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POWERFUL: Oprah (left) and Michelle Obama

WE'RE ONLY just past the second week in the New Year and already 2013 is looking like 'The Year Of The Black Woman'.

Michelle Obama is of course holding her own as First Lady. But as her husband gives his second inauguration speech, could this be the year when Michelle launches her own presidential ambitions?

America could certainly do with her at the helm. After all, she is the woman who has taken on the gluttony of her countrymen and women in the greatest health battle ever.

If she can get Americans to stop drinking a gallon of fizzy drinks with each metric tonne of cowpie they swallow for lunch, imagine what she can do for the economy. And, as for that deadly issue of gun control, black mothers have lost too many kids to the violence of the Wild West for us not to expect Mrs Obama to fight hard in ridding America of its gun-toting resident evil.

Questionable

Michelle Obama is the sista most likely to, now that it seems that Hillary Clinton's dream of being the first woman president is questionable since her unfortunate health issues recently. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice should have been the next woman in line for the White House.

In fact, she was supposed to succeed Mrs Clinton for the job of Secretary of State and she would have got the gig if not for an ambush by Republican senators (primarily John McCain, the guy who lost the presidential race to Obama first time round - not saying he held a grudge) who held her accountable for some incorrect information he was given after the raid on the US consulate in Libya, which led to the murder of the US Ambassador.

But Susan Rice is one of the most intelligent sistas out there and in this ‘Year Of The Black Woman’ she needs to take on board the words of that old reggae classic: “You lick her up, you lick her down she bounce right back - what a hard gyal fe dead, she must be a nappy head!"

The news that Nigeria's Folorunsho Alakija recently surpassed Oprah Winfrey as the world's richest black woman was fantastic news in this ‘Year Of The Black Woman’ and not because the 61-year-old oil magnate's estimated $6.44 billion 'dwarfs' Oprah's $3 billion or so. The revelation that there are at least two black women billionaires in the world is incredibly inspirational to every black woman reading this and a couple of us fellas too.

Kimberly Motley is another sista who is making 2013 The Year Of The Black Woman. Many of you won't have heard of her but she's the No.1 lawyer in Afghanistan. She's a former model, a beauty queen (Ms Wisconsin 2004) and a mother of three. Despite threats of rape and murder she took on the Afghan judicial system in court and she just keeps winning. When she returns to America, expect to see her throw her hat in the race to become the first sista in the White House.

And last week's news from one of the world's richest filmmakers, George 'Star Wars' Lucas, that he is about to marry his long-term girlfriend, Mellody Hobson, made me sing out: “Ain't No Stopping Sistas Now... They're On The Move!" That marriage will make Mellody one of the most powerful women in the movie business, if not in the Star Wars business which is great news for star trekkers like Nichelle Nichols, our beloved Lieutenant Uhuru.

Here in Britain, the woman who could make this The Year Of The Black Woman is Shirley Adebayo (no relation - honest!). Because her business, The Health Visiting Service, is transforming the way the NHS works.

In a climate of reduced budgets and pressure on NHS spending she has created an ‘alternative' health service that hospitals and clinics and individuals are turning to for the service that the NHS is struggling to provide. She's the right woman, in the right place. Imagine if she and Diane Abbott (Shadow Health Minister) worked together? What a ‘Year Of The Black Woman’ that would be.