy. He wants a bloated Cabinet so that he can keep the real ‘thing’ and give Raila and ODM nothing. Men and women of conscience must call this naked truth by its name. They must call the sin of political deceit by its name. Our dishonest churchmen are, as usual, pretending about this. Instead of asking Raila and Kibaki to “sit together and give Kenyans a Cabinet” they should be asking President Kibaki to be an honest and honourable statesman. They should ask the President to draw up two lists of Cabinet portfolio which, in his perception, are equal. They should be so equal that he would willingly close his eyes and pick up either and be completely happy with it.

When he has prepared his two lists, he should invite Raila to wherever and say to him, “My brother, here are two Cabinet portfolio lists. Pick one and I will take the other. It does not matter which you take.”

That will be a stately, dignified and responsible president. For now, President Kibaki can only increasingly take on the aura of a supercilious old man with regal and monarchical inclinations. He would care least that there are those who actually believe that he stole the election, regardless of the facts. Worse still, there is the perception that the national throne has been sprinkled with the blood of over 1,000 Kenyans.

But beyond this, Kenya needs men and women who can neither be bought nor sold, people whose hearts are true and honest, people who call sin by its name, people whose conscience is true to duty, as the needle is to the pole, people who stand for the truth, though the heavens fall.

The country should distance itself from untrustworthy leaders, such as the ODM-Kenya brigade in PNU. They are beginning to sound like the sycophants they used to be, under the oppressive Kanu regime. Such men belong to the law courts, where they embrace not the naked truth, but the robbed up and veiled truth that is the hallmark of most lawyers and all liars.

About The Author: Barrack Muluka (Hidden Email Address) is a publishing editor and media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers.