For President Obama, it’s safe to say the second term is a charm. After securing a hard fought reelection, Obama seems to have come into his own at the near completion of his tenure.
If you have any doubts, cast your mind to the American President breaking into song at the Funeral of the 9 people killed at the African church in Charleston.
President Obama has made headlines again today following his speech at the Addis Ababa today as the first America President to deliver a speech at the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia today.
Obama took a sarcastic swipe at Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza who recently won a controversial third term bid; “I actually think I’m a pretty good President, I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t”. He said
“The point is, I don’t understand why people want to stay so long” and then he cheekily added “Especially when they’ve got a lot of money”
He took Burundi’s President to the cleaners over comments pre-election comments that Burundi could either vote for him or expect the return of Al-Shabaab. He said “When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife as we’ve seen in Burundi”
He concluded by saying “Sometimes you’ll hear a leader say, well, I’m the only person who can hold this nation together. If that’s true, then that leader has truly failed to build their nation”
HE alluded to George Washington as well as Nelson Mandela as proper examples for African leaders to serve their terms and move on, “Nobody should be President for life”.