arack Obama has made history by becoming the first black person to be elected President of the United States of America. History has been made and we all can be thankful that it came to be in our life time and before our own very eyes. Much has been written and much will be written about this epochal and monumental event and about the man himself.

advertisement

However, the object of my discourse in this article is not the incoming President , rather it is the outgoing President George W. Bush who will be handing over the baton to President- elect Barack Obama.

Despite my happiness at the election of a Black man as the USA President, I am not one for unbridled expectations. And I am sorry to be a party pooper, but there are a lot of unreasonable and unrealistic expectations by some Nigerians and Blacks in general about what an Obama Presidency portends for them, their community and the African continent. For example, why should an Obama Presidency result in the transfer of wealth from America to Africa as some commentors believe?

Once again, and to our long standing detriment, we look to the West to resolve all our problems in Africa. We are simply passing the buck of our own failures. And we ignorantly believe that simply because a President, who happens to be Black, will now be in the White house, he will wave a magic wand and all our woes (most of which are self-inflicted) will just disappear.

Obama was not elected by black votes alone, but by whites, Hispanics and Jews. Thus he cannot just abandon all the constituencies that elected him and then focus on Blacks, and even if he were to focus on blacks, he will at least focus on Black Americans. And to focus on Blacks only means that he will serve only one term since he will surely not win a re-election for so doing. And in looking abroad, President Obama will have to see the whole world at large and not just fixate on Africa.

This brings us to the man handing over to him. Despite being deeply unpopular at home and abroad, George Bush was a very good friend of Africa and he saved more African lives than all the rudderless leaders up and down the continent, yet he has largely failed to receive credit and appreciation for this out of the sheer ignorance of most Africans of his good work and initiatives.

Under George Bush the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief was launched in 2004. With a budget of $15bn (£7.6bn) Pepfar was launched with the ultimate goal of providing treatment and care to 19 million people with HIV, mainly in Africa and the Caribbean.

Pepfar's 15 priority nations are Kenya, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia

"Pepfar's has been hailed as a "revolution" that is transforming healthcare in Africa and has been praised as the most significant aid programme since the end of colonialism."

The success of the US programme is due to combining large amounts of money to fund drugs with wider assistance that goes beyond the individual with HIV. Pepfar's achievements include:-

• Supplying ARVs to about 1.4 million people
• In South Africa, Pepfar is providing 200,000 people with ARVs
• Supplying medical equipment and training large numbers of healthcare staff.
• Reaching into households hit by Aids with programmes to put children through school and help those with HIV to carry on working.
• Pepfar is the major contributor to a tenfold increase over the past four years in the numbers of Rwandans on ARVs to nearly 50,000 people.
• 70% of Rwandans who need the ARV drugs receive them.
• The average life expectancy of Rwandans improved by four years due to Pepfar.
• Pepfar money is used to pay for 39,000 children to go to school in Rwanda.
• $3.3m slice of Pepfar's $386m budget in Kenya last year funded an expansion from a few dozen staff and church volunteers to a network of 11 clinics and 300 staff including nurses, social workers, clinicians and nutritionists.

Additionally In June 2005 Bush launched the President's Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion, 5-year plan to reduce deaths caused by malaria by 50 percent in 15 African countries.

In addition to providing bed nets to protect against mosquitoes, the malaria initiative supports indoor spraying of insecticide as well as anti-malarial drugs and medicine to treat the disease. The mosquito nets, treated with a special insecticide, can be manufactured locally as is done in Tanzania, hence providing employment for local people.

The UN says that Malaria is the main cause of death for children in Africa, killing a child every 30 seconds. The World Health Organization agrees stating that one in every five childhood deaths in Africa is due to the effects of the disease. So the $10 mosquito nets are saving millions of lives.

In May 2007 President Bush urged Congress to approve an additional $30 billion for the global fight against AIDS over the next five years. He reiterated the call in December 2007, and then embarked on a tour of Africa in 2008.

Obama will have to meet and then surpass the achievements of George Bush in Africa to justify the fanatical adoration and hero-worshipping by many Blacks.

As for me, I watch and wait. No sentimental rubbish for me. Obama is first and foremost an American politician with an eye to being re-elected. He will not, indeed cannot, pander to any overwhelming Black agenda, but I hope that he can and will emulate and even surpass the good work that George W Bush has started in Africa and save African lives in their millions.

I wish President- elect Obama well and much success, not only for the sake of Americans of all hue that elected him but also for the sake of Africa: his continent of Origin.