Who cares if Barack Obama wins or loses on Tuesday?
Just as alcohol and drugs are a recreation for the frustrated, so have Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and other English Premier league football teams become the escape routes for millions of Ugandans who support them, with a passion, in order to forget the excruciating pain of their poverty, hunger, illnesses, joblessness and hopelessness.
Why, if not for its illusory relief effects, would Ugandans invest so much emotion and time in English football where not a single Ugandan is playing professionally or otherwise? As if English football is not intoxicating enough, Ugandans have taken on the Obamamania! From hair saloons to the taxi parks, from radio talk-shows to print and electronic media, and from city bars to village malwa clubs; everywhere, everyone is talking about and waiting for Mr Barack Obama, Luo and black, to become US President next Tuesday.
Some Ugandan Luos have even performed witchcraft to ensure that Mr Obama wins because he is "one of us!" After all, "westerners" have persecuted us for 23 years, and imprisoned millions in concentration camps! One Luo woman, Anyomoker, has even written an amorous poem, "Tribute to Obama, the Luo President I love!"
Non-Luos are equally desperate for Mr Obama to become president because he is "Black", like us. After all, blacks were enslaved four hundred years ago, used as agricultural implements, physically and sexually abused in every way imaginable, and called apes by the white man.
Mr Obama's win, they argue, would prove once and for all to the white supremacists in London, Washington, Brussels and Canberra that blacks are equal to, if not better than them! This deafening chorus of euphoria about Mr Obama begs many sobering questions about what, if practical benefits, his presidency would bring to Uganda. Will President Obama suddenly turn Uganda into a new-age Garden of Aden where milk and honey would ooze from the skies, and the streets be paved with gold?
Will he create enough jobs, with extra to spare for the 13 million unemployed Ugandans currently living in abject poverty? And will he open US boarders and allow all black Ugandans to receive US green cards that essentially citizenship in that country on arrival?
Will President Obama order Gen. Yoweri Museveni to prosecute his corrupt officials who were involved in the junk helicopter, ghost soldiers, Global Fund for HIV/Aids and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) scandals; as well as Lt. Ramathan Magara who callously murdered Vincent Kavuma, Gideon Makabayi, Joseph Wegulo and Haruna Byamukama?
Will he ‘make' Museveni dismantle the IDP camps, and implement the recommendations of the Commonwealth and European Union election reports, and level the political playing field well ahead of the 2011 polls?
And will President Obama order General Museveni prosecute and convict or release Dr Kizza Besigye and all the so-called People's Redemption Army (PRA) rebels, many of whom have died in jail without receiving justice? If two Luo presidents; Milton Obote and Tito Okello managed only to give Ugandan Luos a false sense of victory before death visited their very home, what good would a distant Luo US president do for them?
And if, for 46 years since independence from the white man, eight different black presidents have not given Ugandans lasting peace and sustainable development, why should anyone believe that a black US president will do the trick?
In Africa, will President Obama wave a magic wand and end the vicious cycle of wars, poverty, famine and refugee exodus which grip the continent? And will he order the immediate removal of US military bases from Kenya's Camp Simba naval base, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Senegal?
Granted, Obama is unlikely to send US cruise missile crashing on pharmaceutical factories in the Sudan. But will he ensure the Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia, and end US cruise missiles attacks on Somali refugee camps, killing thousands of innocent men, women and children?
Does anyone seriously believe that a President Obama will accord special privileges to Uganda in particular and Africa in general simply because he is a Luo and black? Why can't we get real and recognise that Barack Obama is an American first, second and third; and his being Luo and black is immaterial in US-Africa policy terms?
Why are we so obsessed with ethnicity, tribe and our skin colour? Isn't Barrack Obama just another intoxicating agent like English football, drugs and alcohol, giving impoverished Ugandans a false, temporary sentimental relief before reality sets in? Why should anyone care whether he wins or loses, given that his presidency will bring no practical value to Uganda? Why?
