President Obama will soon visit his birthplace and burial place of his father, Barack Obama Snr.
Obama visited Kogelo when he was a senator, but if he goes there again later this month, it will be his first visit as US President to Kogelo – and to Kenya.
He will find at least two schools, a safari tour, a museum, a hotel suite and many children named after him. He will find his paternal step-grandmother Sarah Obama, who still lives in Kogelo. Obama will also find a village that feels rather disappointed, at least according to The Washington Post, which went there recently.
It was reported that after Obama was elected, electricity arrived in Kogelo and the only road to the village was paved. So Kogelo has had a face-lift by its unexpected link to the world’s most powerful man. It is however still wrestling with poverty and disease and is expecting more from Obama.
“He’ll find people proud enough to name their boys Barack Obama, but disappointed that he waited until the seventh year of his presidency to return to his father’s homeland,” the paper wrote. One of those would be Edwin Okoth, who named his son, now seven, Barack Obama Okoth. “When he comes, we will present our problems,” said Edwin Okoth, confidently, though the White House has not confirmed that Obama will visit Kogelo.
In its high expectations of Obama and also in its disappointment in him, Kogelo may serve as a metaphor for Kenya as a whole – and perhaps also for much of Africa. Kenya certainly expected its native grandson to visit as president before this month. But instead he went to Ghana on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa in 2009. And two years ago he really seemed to snub Kenya when he visited neighbouring Tanzania on his second African trip, which also included South Africa and Senegal.
Why he has avoided Kenya so far, yet is now finally going there, is not quite clear. In 2013, Washington analysts were saying he would not visit Kenya as long as President Uhuru Kenyatta remained under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Now those charges have been dropped.
A former diplomat and seasoned analyst of US-Africa relations believes Obama may also have been reluctant to visit Kenya before because he feared this would play into the hands of the Republican extremists who were arguing that he was not born in the US (as all US presidents must be). “Given that he is now in his last two years of office, he clearly has more freedom of action to undertake foreign visits to places like Kenya,” he said.
credit thisisafrica.me
