Kampala — BARACK Hussein Obama won the American presidential elections, sending many people, especially in Africa and Uganda in particular, into joy and celebration. It is time now to get on the drawing board to plan how to get ourselves on Obama's agenda.
Lobbying and advocacy are proven tools in modern service delivery. We all know things just don't happen, they are made to happen.
We must have a convincing lobbying strategy with clear aims and understanding of our interests as a country and possibilities available for us on the American agenda.
How we strategise as a partner and not a beggar matters in how seriously we shall be taken by Washington DC.
That means we should not beg for aid which entrenches our slavery. We should work towards a fairer partnership; trade opportunities, increased investment, security guarantees and preferential treatment.
And the time to do this is now before the new Obama administration forms opinions and biases.
It is wrong to imagine that because he is black and a neighbour, Obama will automatically have us in mind during his policy planning and support implementation. The current financial crisis in the US may force Government to be so picky in foreign assistance and, to be realistic, Obama's main interest is America, not Africa.
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The best way Obama can help Africa is by insisting that he work with only African leaders who respect democracy, liberty, rule of constitutional law, and human rights; in short, good governance, which hardly fits the political circus that is now shamelessly on public display in Kampala that makes a mockery of paliamentary democracy. All these problems of economic development, investiments, and trade would become tractable if Africa was run with clean, transparent, and credible political leadership. Right now most Africa is run by a muddle of corrupt patronages and tin pot dictatoships, whose only interests are self-aggrandizements. Clean leadership makes tackling these other problems that have been thusfar intractable manageable, feasible and solvable. The old strategies of relying solely on the corrupt lobbysts in Washington is misguided and wasteful as it serves onlyy the interests of lobbysts not Africa. I find it naive for you to be advocating lobbying as a strategy when even America (and Obama) is trying to limit the power of lobbysts, the sharks that will easier make lunch of Africa or any of their clients for that matter.