Obama’s trip will inspire generations but his speeches on Africa were off the mark

US President Barack Obama gestures during his speech at Safaricom Sports Gymnasium, Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi on July 26, 2015. What Obama said in Nairobi is largely irrelevant. It was just enough that he came at all. FILE PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • His speechwriters could have done a better job in crafting the message he passed on during his Africa trip.
  • The people who wrote several paragraphs demanding that Kenya should allow women to get an education, for example, must have checked their Kenya facts decades ago.
  • The number of girls enrolled in primary schools surpassed that of boys several years ago.
  • What Obama said in Nairobi is largely irrelevant. It was just enough that he came at all.

President Obama’s speechwriters could have done a better job in crafting the message he passed on during his Africa trip.

He repeated too many stock phrases and declared the obvious too emphatically.

The people who wrote several paragraphs demanding that Kenya should allow women to get an education, for example, must have checked their Kenya facts decades ago.

In fact, partly as a result of free primary education, the number of girls enrolled in primary schools surpassed that of boys several years ago.

As John Page of the Brookings Institution pointed out in a blog, Obama’s old prescriptions – that Africa needs more transparency, better rule of law and reforms to improve the business environment – are a “familiar litany” that really doesn’t say anything new.

In fact, Page argues, the central debate in Africa should be how to move people from low-wage, low-productivity sectors and address the infrastructure and skills gaps that have held back industrialisation on the continent.

The Asian economic powerhouses moved their people from poverty to a broad middle class existence mainly because they industrialised on a massive scale, meaning people shifted from being “working poor” to holding high-wage, high productivity jobs.

In fact, at the risk of attracting a lynch mob, I would argue that even corruption is not really the massive barrier to progress on the continent that every “Africa expert” claims it is.

As is often pointed out by economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, many countries with very corrupt ruling elites have enjoyed rapid economic progress.

Malaysia, Turkey, Brazil and China to name a few.

What much of Africa lacks is the quality of leaders that these countries possessed at critical points in their history, people with the drive and imagination to restore their nation’s dignity by striving relentlessly for economic progress.

Yet all this is meaningless nitpicking. What Obama said in Nairobi is largely irrelevant. It was just enough that he came at all.

That we had the good fortune to “drink the same air,” as we say in some communities, with a figure of tremendous historic significance.

Very few visitors to Kenya will see babies named after them, ringtones sold in their name and foreign flags sold in the hundreds.

Obama means an awful lot to many around the world, a fact which explains why so many companies rushed out ads trying to cash in on the visit. (“Yes we can – make juice”, was a particular favourite, advertising a juice blender.)

Obama could get away even with some of his misguided lectures because he is a “son of the soil” and a man who, even when he is hectoring, speaks with a humility and genuineness that offers him a free pass.

His visit has been analysed too much on micro details revolving around what he said. In fact, it was just enough that he came. T

hat we saw him at close quarters. And that millions of young people have a towering historic figure – with Kenyan roots – to look up to as an inspiration.

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Much has been made of the ticking off that the opposition leaders received at the hands of the American president.

In fact, Obama might have done the opposition a favour and offered them a chance to revive their fortunes.

The Cord leadership’s “Kenya is collapsing” narrative just doesn’t fit the facts.

In fact, a lot of businessmen seated in Europe and Washington and looking for a foothold in this part of the world are choosing Kenya due in part to questions over South Africa’s long-term stability, the well recorded issues around living in Lagos and the relatively small consumer class in Accra.

A better approach for the opposition would be to offer an alternative vision and outline a message of hope.

To agree that “Kenya is on the move” but that it can be so much more.

The great debate among political strategists is whether it is better to campaign on a platform of grievance or one of hope.

Obama passed on a message that he believes in the hope narrative and the need for alternatives rather than permanently lamenting.