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?

A multinational offensive aimed at wiping out Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels - and planned and equipped with U.S. support during the dying days of the Bush administration - has scattered fighters who have unleashed a wave of massacres on Congolese villages.
 
LRA fighters have killed nearly 900 people in reprisal attacks in northeast Congo since Ugandan troops, together with Sudanese and Congolese soldiers, launched a military operation in December against fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony, whose two-decade insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 2 million. (See Alertnet briefing for more)
 
Reuters reported on the U.S. involvement in December. The New York Times said recently that the Pentagon’s new Africa Command (Africom) had contributed intelligence, advice and $1 million in fuel. The Washington Post argues the operation has been so unsuccessful it amounts to little more than “throwing a rock at a hive of bees”.
 
Foreign Policy magazine said that the LRA, who failed to sign a planned peace deal in April, would be hard to stamp out and that the operation was putting the Pentagon’s reputation at risk.
 
There are sceptical voices in the blogosphere too.
 
“One of the first publicly acknowledged Africom operations has turned into a general debacle, resulting in the death of nearly a thousand civilians and sending untold numbers of children into sex slavery and military servitude,” Dave Donelson says on his Heart of Diamonds blog.
 
Writing in Uganda’s Monitor, Grace Matsiko said the offensive was proving a real test for officers of Uganda’s army (UPDF).
 
“Uganda should brace itself for a protracted war, should Kony and his top lieutenants continue to evade the UPDF dragnet,” the journalist wrote.
 
Meanwhile, aid agency MSF has accused the United Nations force in Congo, the world’s biggest, of failing to protect civilians from Ugandan rebel attacks – accusations the world body has rejected as totally unfounded. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has also accused U.N. peacekeepers of inactivity and of living alongside the LRA for three years and doing nothing about the guerrillas.
 
While expressing his horror at the what he called ‘catastrophic’ consequences for civilians from the offensive, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes has said the joint force still needs to see the operation through.
 
Should the offensive continue or is it time to halt it? If so, what should be done about the rebels? How big an impact should the conduct of this operation have for the U.S. Africa Command’s future role?

Win or not in November, U.S. Senator Barack Obama has already become a hero to Africans.

He is a household name, putting a smile on everybody’s lips and spreading pride across the continent.

Now millions of Africans hope this son of a Kenyan father can turn his nomination to the Democratic presidential candidacy into a place in the White House.

But if he wins, is Barack Obama an answer to Africa’s problems? 

Would an Obama-led USA prioritise issues of poverty, AIDS and trade in Africa? Or would bigger global conundrums like Iraq, the Middle East and the West’s response to the rise of China take precedence as before?

Here are some views from around the continent.

So what tangible benefits would a black U.S. president bring to Africa? And what does Africa have to offer Obama? Have your say.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai detained twice in a week, U.S. and British diplomats forced from their cars by police, rallies banned, aid workers stopped from working, reports of violence from across the countryside. The campaign for Zimbabwe’s presidential election run-off on June 27 is being hard fought, literally.

The opposition accuses President Robert Mugabe of responsibility for violence and says 65 people have been killed. The ruling party blames Tsvangirai’s followers and says Mugabe’s Western foes and some aid agencies have been campaigning for the opposition.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s economy plumbs ever greater depths. A U.S. dollar could buy more than a billion local dollars on Thursday. But that was then.

Simba Makoni, the ruling party defector who came third in the first round vote on March 29, called this week for the presidential election run-off to be scrapped. He was certainly not the first to suggest that it might be better to abandon the election and have the rivals try to agree some sort of national unity government.

Should the election go ahead? Could it be fair? Who would win?

Have your say.