Snubbing Nigeria for Ghana

President Obama is deliberately snubbing Nigeria, said Ikeazor Akaraiwe in Nigeria’s Vanguard. The first African-American president will soon make his first official state visit to an African country. But that country will not be Nigeria, which has the largest black population in the world and is a “key supplier of crude oil” to the U.S. Instead, Obama is going to Ghana, a much smaller West African nation with little U.S. trade. By itself, “a visit by a U.S. president does not necessarily confer greatness upon a nation,” but Obama’s choice of Ghana is clearly a mark of favor—a sign that the country is worthy of notice. Ghana holds fair elections and has a vibrant economy. Nigeria, though known as the “giant of Africa,” is a giant that “continues to stumble like a drunken man.”

Nigerians are embarrassed that Obama won’t stop by, said Sola Odunfa in Modern Ghana. I was recently talking to a retired Nigerian diplomat who asked not to be named, and he said that in his day, every diplomat in all the Nigerian missions “in Europe and America would have been mobilized to ensure that President Obama at least made an airport stop” in Nigeria. After all, it’s practically next door to Ghana. The current Nigerian government, though, is so riddled with corruption that even its own diplomatic corps doesn’t listen to it.

The truth is, Nigeria doesn’t deserve the honor of a presidential visit, said Nigeria’s This Day in an editorial. Rumor has it that Nigeria was passed over because of “recent democratic shortcomings”—such as the 2007 elections, internationally condemned as fraudulent. Let this be a wake-up call to Nigerian leaders. “Disappointing as the Americans’ decision is, what it suggests is that Nigeria should stop sulking over the neglect it has suffered and work on its obvious deficiencies.”

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Nigeria’s best-known author agrees, said The Ghanaian Times. The Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka said Obama’s neglect was exactly the shock that Nigeria needs to spur it to get its act together. He actually said he’d “stone’’ Obama if he showed up in Nigeria and conferred legitimacy on its sorry government. “The message he is sending by going to Ghana is so obvious, is so brilliant, that he must not render it flawed by coming to Nigeria any time soon,” Soyinka said. The Nigerian government called Soyinka’s comments “unpatriotic.” From the Ghanaian point of view, of course, the choice was a no-brainer. “Nigeria is a failed state, while Ghana is both a thriving democracy and a political success in Africa—thus it was Obama’s preference.”

Ghana won this honor on the merits, said Asare Otchere-Darko in Ghanaweb.com. Since 1992, Ghana has enjoyed true, multiparty democracy, with incumbents stepping down once they reach their term limits. But the Obama visit is more than just a recognition that Ghana is a “beacon of hope” for Africa. We have plenty to offer the Americans. The U.S. wants to “out-muscle China” in the race to get access to African oil, and it wants a site for its new African military base. Ghana, as the most stable country in the oil belt of West Africa, is the ideal partner for the U.S. “It can be a win-win situation.”