News Star newspaper

I want to go to the White House
—Grandmother Sarah

Stories: Adeniyi Adesina,
who was in Kenya "So, you think I can be left behind? She said through an interpreter in response to our reporter’s question on whether she would be visiting the White House with the members of the extended family of the in-coming US president.
She will not just be going to the White House, she will be going with a Kenyan traditional food – chapatti- which according to her is president- elect Obama’s favourite.
How did she know President Obama’s favourite food? Mama said, "my son that stayed with me here?" in reference to the time when Obama as a teenager visited Kenya and even went with her to the market to sell things.
She said she was looking forward to hugging Obama whom she last met in 2006 when he visited Kenya as a US senator.
But she played down the top job her grandson had just grabbed describing it as a mere "government job."
Mama Sarah was full of excitement declining to speak extensively in spite of efforts to convince her.
Already she has got an international job as a goodwill ambassador against malnutrition.
The appointment was made by Inter government Institution for the use of Micro-Algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition (IIMAM).
The New York-based organization said Mama Sarah would work for its subsidiary in Kisumu, Kenya. The Kisumu Kids Empowerment Organisation (KKEO), is working on spirulina, a locally cultivated algae food supplement for malnourished children and people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya.
"She will work to further the mandate of our organization to realize a world free of malnutrition and hunger by mainstreaming the use of spirullina, KKD director, Els Wijt Mulder said, adding that Mama Sarah would officially be designated next week to work with the likes of football legend, Diego Maradona, who is one of the goodwill ambassadors of the organization.

Jeff Koinange back home

Jeff Koinange, remember him? The burly erstwhile CNN correspondent in Nigeria who was removed from his beat here in controversial circumstances before being eased out of the services of the US major cable news network, is now back home in Kenya.
He anchors major interviews and programmes on a local television station, K 24 in Nairobi.
But he now wears a new look having done away with the dreadlocks, his trademark while representing the CNN here.

Storming Nairobi the Obasanjo way

Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo arrived Nairobi last Thursday to enable him to be part of Friday’s meeting of the Great Lake regional leaders on the on-going crisis in Congo. His arrival took away all the big guns at the Nigerian High Commission on Lenana Road. They had to be on ground with him on Thursday and throughout Friday during the meeting which was attended by UN secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who appointed Obasanjo his special envoy on the crisis.

Kibaki gets the kick on Obama hols

The declaration of Thursday, November 6, as public holiday by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to mark the election of Barack Obama as US president received massive knocks from commentators and writers in the Kenyan media.
A lot of them criticized the inclination of the government for declaring public holidays on the flimsiest of grounds and wondered why the Americans who voted for Obama were at work and Kenyans were holidaying simply because of an election victory of somebody whose father was a Kenyan. They reckoned that their country needed to work to create wealth rather than holidaying.

Nairobi nightmare

One other similarity between the Kenyan capital and Lagos is traffic gridlock which pervades the city especially during peak period. Traffic management in Nairobi is awful. People waste valuable man hours in traffic to get to work or return home at close of work.
The central area of Nairobi is the business district zone which thousands of cars visit daily.

Three bulls salute

The larger Obama family in Kogelo got a gift of three bulls from Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga after Barack Obama’s comprehensive trouncing of Senator John McCain. The family had on their own slaughtered one bull which they ate to celebrate the result before the bulls from the PM were delivered. Bulls are slaughtered to celebrate or mark a milestone in Kenya.

How Africa can benefit from Obama’s presidency—Kenya PM Odinga

An increased pro-African policy is likely from the United States under the Barack Obama presidency, Kenyan Prime Minister, Mr. Raila Odinga, has said. But he also ruled out "hand out and charity."
"What we want to see is the expansion of relationships in term of trade and direct investment," he said in an interview in Nairobi.
Odinga, who is hugely popular in Kenya is believed to have won last December’s presidential election but denied the opportunity, thereby leading to mass protests and deaths of hundreds of people and displacement of thousand others before external intervention led to the formation of a coalition government.
He is believed to be the closest local politician to Obama, whose father hailed from the same Luo tribe like him.
Odinga, who described the late Barack Obama Snr as his cousin, explained that he expected more cooperation in the fight against terrorism and increased tourism activities in Kenya and Africa because "many people will now want to see the continent whose son produced the father of the US president," adding, "the increased attention to Africa will open up the continent to more direct business benefits."
He said many American firms could tap into the availability of labour and great business opportunities that abound in Africa.
He described Obama’s victory as a source of pride for humanity because it had broken the racial barrier and "it has proven that anyone could achieve whatever he aimed for in life."
He said he was happy that smear campaign plans against Obama’s name by those who travelled to Kenya seeking negative information did not work.
He particularly recalled how an author, Jerome Corsi, chose Kenya to launch his book ‘The Obama Nation’ which is critical of Obama.
According to him, the author wanted to portray Obama’s family in Kenya in a bad light so as to show that someone who was seeking the US presidency was incapable of taking care of his family members.
He also described as "completely unfounded" the plan to link Obama to Islam whereas he is a Christian.
He said he deliberately chose not to attend the Democratic Party’s convention in Denver, Colorado, which nominated Obama as democratic party’s candidate to avoid his presence being employed by mischief makers to raise negative issues around Obama’s candidacy.

