As someone commissioned in 2008 by Dimgba Igwe of blessed memory, the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor – in – Chief of The Sun Publishing Limited, an ideal and role model Christian, to write about Professor Barack Obama’s incoming presidency on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, I feel obliged to review his performance at the end of his two – term administration. As I noted in that piece I did nine years ago, as the first African – American and non – Caucasian president of the United States, it was incumbent on Obama to perform extraordinarily well to enhance the prestige and honour of black people the world over. Given the foolish statement in 2007 by 79 year – old Professor James Dewey Watson, that black people were less intelligent than the whites.
A pronouncement that was taken seriously by members of his race and maybe some blacks, because the man was an American geneticist in the team that discovered the structure of DNA in the 1950s and a 1962 co – winner of the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. DNA being deoxyribonucleic acid, a substance in the chromosomes of most organisms, storing genetic information.
Before going into Obama’s performance let me first thank Almighty God that he was not assassinated during the presidential campaigns in 2008 and during his eight years in the White House, because three Caucasians were arrested in New York in the August of that year for plotting to kill him. While two other white men were nabbed for the same offence in October in Memphis, Tennessee, the city where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the renowned African – American civil rights leader, was shot dead on Saturday, April 4, 1968.
President Abraham Lincoln (1861 – 65) was assassinated for ending slavery in the U.S. and setting the blacks free. While President John Kennedy (1961 – 63) was murdered by another white man in 1963 for his civil rights disposition to African – Americans. So, it is significant and praiseworthy that in spite of the early threats to his life that Obama, the first African – American president of the U.S., did not die in office.
Given the fact that Caucasian population in the U.S. is 78% and that of the Africans is 12%, it goes without saying that Obama became president because he was by far better than his white opponents during the Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2012 and the Republican flag bearers who squared up with him during the two presidential polls of those years. Indeed, it is on record that Senator Hillary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton (1993 – 2001), whom Obama defeated during the Democratic primaries in 2008, said she decided to support him during the presidential poll because of his brilliance and fertile ideas about governance and the economy and her strong conviction that he was better and more competent to be the president of the U.S. than Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate.
Mrs. Clinton’s opinion was confirmed by the fact that Obama’s approval rating before he assumed office in 2009 was 84%. The evidence that he performed very well during his presidency is that the rating was a little higher at the end of his eight – year tenure last week Thursday. Whereas the rating of Bill Clinton in 1993 was 67% and that of George Bush 61%, but they never reached the 70% mark when they left office in 2001 and 2009 respectively. That of Donald Trump who succeeded Obama on Friday was 40%, we wait to see what it will be when he completes his term in 2021.
Reading through the biographies of all the 44 First Citizens the U.S. has had from George Washington (1789 – 97) to date only 17 were re-elected before Obama. Seven of them came up between 1789 and 1881, another seven from 1881 – 1961 and four between 1961 and 2009. Meaning that they and Obama performed very well during their first terms. Indeed, I find Obama to be among the best and most outstanding eight of the 44 presidents in the achievements they recorded during their tenures.
Continues next week Wednesday
Ozekhome on Awo & Ibb issue
I write this to put in proper perspective the statement of Barrister Mike Ozekhone, Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in his Hard Facts column in the Daily Sun of last week Wednesday, January 18, that General Ibrahim Babangida, military head of state (August 27, 1985 – August 26, 1993), was the one who described Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), as the best president Nigeria never had. It is an error that has been on for 30 years, only that before now others had been crediting the statement to late Chief Emeka Ojukwu, the Head of State of the defunct Biafra Republic (1967 – 70), who himself was not is author.
What Babangida said when Awo died in May 1987 was that he was the main issue of discussion in the country’s politics in the second half of the 20th century. He never made reference to him as the best First Citizen the nation missed having. Babangida is alive for Ozekhone to cross – check from him which of the two tributes he paid to Awo. The description of the UPN leader as the best president Nigeria never had originated from Dan Agbese, the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor – in – Chief of Newswatch Magazine, in his column in the journal a few days after Awo went to glory.
In fairness to Ojukwu, in repeating Agbese’s statement he had said that as someone had noted, Awo was, indeed, the best president Nigeria never had. It is journalists and other people that later began crediting him as the person who came up with the tribute.
To be continued next week Wednesday along with the wrongful attribution of Babangida’s nickname of Maradona to former Governor, Bisi Onabanjo of Ogun State and siddon look to Governor Bola Ige of Oyo State, instead of the two journalists who came up with them in their columns in the Nigerian Tribune and The Guardian on Sunday respectively.