“I can’t cope with new status”, says Obama’s granny. A visitor’s book at the gate and another outside her home reveal the huge number of personalities and organised groups visiting the home. Some bring with them gifts which include goats and material for clothes.
By George Olwenya and John Oywa
With only a month to the inauguration of her grandson as America’s 44th President, Mama Sarah Obama has become more than a celebrity.
The American and Kenyan governments have taken full charge of her security with the number of guests visiting her home in Alego Kogelo, Siaya, increasing tenfold since the US election on November 4.
Mama Sarah Obama Her movements have been restricted for security reasons and the two governments are monitoring every move at her home as the clock tick’s to January 20 — the day President-elect Barack Obama takes over as the President of the world’s most powerful country.
“She is now a VIP and must be treated as so. We do not want to leave anything to chance,” said a senior police officer at the Nyanza Provincial headquarters.
Sarah’s home, once just like any other in the village, is now teeming with visitors and trappings of power. She now has electricity — which took the Government only a week to install, a fence, a metal gate and a police post.
The Government is now drilling a well at the home. Kogelo Market, once a sleepy outpost, is now competing with many urban centres in the province.
Mama Sarah, 87, has received close to 5,000 visitors since Barack Obama’s historic election as the America’s first black President.
The daily arrival of visitors at her home averages between 300 to 500 guests per day, all of whom she has to greet and speak to.
The Standard confirmed that the US Embassy in Nairobi is briefed on the situation at the home on a daily basis.
Since the victory, Kogelo and particularly Mama Sarah’s home has been turned into a tourist attraction as visitors from far and wide throng to see the village that produced a man who re-wrote the history of the world’s super power.
The ever jovial grandmother has been complaining of a bad knee, yet she has to keep up with a busy schedule.
She has shaken hands with hundreds of thousands of people, posed for pictures with hundreds of dignitaries and fielded questions from countless number of journalists across the globe.
“This visitors are many and I do not even have the time to go to my kitchen to cook as I use to do,” says Mama Sarah.
The grand mother said “Gibiro motamo wan’ga” (they have overwhelmed me) adding that she has not seen such a scenario before.
A chat with mama Sarah behind her main house did not take even five minutes as a security detail attached to her appeared “when I see you I know the visitors want me,” she told the policewoman.
Mama Sarah Obama, grandmother of American President-elect Barack Obama, was on Monday at the centre of World Aids Day activities in Kisumu where she flagged off an awareness marathon.
As soon as residents got wind that Mama Sarah was at the Jomo Kenyatta Grounds [Click To View Picture], a huge crowd converged.
A jovial Mama Sarah, who arrived in a two-car convoy escorted by female security personnel, waved cheerfully at the crowds. Her security detail had a torrid time trying to stop the excited crowd from shaking her hand.
‘Kogelo ber kata an be angima (DHOLUO for Kogelo is fine and am also doing well),’ she told the crowd.
She, however, sidestepped a question about her travel plans to the US for Mr Obama’s inauguration.
PICTURE:Ms Sarah Hussein Obama, grandmother of US President-elect Barack Obama, cuts a tape to officially open a children’s park during the World Aids Day marathon at Jomo Kenyatta sports ground in Kisumu on Monday. On her right is Ms Betty Okero, an Aids activist. World Aids Day celebrations were marked in various towns countrywide.
Earlier, the 86-year-old Mama Sarah, who slipped into Kisumu quietly on Sunday, had flagged off the World Aids Marathon at seven in the morning.
Organisers said that they had chosen Mama Sarah because of her high profile.
They also said the fact that President-elect Obama had undergone HIV counselling and testing in Kisumu on his 2006 trip was more reason to choose her.
‘There is a lot of interest in the Obama family,’ said Betty Okero of the Civil Society Network, one of the organisers.
‘If her presence here today will help reduce new infections and give hope, we welcome that,’ said Ms Okero.
Ms Alie Eleveld of Safe Water and Aids Project said Mr Obama’s involvement with the World Aids Marathon was the main reason for choosing Mama Sarah to flag it off.
‘Barack Obama has been a great supporter of the World Aids Marathon, so we thought it would be a good gesture to invite his granny,’ said Ms Eleveld.
Speaking to the Nation after the function, Mama Sarah said that she was happy to be part of the event.
‘I feel greatly privileged to be invited because my grandson is very concerned about the ravages of HIV,’ she said.
Pictures of President-elect Obama taken at the VCT clinic during his 2006 visit are extensively being used to drive the campaign against HIV and Aids.
Staff at the clinic began distributing the posters in the run-up to the US election.
On election night, the VCT clinic set up a temporary facility at the Kogelo dispensary where villagers kept up with events in the US on a giant TV screen.
A Liverpool VCT clinic official said the events were geared towards reducing HIV infections in Nyanza Province.
