One day this year, in all probability, the “billionth African” will have been born, a milestone that will only benefit the poorest continent if it can get its act together and unify its piecemeal markets.
   Nobody knows, of course, when or where in its 53 countries the child arrived to push Africa’s population into ten figures.
   The U.N. merely estimates that in mid-2008 there were 987 million people, and in mid-2009, 1,010 million.
   Given the difficulties of obtaining accurate data from the likes of Nigeria, where provincial population figures are often hostage to the ambitions of local politicians, or any data at all from the likes of Somalia, experts are reluctant to hazard any greater degree of accuracy.
   There is less doubt, however, about the underlying trend — that Africa’s population is set to grow faster than in any other part of the world in the coming decades, and to double by 2050.
   To some, the statistics from the U.N.’s population division will invite comparisons to the Asian giants, and inspire hopes of a flood of investment from Africans and outsiders to meet the needs of a continent likely to be home to one in five people by the middle of this century.
   By contrast, China’s projected population of 1.4 billion in 40 years will be shrinking, while India will only be adding an annual 3 million to its 1.6 billion people.
   To others, the numbers are stark reminders of the mammoth task Africa’s leaders face in providing the food, jobs, schools, housing and healthcare that are still so sorely lacking.
   UNFPA, the U.N.’s population arm, summarises by saying that sub-Saharan Africa faces “serious political, economic and social challenges” and points to the last two decades as evidence that more people does not mean more wealth.
   “Twenty years of almost three percent annual population growth has outpaced economic gains, leaving Africans, on average, 22 percent poorer than they were in the mid-1970s,” it says.
    Are Africa’s leaders ready and willing to create the truly unified common market needed to boost investment, trade and economic growth, or are short-term national interests likely to prevail, consigning Africa to a century of overpopulated poverty?

President Barack Obama’s choice of Ghana for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office has stirred debate in his father’s homeland Kenya.

Some Kenyans believe Obama ought to have come “home” first. Others, especially among critics of President Mwai Kibaki’s government, say he has deliberately shunned the country to show U.S. disapproval of rampant corruption and nepotism in political circles here.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who comes from the Luo ethnic group like Obama’s father, said it was wrong to read too much into Obama’s itinerary, given that neither was he visiting other influential nations in the region like South Africa and Nigeria.

“Ghana is symbolic. It was the first African country to gain independence from Britain in 1957. Ghana is very advanced in its transition to democratic form of governance. So it is perfectly logical,” he told Reuters.

“If Obama were to come to Kenya as the first country in Africa, it would send some very wrong signals that he is coming here merely because of some organic relationship that he has with this country. So in fact it is good.”

Obama has been to Kenya several times, most recently as a senator in mid-2006. In a speech then, he took a strong line against corruption, which has plagued East Africa’s largest economy for decades. “If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and promote their common welfare - then all else is lost. That is why the struggle of corruption is one of the great struggles of our time,” he said.

That speech drew a sharp response from the government. Spokesman Alfred Mutua called Obama a young man who was “very poorly informed” and chided him for “lecturing” Kenyans. When Obama took power, however, the Kibaki government was so happy it announced a national holiday in his honour. The U.S. leader is wildly popular among all sectors of Kenyan society.

So should Obama have included Kenya on his Africa tour? Is he snubbing his ancestral homeland?