PRESIDENT BUSH embarks on a five-day tour of Africa today that reflects the continent’s growing importance to America’s global interests and Mr Bush’s electoral prospects at home.

The President, who entered the White House after a campaign in which he barely mentioned Africa, will visit the continent’s two main powers, South Africa and Nigeria, and three small but relatively successful states, Senegal, Botswana and Uganda.

The trip, which makes Mr Bush the first US President to visit sub-Saharan Africa in his first term — a piece of oneupmanship over Bill Clinton, who made his first presidential visit in 1998 — is ostensibly to highlight his $15 billion (£9 billion) plan to combat Aids, and increased US aid to African governments that prove they are fit to receive it.

But the five-day visit, which comes as Mr Bush is on the verge of sending US troops into Liberia, is also being driven by the realities of America’s post-September 11 foreign policy and the dynamics of next year’s presidential election. In many ways the real agenda is terrorism, US military influence, oil and American voters.

Mr Bush’s new-found interest has surprised both sides of the political divide and delighted campaigners. “You’ll think I’m off my trolley when I say this,” Sir Bob Geldof said recently, “but the Bush Administration is the most radical — in a positive sense — in its approach to Africa since (President) Kennedy.”

Mr Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser, argued last week that the President had been interested in Africa since he took office. Since January 2001 he has met 22 African leaders. “On Aids, from the beginning, he said, ‘I want to try to do something on this’,” Dr Rice said.

The five-year plan to spend $15 billion combating Aids in 12 African states and two Caribbean countries stems on one level from Mr Bush’s Christianity. The suffering caused by Aids affronts him.

The spending also, however, tempers his reputation as a global warrior and softens his image with suburban swing voters, the primary target of the “compassionate conservatism” message he carried during the 2000 campaign. Uganda and Botswana are on the itinerary because they have made great progress in fighting Aids.

Another initiative that the visit will highlight is the Administration’s Millennium Challenge Account, a scheme that will increase foreign aid, mostly to Africa, by $5 billion a year by 2006 to countries that meet requirements on “good governance”.

Such initiatives play well with black voters, whom Mr Bush is eager to court; that is one reason why he is visiting Gorree Island in Senegal, where slaves were once sold to be shipped to America. They are also supported by conservative Christians, a key part of Mr Bush’s support base, who have joined with traditionally liberal aid groups in lobbying for issues such as debt relief and aid to poor African nations. In a poll last month, 68 per cent of American voters approved of Mr Bush’s plan to increase foreign aid, and 64 per cent said that America had a “moral obligation” to try to reduce hunger.

A main impetus for the trip, however, stems from the September 11 attacks, which have forged much of Mr Bush’s policy. Those attacks, coming after al-Qaeda bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, convinced Mr Bush that Africa has become a key terrorist battleground and that US influence is crucial. Bomb attacks on Israelis in Kenya and suicide bombings in Morocco have underscored that conviction.

Additionally, US bases in parts of Africa near the Middle East would remove the need for co-operation from countries such as Turkey. The Pentagon is already looking to improve military ties with Morocco and Tunisia. Mr Bush will be looking to enhance refuelling agreements with Senegal and Uganda.

He is also anxious to reduce US dependence on Arab oil. The US gets about 16 per cent of its oil from Africa, which Washington wants to increase.

• Monrovia: President Taylor of Liberia said that he has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria but gave no indication when he would leave. He had held an emergency meeting with President Obasanjo of Nigeria. Mr Taylor now controls only one-fifth of his country. (AFP)

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