The province leads in HIV prevalence rates in the country at 15 per cent, double the national rate of 7.4 per cent, according to the latest Kenya Aids Index Survey by the National Aids/STI Control Programme.
The survey further found that 1.4 million adults in Kenya are living with the virus with Nyanza contributing the highest percentage.
‘She is very supportive because she knows HIV and Aids is a killer. She believes in prevention and giving hope to those who are living with the virus,’ said Ms Okero of Mama Sarah.
US Ambassador, Mr Michael Ranneberger, said Obama’s win would have tremendous impact on Kenya.
Kenyans have welcomed Senator Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for the November US presidential elections.
Proud Grandma:Mama Sarah Obama and one of her grandsons, Mr. Wycliffe Omondi read The Standard at her Kogelo village home, Siaya District, Kenya on Thursday. Mama Sarah is the grandmother of Senator Barack Obama. Picture by Titus Munala.
Congratulatory messages continued to pour to The Standard newsroom from Kisumu, Nairobi, Mombasa, Garissa and even Moyale, with Kenyans wishing the Illinois senator the ultimate victory in the November election.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga were not left behind. In a statement from Arusha, President Kibaki congratulated Obama, saying the victory was a manifestation of the faith and confidence the Democratic membership had in his leadership.
On his part, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Obama’s victory was a momentous occasion in history.
“Barack Obama’s success will inspire us all to break the shackles of ethnic preoccupations in determining political leadership,” Raila said in a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Salim Lone.
Obama’s grandmother, Mama Sarah, 86, led villagers of Alego Kogelo, Siaya, where the senator’s father — Barack Obama Senior — was born, in thanking American voters for no,inating her grandchild.
At the home of Obama’s father, relatives, neighbours and students celebrated the triumph, whose campaign now promises to capture the psyche of Kenya in the run up to the presidential elections.
Obama’s Kenyan Kin Celebrate
Barack Obama speaks to residents of Nairobi’s Kibera area, Kenya, in August 2006.
Obama and Kenyan Grandmother (Mama Sarah)… Earlier Visit
Kenya Flag
Obama and Kenyan Relatives … Earlier Visit
Mama Sarah spent most of on Wednesday morning talking on the telephone to her relatives in America, UK and South Africa about Obama’s victory against Mrs. Hillary Clinton in the hotly contested primaries.
“I will travel to America to witness his swearing in because I know he will win. But I will not stay in the country for long,” she said.
Vice-President, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, hailed the victory as historic, saying Obama had won the nomination with dignity.
“Indeed, he may make history as the first American president with African roots,” said Kalonzo in Nairobi.
US Ambassador, Mr Michael Ranneberger, said Obama’s win would have tremendous impact on Kenya.
“Over 350,000 Kenyans live in the US, with another 7,000 traveling there annually, which explains the great interest in the race,” Ranneberger said.
Back at Obama’s father’s home in Siaya, residents basked in international glare as CNN led other international media teams in airing to the world live the joy of the village.
Barack Obama Jr. / Barack Obama Sr. CNN was live at Alego Kogelo at 10am, showing villagers holding bottles of ‘Senator’ beer to celebrate the Illinois Senator’s win.
Journalists, armed with sophisticated satellite equipment, began arriving at the sleepy village from as early as 6am on Wednesday.
Many installed their equipment at the home as they waited for permission from the family to interview the senator’s grandmother.
Other international media at the home included BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera.
However, the media had to wait for more than two hours before they could get access to Mama Sarah, who has become the biggest local celebrity.
The number of people claiming to be related to Obama also increased as the news of his victory filtered into Nyanza.
More ‘relatives’ show up
Mr. Tom Ombaka, a Kisumu businessman, said:“Everyone now claims he or she is a cousin of the senator. I have met more than ten people this morning who tell me they are Obama’s blood relations.”
Amid song and dance, Mama Sarah announced she was preparing for an epic journey to America to witness the swearing in ceremony of her grandson as the country’s first black president.
She said: “I will go there to witness the swearing in ceremony, and to pray for him, his family and the people of America for demonstrating unity and love beyond race and colour by picking a black person to lead them.”
She went on: “I love Africa. I am too old now and America is too cold for me to settle. So I will only be visiting once in a while if I am still alive by God’s will.
“I was highly elated when his sister, Rita Auma Obama, in South Africa phoned me to break the news. I said glory be to God,” she said, beaming with joy as she greeted the journalists.
She quipped: “I know what brings you here this early. But don’t worry, feel welcome. I will attend to your needs,” she said as she ushered in visitors to her compound.
“I had prophesied that Obama would win and my dream has partially come true. I am sure he will also win the final contest, God willing. This is my honest and humble prayers,” she said.
She said of her grandson: “His father loved people, development and education. These are the traits that Obama inherited and I can assure you he will go far.”
