Why President Obama is going to Tanzania

Shipyard Cranes, Norfolk.
Photo credit: shoebappa / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

“The good news? U.S. President Barack Obama is making his second trip to Africa, the continent of his father’s birth. The ummm… ‘other’ news? He’s not coming to Kenya. What’s that? Yes, other news. Not bad news thanks, we’re Kenyans. We don’t really care whether he comes here or not (sniff). We don’t need the West. We have other trading partners… like China. And have you already forgotten what we did to Botswana? Leave us alone with our Uhurus and our Rutos, Kenyans know what’s best for Kenya…”

The paragraph above summarizes Kenyans’ reaction to the news that Air Force One will not touch down at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport during President Obama’s trip to Africa. President Obama’s trip is scheduled for June 26^th 2013 to July 3^rd 2013 and will take in Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa. Undoubtedly, Obama’s avoidance of his father’s land is a snub – the second such snub if we count his trip to Ghana in 2009. What seems to rankle most is that Obama felt it wise to accord a State visit to our neighbours just across the border in Tanzania. Why would he do this? If we look a little deeper, we can start to understand why he’s selected that itinerary, and (in particular) why Tanzania.

It may surprise most Kenyans to know that foreign direct investment inflows (FDI inflows) to Tanzania and Uganda have exceeded FDIs coming in to Kenya for most of the last decade. The table below shows FDI inflows to the three largest East African countries from 2001-2010 (figures in USD):

Year	Kenya	Tanzania	Uganda
2001	5,302,623	388,800,000	151,496,100
2002	20,202,580	396,244,800	184,648,100
2003	79,662,930	364,258,900	202,192,600
2004	41,647,830	226,732,400	295,416,500
2005	11,524,460	935,520,600	379,808,400
2006	26,717,030	403,039,000	644,262,500
2007	693,011,400	581,511,800	792,305,800
2008	51,819,060	400,047,200	728,860,900
2009	70,269,790	414,544,600	788,694,300
2010	184,215,300	433,441,900	817,178,700
Total	1,184,373,003	4,544,141,200	4,984,863,900

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com

This table is a sobering read. It shows that Tanzania and Uganda have both attracted about 4 times the foreign investment that Kenya did during the 2000s. In other words, foreign investors, attracted by Tanzania’s natural gas, Uganda’s oil, and both nations’ relative stability, have been investing 4 million dollars each in Uganda and Tanzania for every 1 million dollars they invest in Kenya. It can be said that the fact that Kenya has now discovered oil deposits may change the broad outlook of this table over the course of the current decade. But if that is the case, then shouldn’t the US/China be falling over themselves to visit us?

Secondly: remember the Chinese we said we’d trade with instead of the West? Well, China’s (new) President Xi recently went on a state visit that took in Russia, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), and South Africa. Oh, and Tanzania. Yes, China’s (new) President Xi also visited Tanzania recently. While it is true that socialist Tanzania has a long history of ties with China, it is still instructive that President Xi visited Dar es Salaam; President Obama actually appears to be playing catch-up to the Chinese in this regard.

Thirdly, those selfsame Chinese recently pledged to build a port at Bagamoyo, northwest of Dar, that’ll make Mombasa look like a small puddle. This week’s article in the East African on the matter states that the Bagamoyo port cost USD 11 billion (nearly one trillion shillings). In tandem with this, Tanzania is revamping her rail network as well. If we are not careful, we ourselves will be importing and exporting via Tanzania before long.

The nation of Kenya has lost crown after crown economically speaking. We were on a par with Singapore and South Korea at independence. We’ve let them go. Fifty years later, our last remaining crown is “East Africa’s largest economy”. What are we doing to retain this status? Not much, it would seem. Here we are playing tribal games and thumbing our noses at the world by electing questionable “watu wetu”, and yet it is merely a matter of time before we lose our final claim to fame: “The economic capital of East Africa”. Already Rwandan importers are saying that it takes them 3 days to import via Dar es Salaam, and 7 days to import via Mombasa. In all likelihood, our kids may study Economics knowing East Africa’s largest economy to be Tanzania.

President Obama’s snub should be waking us up to these realities. But much as we did during the Botswana incident, and instead of asking ourselves why the Presidents of the world’s two largest economies are queueing up to visit our southern neighbours (a nation we have grown up labelling an “economic backwater”), we’re busy saying “Kwani Obama ni nani? (Who is Obama anyway?)”. I urge us to realize that this is bigger than Uhuru. This is bigger than Ruto. This is bigger than Kogelo and Mama Sarah and serkal. It’s not a joke folks, this is about our land, our nation, and where we all are headed.