Why Obama snubbed African leaders

Earlier in June report emerged that US president Barrack Obama was set to host 18 African leaders as part of the 50th year of independence celebrations in about 17 countries in Sub Saharan Africa. That meeting was reportedly scheduled for this August.

It is now August, but instead of the infamously onerous national leaders, the US president was been seen the world over addressing what he called ‘the next generation of leaders’ of Africa.
Already, the consensus among observers in African is that this is the Obama White House’s way of dismissing the repulsive attitude of the continent’s “older leaders”, as he called them.

Even though the US government never officially identified with that earlier announced meeting with African leaders, President Obama was quoted as saying he was looking for a “fresh start” as regard development initiatives for Africa.
So whether the failure of the US government to invite African leaders was a rebuff or not, it is more than obvious that its decision to appeal to the continent’s younger generation for collaboration suggests a lack of hope on the part of the older generation of leaders.
It goes without saying that there can hardly be any “fresh start” where the relationship involves any of the present crop of African leaders – from Banjul to Asmara, Rabat to Harare…
African governments starving of some semblance of legitimacy among their people kind of derive some form of credibility from relationships that conveys a picture of international recognition – like being invited to meetings with deserving world leaders… So for those who remain pessimistic about the current trend of democratization of the African continent, it is a source of relief that Obama “snubbed” African leaders and denied them the much desired chance of legitimizing their repressive regimes with images of themselves and the US president.
This move by the US government is therefore a commendable one.
Having said this, we do not expect the US to make this out plainly; but Obama’s words to the young, sharp and perceptive younger generation African leaders were as clear as the daylight.
“…sometimes the older leaders get into old habits, and those old habits are hard to break…what we wanted to do was to communicate directly to people who may not assume that the old ways of doing business are the ways that Africa has to do business,” Obama told his guests at the White House.
Simply put, the US president was saying that all hope has been lost on the current crop of corrupt, totalitarian, less productive … African leaders.
The Washington meeting between Obama and the young African leaders carries with it enormous optimism in that, as expressed by the visiting youths themselves, there is reasonable awareness among African youths on the various factors hindering the development of the continent – diseases, poverty, etc. all of which are the upshot of a repulsive trend of bad governance.
The hope is that this initiative by the Obama administration will be a routine from now on. It could possibly be like a recruiting ground for future leaders of the continent.