Obama and Pan-Africanism.

Dear Barack,

Welcome home. For a Son of the Soil, you have been a bit too casual with your timetables. It took you seven years to come home? We will cut you some slack if you promise that once you stop that nonsense of being the Leader of the Free World you will buy a small shamba near Nyakach and plant sugarcane or keep a few cows.

That isn't why I am writing. I know many people are curious about what you and Uhuru will have to say to each other, but since Uhuru is a bit secretive, I don't really expect I will ever really know - so I don't care about that. I don't care if you and Ruto shake hands. It's not like I know the guy. I don't even care that your Supreme Court said gays can marry in all fifty States. I know Mark Kariuki and the wingnuts in his crew do, but since most of them are crooks, I don't care what they think either.

I want to talk to you about something more important.

You're going to be out of a job in less than two years. What exactly do you plan o to do after that? Bill has already cornered the market on ex-presidential do-gooding and no one does Bill better than Bill. So that job is out. You weren't exactly the sharpest economic thinker of your generation, so the World Bank and IMF are out. Take a lesson from the Paul Wolfowitz fiasco and let those ones go.

We can't give you the United Nations either. That one has always been Africa's consolation prize, though now that we are getting into bed with the Chinese it might seem like a prudent moment to reconsider the whole kit and caboodle anyway. Climate change is out; that would just make the life of the Secret Service harder for nothing because this one won't get solved in your lifetime. Middle East peace is a presidential thing; what Tony Blair is doing there remains a mystery only he can answer.

There is something that you can do that would immeasurably improve the world. I am not kidding. Pan-Africanism has been delayed for a century and I think if there is someone who can give it a shot at success it is you. Even WEB Dubois thought it could be done. Kwame Nkrumah started well, but then he became as perfidious as the British he had helped to drive out of Africa. Every other pan-Africanist who became a head of state started out well and ended up robbing his people blind. Except idealists like Thomas Sankara who were murdered and Nelson Mandela who never had enough time.

You could do it. You are already an African so no one would question why a Hawaiian is promoting pan-Africanism in his spare time. You have the charisma and the connections and the youthfulness that can get it done. Look at the map of Africa and you wonder how it even manages to get from year to year without some serious calamity stopping it in its tracks. Imagine if you could ride the train from Johannesburg to Cairo without having to worry about visas or bandits, Mombasa to Accra without having to worry about a restive DRC. Power from the Gibe III or the Inga might power the whole continent without the need to build under-used plants all over the place.

All those goals you have for Africa - all those dreams - are coming true only if pan-Africanism is a reality. If you were looking for a post-presidential career, that's the one I would recommend. And then you can be the President of the World we all believed you could be when you upended the politics of the United States forever.

Samson.

P.S. I have seen those helicopters of yours flitting around in Nairobi. A word of caution, though; don't let them land anywhere in Githurai 45. Those people don't play. The scrap metal business is just too lucrative, iwinjo?