allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Obama's America Free At Last! (Page 1 of 1)

Right from that cold January morning in 2007 that Barack Hussein Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States, most people didn't give this fair skinned lanky African American any benefit of doubt, let alone remember his funny looking name.

When several months ago I predicted the emergence of Barack Obama as the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States, only few people gave it a second thought. In fact, my wife called me a crazy man and an unreasonable Obama optimist. To many people now, Obama has suddenly become the presumptive nominee and will be confirmed at the party's national nominating convention coming up in Denver this August. I can now once more predict that this son of a Kenyan immigrant, this former Chicago community organiser, this former state senator from Chicago, and first term United States senator will be the first African American President of the United States. Once more, to many people this may sound like a pipe dream.

Obama himself, and his journey and quest is so far, nothing short of a mythical ride. I have watched and followed this man's campaign since January 2007; I have attended a host of his events; I have participated in some of his campaign activities; I have pumped hands with him; I have listened to almost all his speeches, starting from his keynote speech at the 2004 democratic party convention in Philadelphia; I have received and read signed copies of his books and I have concluded long before now that Obama is indeed a man after his destiny. I have long held this belief that every man's destiny will always be fulfilled and without sounding prevaricating, I believe Obama's destiny is to be the first black president of the United States.

What is intriguing about Obama is the fact that, the more the mainstream conservative talk show hosts dismiss him, the more regular people are attracted to him. The more cynics and regular politicians dismiss him, the more young people- democrats, republicans and independents flock to him. I was amazed when, one day, my two little daughters, Jessica and Jennifer aged 9 and 7 sang a song to me which they composed with Obama's name and acknowledged that they are Obama girls. More importantly, and perhaps more significantly, my daughters always scream when we talk about Obama (which is often), that their uncle is going to be the president of the United States. They now feel the dream of Dr Martin Luther King when the day that the sons of slaves and sons of slave owners will sit together on the table of brotherhood has now become real. They feel now Dr King's hope of the time when Americans will no longer look at the color of their skin, but rather, the content of their character.

For Obama, nobody gave him, (a lanky tall and slim man looking exactly like a Kenyan that he is, but in fair color) any snowball chance in heaven or even hell that he will go far. All the television network commentators 'predicted' he was wasting his time and that Hillary Clinton will fry him in the race. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Chris Mathews of NBC's Hardball, the late Tim Russet of NBC's Meet The Press, Keith Oberman of MSNBC's Let's Play Hardball, Lou Dobbs of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonite, Wolf Blitzer of CNN's Situation Room, Hannity and Colmes of Fox, Rush Limbaurgh and his conservative radio ,etc, even many average black leaders like Rev Jesse Jackson, congressman Clyde Claiborne, Andrew Young, congressman Charlie Rangel, congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, etc, all believed Obama was a huge joke and a great misadventure.

Indeed, over these months, Obama with the blood of Kenyan marathoners flowing in his veins has been busy organising throughout the caucus and primary states, especially those areas that are considered predominantly white where nobody would give a black man a chance, let alone an African. With his band of relatively young operatives led by David Axlerod, Obama fired the first signal when he swept the Iowa caucus with an overwhelming margin. As the Super Tuesday was approaching, everybody predicted again that this was going to be the day Hillary Clinton will close out the nomination contest. However, people of the Obama world were holed up in his Chicago headquarters and situation room, planning what will best be described as the greatest upset in the democratic presidential primary history. Young men and women, volunteers, and change agents were busy traversing the red states and blue states across the west coast, east coast, pacific coast and all the coasts in between. All of them had one slogan in mind 'Yes we can' and one placard in hand 'change we can believe in'. The numbers that came out from the Super Tuesday contests not only sent the chills into the Billary (Bill and Hillary) Clinton camp, but sent major signals to the leaders of the Democratic Party to pay more than a cursory attention to Obama. Obama won the majority of the votes, majority of the states and majority of the delegates. Clinton camp was thrown into disarray, both logistically and financially. It was also revealed that not only was Obama leading Clinton in the votes, he was also ahead of her in the fundraising numbers. While Clinton had maxed out in her pool of high end and corporate donors, Obama still had millions of regular Americans who were donating double digit amounts, assuring his war chest an average of $40 million dollars per month.

Judgment day came for many of the other candidates after the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses as they had to decide between continuing to run or to drop out. Of course, seeing the hand writing on the wall and with limited funds, many decided to drop out. But what was more significant was that, as they were dropping out, many didn't want to gamble against the now presumed frontrunner and so, the endorsements came coming the Obama way. Chris Dodd, the ranking and prominent United States senator from Connecticut was the first to fire the Obama endorsement salvo, followed by Joe Bidden, another ranking and prominent United States senator from Delaware, both presidential candidates. However, more devastating to the Clinton camp was the decision by Bill Richardson to endorse Obama. Richardson, a close Clinton ally, former UN ambassador, former secretary of Energy, governor of New Mexico and prominent presidential candidate was highly courted by the Clintons, not just because of their friendship with him or his clout, but because of the major pool of Hispanic voters who are his core base. As Obama was widening his lead on the pledged delegates, so was he also narrowing Clinton's lead on super delegates, many of whom were now conscious of not betting on a losing horse.

As the Obama phenomenon was beginning to defy all the pundits' permutations and predictions, so was he also racking up the endorsements of many more very critical democratic leaders. The de-facto Democratic Party leader and immediate past presidential candidate of the party, John Kerry, choose the home state of the struggling John Edwards of North Carolina to endorse Obama. Even though Edwards was Kerry's running mate in 2004 and a candidate in this 2008 race, Kerry wanted to send a signal that this was the time for all candidates to cue behind Obama and unite the party.

Even more thunderous was the Kennedy clan endorsement. The endorsements of the Kennedys seemed like the moral compass the rest of the nation needed to come out completely swinging for Obama. Not only did they endorse him, they went on the road with Obama taking his hope of a new America to democrats, republicans and independents in the remaining primary and caucus states. With all these calculated campaigns, the increasing delegates count, the mad dash by super delegates to join the Obama train, Obama seemed unstoppable. But not until the Chesapeake primaries of Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC which, of course, Obama swept completely, did it finally hit the Clinton camp that Obama will indeed clinch the ticket.

To millions of people worldwide, Obama's ride is like a movie script or a moonlight story. But to me, Obama happened not suddenly. The stars lined up for him. He has the blood of marathoners in his veins. His time is now and his buck stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, very close to my Washington office. So help us God.

•Ike C. Ibe, a former Imo State representative in Washington DC and governorship aspirant, writes from the US

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