Test of success in Africa will be judged by African people

US President Barack Obama is in Kenya this week. It is his second visit to his father's birthplace, but his first as president, and the first visit to the country by a US president. He will also visit Ethiopia on his way back, becoming the first US President to visit that country as well. Altogether, this trip represents Obama's fourth trip to the African continent as president.

As the first African-American US president, Obama changed history in the sense of his personal success. But he has not changed much in the way the United States deals with Africa - or Third World countries as a whole, for that matter. Even though most of Obama's aides and advisers insist that Obama's personal connections to Africa have shaped his identity as a person, Obama as president has not done much to shape the US' legacy in Africa.

In his first term, he spent twenty-four hours in Sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps besieged by his opponents' challenges that he is not qualified to be US president because he was not born an American citizen, Obama has seemingly gone out of his way to avoid any intimate connection with Africa. That is one of the reasons why his critics say that despite being the first African-American US president, he has done less for the continent than his white predecessors.