Kogelo… Obama’s ancestral place

It is a typical African village with all the trappings of neglect and poverty. Nothing around the narrow bushy and dusty path that veers off the Kisumu- Siaya road suggested the importance and fame which Kogelo suddenly acquired because the next president of the most powerful nation on earth, The United States, has his roots in the village because his father was born there.
Kogelo is a tiny village in the Western part of Kenya in Siaya district with Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city as the regional headquarters
There is no electricity in the village where a few privileged residents including United States President-elect Barack Obama’s 86-year-old grand mother, Mama Sarah, use solar power to generate electricity. The rest of the villagers live without electricity.
But during the week preceding the November 4 US election, the world attention was focused on the village and so the electricity generated by the foreign media equipment served as the source of energy for the villagers who hosted visitors from all parts of the world.
It was only after the results were declared in favour of Obama that officials of Kenya Power and Lighting Staff started connecting electricity from the national grid to the village.
The Obama family house is now wearing fresh paint. It is a small compound which had apparently recently being renovated and fenced. It is a stone’s throw from the community’s dispensary where a prayer vigil attended by major religious leaders on the night of the US election was held and its proceedings beamed to the world by the horde of foreign journalists who monitored the reactions to the US election from there.
It is also there that people congregated to monitor the returns on the election from a huge television screen.
A police post has already been put in place to provide security for Madam Sarah after an attempted robbery. Siaya police chief Johnson Ipaya said a permanent police post would be built in the village.
It is not only the provision of electricity and security that is the gains of this hitherto sleepy village but also the road which is now being fixed by the government.
Workmen have moved their equipment to the 10- kilometre road to Kogelo off the Kisumu - Siaya highway to begin construction work.
Members of Parliament especially those from the Western part of Kenya had visited the village while Prime Minister Raila Odinga was being expected.
The only school - and one of the few monuments in the village - is named after ‘Senator’ Barack Obama. Now that he is president, will the name be changed to ‘President’ Barack Obama?
The focus on the village has boosted commerce in the area as hotels in Kisumu are fully booked while taxis charge exorbitant rates to transport the deluge of visitors.

Obama divides Kenyan government

The optimism and support being exuded by the Kenya government after the victory of Senator Barack Obama in the United States elections did not really reflect the relationship that existed between the US President-elect and the Kibaki government before now.
The government has been celebrating Obama’s election. President Mwai Kibaki was one of the first world leaders to congratulate him. He made a national broadcast to praise Obama’s victory and to declare a national holiday.
Members of parliament spent the better part of their sitting the day after the election result was declared, eulogizing Obama and requesting that their country borrowed a leaf from the transparency of the electoral process in the US.
Some of the opposition party legislators called on losers to always concede defeat like the Republican candidate John McCain did, in veiled reference to their last election, during which when faced with defeat; President Kibaki allegedly manipulated results to favour himself.
After his election into the US Senate, Obama openly accused the Kenyan government of promoting corruption and ethnicity for political purpose.
Even when he visited Nairobi on August 28 2006, he reiterated this position. "Like many nations across the continent, where Kenya is failing is in its inability to create a government that is transparent and accountable; one that serves its people and is free of corruption," he said in a speech at the University of Nairobi to cheers from students.
That speech further angered the Kibaki government which saw "his scathing remarks" as a form of subtle support for the candidature of "his fellow Luo" Raila Odinga, then leader of the main opposition party, bidding to oust President Kibaki.
The Kenyan Ambassador to the US, Mr. Peter Oginga Ogego, fired broadsides at Obama saying Obama’s statement was "an unwarranted attack" on the government which could injure the relationship between the governments of the US and Kenya.
He said Obama "deliberately twisted the truth" about government’s fight against corruption to gain publicity.
To government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, "Obama deliberately without real cause or reason, other than what appears to be seeking cheap publicity and inconsequential populism, chose to publicly attack the democratically elected government of Kenya, in total disregard for the requisite protocol and acceptable methods to address the issues you raised, what with programmed appointments to meet cabinet ministers and even the Head of State, since your visit is official."
Analysts said Obama’s position was vindicated by the way the election in December 2007 was manipulated by the Kibaki government which apparently lost but claimed victory thereby leading to bloodshed.
A coalition government that was formed after external intervention to halt the growing violence, the government being a cohabitation of the ruling party and the opposition with the opposition.
But Obama also has a tie with President Kibaki, which the president’s supporters have been flaunting. As the Finance Minister in the government of ex-president Arap Moi in the 1970s, Kibaki reinstated the late Barack Obama Snr. to his job in the Finance ministry having been sacked by the previous government of President Jomo Kenyata for allegedly challenging some government decisions.
With Obama now set to become president in January, there are calls by some opposition figures for the Kenyan Ambassador to the US, Mr Ogego, to be replaced having attacked Obama in the past.
Even some top officials of the Kenya foreign affairs ministry reportedly said anonymously that Kenya would be put in an awkward and embarrassing position in its dealings with the US which they now expect to be on the upward swing with the representation at its highest level by somebody who is not likely to enjoy Obama’s support in view of his previous altercation with the US president.
There are calls for the appointment of somebody who is unblemished with good public relations to influence decisions which the US will make on Kenya.
But the permanent secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Thuita Mwangi, was quoted by Saturday Nation newspaper as opposed to the idea.
"I don’t think the criticism is an issue. The ambassador is properly accredited and was accepted by the US government."