US citizens could elect female president 2024

Not long ago, Prof Ali A Mazrui delivered one of his key trademark and seminal public lectures titled, Are African politics ethnic-prone, and can African constitutions be ethnic-proof? A question from the audience diverted the distinguished professor’s intellectual ammunition, hitherto firmly aimed at Africa’s allegedly imperfect institutions and constitutions, to an unlikely target: Mazrui’s own hosts, the United States of America.

The question was simple but thought-provoking: Why has the USA, the world’s stellar upholder of human rights, women suffrage, and a supposed paragon of good governance, failed to produce a woman president after 250 years of independence? Why, to restate the question, has the dreaded ‘global cop’ failed to arrest his own apparent sexism?