Ochereome Nnanna
3 November 2008
As with Africans, many Nigerians have been entertaining romantic notions of what it could mean to be a member of the family of easily the most popular politician in the world today, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
But a Kenyan aunt of his living in Boston is having a direct experience of it, albeit a sour and disappointing one.
Her name is Zeituni Onyango. Obama, in his memoir worldwide bestselling memoir, Dreams From My Father, made a fond and rhapsodic mention of her. She and an uncle of Obama known in the same book as" Uncle Omar" had moved to the United States a few years ago and settled in Boston, hundreds of kilometres away from Chicago where the Obama's live.
Zeituni lives in a housing project meant for the financially invalid, a few kilometres from Harvard, where Obama, riding the American dream, had his university education.
World media attention has been focused on Zeituni and "Uncle Omar", who was savagely mugged by armed robbers recently. According to Timesonline reporter, James Bone: "a second relative believed to be the long-lost "Uncle Omar" described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a "sawed-off rifle" while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city.
He was later evicted from his one bedroom flat for failing to pay $2,324.20 (about 280,000 naira) arrears, according to the Boston Housing Court".
How could these two Obama's African relations, who were found relevant enough to be mentioned in his biography, be allowed to live in such penurious circumstances when their nephew is climbing right to the top of the world?
Obama is the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and favoured by most public opinion polls to emerge as the first black President of the United States after tomorrow's election. His campaign has raised record financial donations.
In September alone, it raised 150 million dollars and was so rich that it bought 30-minute prime time in at least five elite television networks to air his final campaign advertorial. Even though he lives a modest lifestyle, Obama and his wife's income was in the million dollar bracket even before he embraced the campaigns.
Media reports have it that Zeituni, in spite of her impecunious conditions, contributed her widow's mite of 260 dollars to the Obama campaign, and when reporters cornered her for interviews she declined to answer questions beyond saying she wished him success:
"I can't talk about it. I pray for him, that's all. After the 4th (election day) I can talk to anyone", an online newspaper quotes her as saying.
Watchers of this Obama family saga are puzzled that the millionaire presidential candidate allows his family to suffer in this manner.
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First, Obama grew up in the "White man's land" and is really, half white, and half black. A part of white culture states that "Kindness is not an enforcable act". Simply, this means that a man's property belongs to him, his wife and Children who are minors. It excludes all others, including his parents and grown up kids. In Nigeria(at least at Akassa in Bayelsa State) a man can stay with his parents for as long as possible. I did exactly that until my Father passed away. But, see what the White man does to his poor ones:One day, I was coming from the hanger in Opa-locka airport in Miami Florida. It was around 1900hrs and I saw a police road block ahead. Guess what? Someone had hit a homeless man with a car. I was surprised that this homeless man that panhandled daily for pennies had well-to-do relatives.The place looked like a Mercedez car lot. So, Obama is not brought up in the African culture where "It takes a village to raise a child". Dont you worry until he wins. He will take care of his people with time.