Let’s start with the latter. It has to do with the election, for the first time in history, of a black man (nay the son of an African sojourner to America less than fifty years ago) as the President of the United States of America. His name, you know, is Senator Barack Obama.

Obama is indisputably the most popular person alive, at least today. Let me justify with personal experiences. Penultimate Sunday, I decided to come into Washington from Baltimore by Amtrak express train. MARC, the much cheaper Maryland State Department of Transportation local train, does not run on Sunday. At the Washington Metro, I entered

The Hudson News bookstore where, among other items, I saw a large quantity of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin campaign memorabilia (statues, caps, t-shirts and what have you). There was none of US President-elect, Senator Barack Obama.

I enquired from the shop attendants and was told that most of the Obama items had been SOLD OUT. However, only a copy of a rubber statue of Obama standing in front of a podium and clutching the American flag in its right hand remained in its shelf and it was sold to me for the princely sum of $45.

When I returned to Nigeria a couple of days later, my children, all under ten, greeted me with shouts of “Obama!” (a colleague in the office here later teased me: “Ochereome Obama”).

I told the kids to wait until they saw the real Obama. I showed them the rubber image and it tripped off an atmosphere of excitement that was shared by all the kids in the neighbourhood who had come to see what the hoopla was all about.

When a person is popular even among the local women and children, then he/she is popular indeed.
I remember when we were children.

Even before we enrolled in primary school, we knew all about Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik), Dr. Michael Okpara, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe and many of the more popular founding fathers of Nigerian politics. After every meal we thanked our mother thus: “Thank you, Mama Zik”, one would say.

“Thank you, Mama Okpara”, another would say. And so on. No one ever called our mother “Mama Awolowo” or “Mama Mbadiwe” because these politicians had been made to look bad by the reigning local political leaders who spread political awareness to the grassroots where the women and children caught the gist.

LITTLE did we know that the exact reverse  was the case in other parts of Nigeria, where those we regarded as villains were the heroes who made life more abundant for their people just as ours did for us.

While we named a particularly nasty, fast-growing farm weed “Awolowo”, I was much later to learn that among the Yoruba during the war, a large cooking pot used in making the local dough known as amala was nicknamed: “Ojukwu” because its soot-blackened bottom resembled former Biafran leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s heavily bearded visage!

I tell you, there was a time in this country when, even politics, was a very exciting pastime freely enjoyed by all. Which local Nigerian politician have I heard children talk about recently? Fashola, perhaps.

On Monday, November 11 2008, one of the most protracted election petition cases so far – the Edo State governorship case at the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, came to a final close with Comrade Adams Oshiomhole emerging victorious. Benin City simply lost its cool.

Imagine the level of wild celebration that took the lives of five overjoyed people! Oshiomhole was instantly nicknamed: “Obama”, an ode to his popularity and the final realisation of the people’s long delayed mandate. I have never seen Benin in that mood in a long time.

The last time that level of happiness suffused the ancient city was in the days of Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, the magic man whose gubernatorial exploits in old Mid West and later Bendel State is still the stuff of legend. With the close of the Ogbemudia era, it seemed that the good times were over for the people, especially since the state was split.

The series of incompetent governors that have afflicted Edo State since its inception soured the people into cynicism. The entry of Comrade Oshiomhole into the political fray early last year brought the Edo electorate in their droves to the polling booths.

They wanted one of their sons who had triumphed as the leader of organised Labour in a very dictatorial Olusegun Obasanjo political era to come home and change the fortunes of their state.

But, just like some other states infected by Obasanjo’s vermin of do-or-die politics, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), despite the failed Lucky Igbinedion regime it sponsored, used its local leaders and political “fixers” to ram an Obasanjo acolyte, Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor, a renowned pro-third term former Senator, into power. Oshiomhole thus became the third governor in the southern zones of Nigeria to triumph over Obasanjo’s evil democratic designs through the judicial process after Peter Obi of Anambra State and Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers.

Now comes the harder part of the story: meeting the needs and expectations of the teeming humanity who have invested so much hope and passion. Human emotion, especially that of a mob, is a shifting sand dune.

Experience has shown that when a person is going up in the world, the people who are rating you so highly, praising you, rejoicing with you, rhapsodising and romancing your person, are actually sowing seeds of expectation.

In the cases of Barack Obama and Adams Oshiomhole who are political leaders, the expectations are of the selfish type: they are seen as the messiahs to rescue the people from economic distress.  

The whole world believes that George Bush and his Republican Party’s approach to international relations belongs in the past. They have lost confidence in America’s ability to lead the way, and yet there is no immediate replacement, unlike in the early 1990’s when the world turned to America when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The world is looking for someone who understands the imperative of applying 21st Century solutions to 21st century diplomatic problems.

Obama campaigned on that platform. Therefore his victory has placed not just Americans but also the entire world on a heightened state of expectations. He has no choice but to succeed. Failure is not an option. It is not just a case of moving from President-elect to President-eject. It is the ultimate test of the true abilities of the black man to run a democracy and solve complicated economic problems. If Obama fails it is the black man that loses everything in that there may never be a second chance to make amends.

The same thing applies to Oshiomhole who, like Barack Obama, is from a minority section. His charisma and popularity transcends primordial calculations (race/ethnicity, sex, religion). But if Oshiomhole fails people will quickly remember he is from a minority Edo North, though no more a Moslem.

The local political fixers will revive with a vengeance. The Benin monarchy will turn the screws. As I noted elsewhere, the people who are shouting Hosanna will now shout crucify him. They must shout something.

As minority elements, Obama and Oshiomhole do not have the benefit of an Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, who after dashing the expectations of many Nigerians, went for the sledgehammer of intimidation when people complained. In any case, the level of expectation peopled invested on Yar’ Adua was not that much. He is still an enduring relic of Obasanjo’s do-or-die democracy. 

He has doused the political heat Obasanjo ignited all over the country because impunity thrives on political heat. But he has not done much to tackle the problems of the economy, infrastructural decay, the power sector, institutionalised corruption and the Niger Delta. If you ask him why, he tells you he is still planning and designing.

A Nigerian president can survive, even when he fails. He can even win a second term in spite of his failures. We saw that with Obasanjo. Obama and Oshiomhole do not have the benefit of such luxury.

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