The Obama craze has spared no sector, from mobile phone ringtones offering extracts from his speeches, to bespoke billboards highlighting products of all kinds in the light of the president’s arrival. Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, as it is in many countries in Africa, and Obama has clashed with African leaders on the topic in the past.
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CNN has since edited the headline to indicated that the threat from Al-Shabaab is a specifically a regional one, stating, “President Barack Obama is not just heading to his father’s homeland, but to a region that’s a hotbed of terror”. Wherever he goes, large crowds are expected to gather and cheer him.
The president’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was born in Kenya in 1936, when it was still a British colony.
Mr Obama showed his Hawaii birth certificate in the White House briefing room in 2011.
However, Obama will not visit “the village most closely associated with his family for a combination of time and logistical reasons, among others”, Rice said.
The delegation will attend the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit and seek to accelerate economic growth, strengthen democratic institutions and improve security on the African continent, according to a press release from Butterfield’s office.
When Air Force One touches down in Nairobi today and US president Barack Obama springs down the steps to meet his counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, he will be walking into a geopolitical and diplomatic minefield worthy of TV drama House of Cards.
“I am happy Obama is coming to Kenya“, Bwire said. He won’t visit Kogelo, though some of his family members that live there may visit Nairobi while he’s in the capital.
But many readers objected to a characterization in the original headline and lede calling Kenya itself a center of terrorist activity.
(After Kenya, Obama will pay a visit to Ethiopia where activists are also calling for him to speak out on human rights concerns.).
Kenyatta was elected president in 2013, even as he was charged at the global Criminal Court with fueling ethnic violence six years earlier.
Those charges were dropped in March, but the case prevented Mr Obama from going to Kenya.
His father, Jomo, served as Kenya’s president from 1963 to 1978.
Obama will also address terrorism in his two stops.
“Gay rights are human rights whether we are in Washington, or somewhere in Asia or Africa…this is not something we shy away from underscoring”. Obama’s signature Africa initiative, the $7 billion electrification project known as Power Africa, was the subject of a harsh critique in the New York Times this week: “The reality of Power Africa’s promise bears little resemblance to the president’s soaring words”.
Kenya and the US are especially concerned about possible attacks by Shebaab, which has targeted Kenya over its military support to the Somali government in its fight against the Islamist group.
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The security challenges surrounding Obama’s visit itself have been substantial; western officials worry the Islamist group may be plotting similar “soft target” attacks while Obama visits Nairobi.
