When America's might lands in Africa

Fifteen years ago, I was bemused when, while in Arusha, then visiting US President Bill Clinton's advance party of Secret Service agents let a sniffer dog into the limousine of the host, President William Mkapa. As one Tanzanian exclaimed then, which epitomised Africa's resignation to fate and history: Umaskini ni mbaya mno (poverty is indeed degrading).

As it is today in Kenya as we wait to receive the US leader, who has an iota of our blood flowing in his veins, roads were paved, new grass planted and even the two-ways turned into one-ways. Barriers cropped up everywhere in the town as Tanzanians washed the roads with Omo. The US leader, then smarting from the Lewinsky White House sex scandal he called 'inappropriate conduct', was visiting Tanzania for the Burundi Peace Talks chaired by Nelson Mandela, Africa's towering moral figure, anti-Apartheid hero and democracy trailblazer.