Obama spent two days and two nights in Nairobi, the first-ever visit to the east African nation by a sitting US president.
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A handful of children born during the President’s visit to his father’s homeland have been named after him, his family – and even his airplane.
After Kenya, Obama will travel to Ethiopia, a nation brought to its knees by starvation in the 1980s that now boasts some of the fastest economic growth rates in Africa. However, despite Mr Obama’s stance on the issue, Mr Kenyatta resolutely stuck to his line on the cause of LGBT rights. Opposition party supporters, journalists, and others have been arrested as part of the crackdown. He leaves later yesterday for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where he will also be the first US leader to address the African Union. Upenbo Abraham, a 23-year-old economics student from an area of western Kenya near Obama’s relatives, said he was “encouraged, as a poor boy from a village next to his home”.
The suit alleges Ethiopian government agents intercepted months of the Maryland man’s Skype calls and his family’s Internet activities.
“Kenya is at a crossroads”, he said, “a moment filled with peril but also enormous promise”.
He urged his audience to adhere to the Kenyan concept of “Harambee”, meaning “pull together”, and vowed that, as the first “Kenyan-American” president, he would ensure the US remained Kenya’s close “partner”.
At Safaricom Indoor Arena, where he delivered a speech to 4,500 people, the crowd chanted, “Obama!” He made the point that for democracy to thrive, “there also has to be space for citizens to exercise their rights”, without suggesting that Kenya had been closing that space or naming the human rights groups that have been targeted.
Besides his meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and touching base with his grandmother and half-sister, a priority was discussing the importance of cultivating a strong foundation that would allow entrepreneurs to strive. Thick crowds lined the roadways to watch the presidential motorcade speed through the city Sunday, some climbing on rooftops to get a better view.
“There are some things that we must admit we don’t share-our culture, our societies don’t accept. It is very hard for us to be able to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept. This is why I repeatedly say that, for Kenyans today, the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue”.
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To a mixture of applause and laughter, he described being picked up at the airport on his first visit to Kenya in the 1980s by his sister in an old VW Beetle that often broke down.
