After President Barack Obama called for gay rights in Nairobi on Saturday, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta corrected his counterpart, saying homosexuality is a “non-issue” in Kenya and those rights can not be “imposed” on the people of the East African country.
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President Obama had told the BBC he would deliver a blunt message on gay rights when he travelled to Africa – and defended his stand in response to a question at the joint news conference.
It will be the first time an American president addresses the AU.
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.
Closing his historic visit with an address to the Kenyan people, Obama traced the arc of the country’s evolution from colonialism to independence, as well as his own family’s history here.
On his fantasy itinerary is a visit to Maasai Mara, the national reserve renowned for its safaris and wildlife, and the Serengeti region in which it sits.
“I went to this barber shop in Nairobi“, says Gitari.
In 2013, al Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab killed 67 people during a shooting attack in a shopping centre in the capital Nairobi. “This issue is not really an issue that is on the foremost of mind of Kenyans, and that is a fact”.
The trip to Nairobi was a festive homecoming of sorts for Obama. Kiliminjaro isn’t in Kenya, but is just across the border in Tanzania. And then, the president said to Kenyans today, you don’t have to serve a foreign master.
“Climbing Kilimanjaro seems like something that should be on my list of things to do once I get out of here”.
“The guy slept in a camping bed behind my couch in a tiny living room in a tiny flat”.
US President Barack Obama may be the most powerful man in the world, but Saturday afternoon, he wore his Kenyan hat, and apologised to his relatives for not making to visit them in the village. Their Kenyan father died in a auto crash in 1982.
Acknowledging that some Kenyans have been frustrated that it took him until the seventh year of his presidency to visit, Obama joked that he did not want the rest of Africa to think he was “playing favorites”.
According to nurse Dolphin Akinyi, the two Air Force One’s were among eight healthy babies born on Friday night after 8:30 pm at the Kisumu Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital.
What a difference a few decades make. However, Mr Obama has numerous family members in the country, including half-sister Auma Obama, who introduced her brother yesterday. “I am father to a daughter and she is everything to me”, he said.
He said once he leaves the White House in January 2017, he will have more time in his hands to come back home.
Some of those in attendance for the president’s speech said they were inspired by his appeal for progress inKenya.
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On other matters, though, there were stronger parallels, such as helping young people find hope in urban slums. But he added, “that’s why it works, because it’s constantly challenging leaders to up their game and to do better”.
