Why Obama Chose Ghana

President Obama has arrived in Ghana, the final stop of his week-long three country trip abroad. Air Force One touched down in Accra just before midnight local time. Because of the late hour, there was no official arrival ceremony—though he and his family were greeted on the tarmac by his counterpart, President John Atta Mills, and a small team of colorful dancers. Your Gaggler wasn’t on Air Force One (we’re flying home with the president tomorrow), but we assume he saw what reporters on the press plane witnessed upon arrival: Streets dotted with large billboards and signs featuring Obama, as well as tiny American flags everywhere with Obama’s face printed over the red and white stripes. And this was only from the less than five-minute ride from the airport to the hotel where the president and his family are sleeping tonight. We’re told Obama’s image is plastered all over central Accra, where the president is scheduled to visit with local leaders and deliver a major speech before the Parliament.

Obama is the third consecutive U.S. president to visit Ghana—though he’s getting far more attention because he’s the first president of African descent to visit a sub-Saharan African nation. His stop here on the way home from Russia and then Italy was considered slightly random, but as the world debates what to do about Africa, Obama needed a country here to highlight as an example of democratic progress and what that does to promote economic stability. Ghana is one of the few countries here to fit that bill. “There is a direct correlation between governance and prosperity,” Obama said in an interview with the Web site AllAfrica. “Countries that are governed well, that are stable, where the leadership recognizes that they are accountable to the people and that institutions are stronger than any one person have a track record of producing results for the people. And we want to highlight that.”

As your Gaggler noted earlier today, Obama had a private meeting this morning back at the G-8, where he talked with several foreign leaders about his personal connection to Africa and how his own family continues feel the effects of poverty and local corruption. Obama will highlight those issues in his speech before local lawmakers here where he’s expected to highlight Ghana’s record of good governing as model for other African nations to follow. He’s expected to say that good governing is as important, if not more important than what summits like the G-8 stand to do for the continent. Africa has to help itself as much as others help it.

But Obama’s visit here will be more emotional than political at times. After meeting with leaders, Obama and his wife, Michelle, and daughters, Sasha and Malia, will helicopter up the coast to visit an ancient castle that used to be a slave trading post. It was the primary conduit for slaves coming from Africa to America. Locally there have been complaints that the general public won’t get to see Obama on his visit here. The White House subsequently invited some members of the public to some of Obama’s public events. They’ve also set up watch parties for Obama’s speech to the Parliament and for other presidential movements here, not just here in Ghana but elsewhere in Africa. It’s a similar strategy for how the White House distributed Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last month.

But administration officials acknowledge that one visit alone won’t accomplish the legacy Obama is looking for in Africa. Asked specifically what he’d like to see at the end of his term, the president told All Africa that he’d like to see a future where the U.S. was considered an active partner in helping African countries to build up political and governing institutions that lead to prosperity and growth. “That a young person growing up in Johannesburg or Lagos or Nairobi or Djibouti can say to themselves, I can stay here in Africa, I can stay in my country and succeed, and through my success, my country and my people will get stronger,” Obama said. “That would be a good legacy. I don’t expect that we’re going to get there in four years or eight years, but I think we can get on that path.”