VARIOUS: A preoccupation with U.S. presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has gripped Africa

Record ID: 455723

  • Title: VARIOUS: A preoccupation with U.S. presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has gripped Africa
  • Date: 31st October 2008
  • Summary: EXTERIOR OF SCREEN PRINTING WORKSHOP
  • Embargoed: 15th November 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAE3Z545R81M8IMVTEMO3C8OTXL
  • Story Text: At music launches in Africa, the most popular theme these days seems to be that of a presidential candidate thousands of kilometres (miles) away - U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama.
    From Lagos to Cape Town, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is being heralded as the man who will change America, even the world - days before American citizens vote for their 44th president.
    Obama's face is appearing on badges, t-shirts, billboards and now music videos, with very little regard for intellectual property rights, as a wave of "Obama Mania" grips the continent.
    Musicians in Kenya appear to be pumping out Obama tunes as fast as they can come up with new songs about the democratic presidential candidate.
    Supporters from across the African continent are hoping their publicity campaigns will put Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, into the White House.
    Yaya Toure is a 33 year-old Ivorian who has been campaigning for an Obama win in the city of Abidjan. Toure, who started his campaign soon after Obama was declared the Democrat candidate for the elections, buys T-shirts in the commercial district of Adjame and takes them to a screen-printing workshop to have photos of Obama on them.
    Toure distributes his promotional material across the city, stopping to explain who Obama is and why Africans should support him.
    Printer Pascal Kabore is one of Toure's early converts.

    "This has prompted my conscience, knowing that this is happening in the United States. All countries turn towards the US for all that can be done in terms of big decisions. So it's very important, what Yaya's doing, and this candidate could potentially bring us hope," he said.
    Toure, a trader who pays for the promotional material out of his own pocket, says he believes an Obama win would see the United States pull out of Iraq, which, he says, would help solve the current world financial crisis.
    Toure believes it was the Iraq war that weakened the U.S. economy and led to the crisis.
    He has distributed several hundreds of Obama T-shirts and caps so far and in an effort to spread his message further, has even gone so far as to get an "Obama" haircut.
    In another west African country, Nigeria, supporters even started a fund-raising exercise, reaching out to some of the country's wealthiest citizens, before the government intervened, pointing out that U.S.
    presidential candidates are not allowed to receive donations from overseas.
    The group had already raised some 630,000 USD, which the government confiscated, saying it would be returned to contributors.
    Further south, in South Africa, Obama supporters can be found in shopping malls, petitioning shoppers and writing up messages of support.
    At the very tip of Africa, Cape Town resident Pussen Joachim Tabengwa, put it simply:
    "Barack Obama, he is our hope, he is our hope. We think things will change with Barack Obama," he said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Footage contains identifiable children: users must ensure that they comply with local laws and regulations governing the publishing of this material.
Register