It was during the course of the interview, that I was told that I knew about the former Mayor of East Cleveland, Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor. Onunwor was indisputably the first African-born Mayor of a city in the U.S. He was earlier President of the East Cleveland City Council, before assuming the post of Mayor in 1998. He served for six years as Mayor. He had invited me to East Cleveland to witness what he was doing for the people of East Cleveland, and at that time he was sort of romancing a relationship with the new Governor of Ohio who was a Republican so that he could provide more services for his constituents. I remember asking him whether he wouldn't run afoul of his Democratic colleagues. Though elected Democrat, he eventually switched parties, joining the Republican party saying that would be better for his people. He was so popular that he was reelected in 2001 with more than 70% of the vote, as against 63% when he first ran for office. Anyway, before you knew it, the FBI had started investigating him and caught him red-handed accepting bribe from one of the contractors. Emmanuel was sentenced to a 9-year prison term in 2005, when the prosecutor was hoping for a five-year sentence and by now you would expect that he would be coming out with good behavior.However, why did I call this a tragedy? Because...
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