Alert me, please, when Barack Obama leaves for Ethiopia

I checked out of the United States of America, President Barack Obama’s city to be precise, in a hurry on Thursday. I fled to Kajiado County and will not be back until the coast is clear. By that I mean when we will have reclaimed back our capital and country.

Listen to this: “I don’t give a damn! Where Air Force One lands, that’s America!” Those words were spat at two Ugandan journalists and me at the Entebbe International Conference Centre by a mean, stern, furious and heavily armed US Marine.

No, I don’t look for trouble; it is the other way round. It was 1998 and I was in Uganda to cover visiting US President Bill Clinton. My colleagues and I wanted to get into the centre and cover Clinton and East African heads of state that had converged on Entebbe.

But there was a little local difficulty. We were three minutes late. We made it past local uniformed and plainclothes police after identifying and explaining ourselves.

They understood; there was just too much traffic in town given all those visiting heads of state.

COMMANDING SYMBOL

But we were stopped metres from the door by the Marine. My colleague let the Marine know that he was a Ugandan journalist and he should not be denied passage into a Ugandan facility in Uganda to cover Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who was President Clinton’s host.

That is how the Marine let us know Entebbe was America. Air Force One was parked on the tarmac at Entebbe International Airport. That actually meant that Uganda became America because Clinton visited several places in the country, among them Jinja and Mukono.

Oh, yes. You see that plane becomes Air Force One when the President of the United States (POTUS) boards it. When he boards, an announcement is made to that effect and those aboard made aware “we are now Air Force One.” Mm! Where a US president goes, that is America!

Indeed, quite apart from transporting the American president, Air Force One is a commanding symbol of the power and authority of the presidency. Did you see it on the tarmac at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport? It also projects America’s power in the world.

OWN ASSETS

Two, I quit the US and Obama’s city because fearsome power was excessively in evidence via the numbers of uniformed and plainclothes police in the streets, lanes and alleys; taxis, buses and tuk tuks; houses, hovels and hotels, and in trees, thickets and flowers.

I was, of course, assured by Security minister Joseph Nkaissery that all these men and women were abroad because of the security of Kenyans. I agree! I happen to know that the Secret Service, which protects the US president, makes no secret of this fact: “The US is the only country in the world which protects its president anywhere in the world using its own assets.”

An American who knows what he is talking about told me: “Security for President Obama in Africa will be three times what it usually is when he is in the US.”

Last, a wag told me the security cameras installed in Obama’s city are such serious equipment they will pick out the strands of hair in my nose! Please let me know when Air Force One is in Ethiopian airspace so that I may return to Kenya.

***

President Kenyatta is fast-maturing in his pressure-cooker job and in handling media’s pesky questions. When asked about same-sex relationships at his Tuesday news briefing, you would at first have thought he did not even know what he was being asked about.

And, then, with an air of seriousness and a fleeting hint of contempt, he let it be known that there are more important issues Kenyans would like to see their leaders discuss with the visiting US President. He must have anticipated that question about gays.

When asked whether Deputy President William Ruto, who faces crimes-against-humanity charges at the International Criminal Court, will be among government officials to meet President Obama, the President was smarter:

“The US President will meet the government that is in place. The last time I checked, the Deputy President was part of it.”

Again, he had anticipated that question. But it is one thing to anticipate and quite another to give an answer that does not open a can of worms.

And, that front-page picture from the cancer forum! The President was smiling into First Lady Margaret’s adoring gaze. Wow!

Opanga is a media consultant; [email protected]