At the nearby Senator Barack Obama-Kogello Secondary School, which neighbours Mama Sarah’s home, students danced, sang and shouted: “Obama Juu! Obama Juu!”
The school principal, Ms Yunita Obiero, said she announced the good news to the students at assembly in the morning after hearing of Obama’s victory on BBC’s Swahili Service radio.
In Nairobi, ODM congratulated Obama for clinching the Democratic presidential nominations. Secretary-General, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, said the primaries were free and fair and Obama won convincingly.
“His global leadership is cut out for him,” said Nyong’o, who is also the Medical Services minister.
Win-win situation
Lands minister, Mr. James Orengo, said the Obama victory was a win-win situation for Kenya and US. “The US electoral process offers a rare opportunity for men and women of good character. Any Kenyan should, therefore, be able to win nomination locally irrespective of gender, tribe, race or religion,” Orengo said.
Previous Visit To Kenya
In Mombasa, the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya Organising Secretary, Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, urged Obama to stick to his manifesto which has earned him wide support and to steer away from US President George W’ Bush’s “confrontational policies”.
“Apart from being close to Africa, we expect Obama to move away from confrontational policies and unite the US and the rest of the world if he finally wins the presidency,” Khalifa said.
ODM-Kenya nominated MP, Ms Shakila Abdalla, said Obama’s victory was an achievement for Kenyans and Africa.
“Because Obama has roots in Kenya, we expect the US and Kenya to forge close ties. We are praying for his victory in the presidential poll,” Shakila said.
And North Eastern Province on Wednesday took delight in Obama’s victory. The predominantly Muslim province came to the limelight during the primaries early this year when Obama’s rival, Mrs Hillary Clinton’s campaign team circulated pictures on the Internet of Obama in Somali traditional attire taken in Wajir.
An elder, Mr Mohammed Hassan Mumin, who was photographed dressing Obama during the senator’s visit to Wajir, said they were happy that Obama was a step away from the presidency.
Mr Maalim Hussein, a teacher at a Quranic school in Garissa, said: “He was a victim of smear campaigns from the Clintons for embracing our attire, but we kept praying for his success and we are celebrating today.”
He added: “We also pray that he becomes the next US president so that he can help our impoverished province and Africa.”
Mr Christopher Njoroge, who lives in Washington, Seattle, said on the telephone: “This is great victory. It is victory for all America that wants real change.”
And from Des Moines, Iowa, Ms Nancy Mwirotsi, a key Obama supporter and mobiliser in a State that gave Obama his first victory, shed tears.
“For me, Obama’s victory is not just about himself and his family, it is about many young Kenyans here who look up to him as their role model,” she said.
Report by: Mangoa Mosota, Kepher Otieno, Mutinda Mwanzia, Ayub Savula, Patrick Beja, Boniface Ongeri and Chris Wamalwa — All of The East African Standard
Right-wing Christian Activists in the United States are attempting to use Senator Barack Obama’s Kenyan links to discredit him.
Sen. Barrack Obama [L] & Prime Minister Raila Odinga [R] The activists, most of them conseervative Christians, claim that Mr Obama is a relative of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whom they describe as a “socialist who plans to introduce Sharia Law in Kenya“.
Mr Obama is leading his party’s presidential nominations and is almost certain to win against Senator Hillary Clinton.
He also stands a good chance against Senator John McCain of the rival Republican Party, thus making history as the first non-white to become a US president.
For the past two decades, American presidential campaigns have been conducted with every aspect of a candidate’s life placed under the microscope.
Analysts expect the Republicans to scour Mr Obama’s Kenyan links to find anything that they can use against him.
Some of the most widely circulated allegations originated last month in a chain e-mail from Celeste Davis, an American Christian missionary who, together with her husband Loren Davis, claims to have worked in Kenya for 12 years.
The Davises allege that Senator Obama donated nearly $1 million (approximately Ksh61 million) to the Orange Democratic Movement’s campaign last year. “Obama and Raila speak daily,” the Davises add, claiming that the two men are cousins.
Bizarre and discredited
Mr Odinga’s spokesman, Mr. Salim Lone, dismissed the allegations as bizarre and discredited.
“These are bizarre accusations that lack credibility. The allegations that the Prime Minister has socialist and pro-Mulism leanings were discussed and discredited in the last campaign,” he said.
“This is the work of right-wing activists who are trying to puncture holes in Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House by attempting to resurrect allegations that were discredited in Kenya during the campaign,” he said.
Nairobi-based political scientist, Tom Wolf, an American, said that the Internet smear campaign against Mr Obama was an act of desperation.
“It just shows how desperate the Republicans are that Obama is viewed as a serious threat that they would have to use such irrelevant campaign tactics. If the Americans were worried, would they be so close to him? You recall that someone tried to use the Somali robes to discredit him,” he said.
If the Cold War were still on and communism were still alive, and Raila had spent a weekend with some communist leader like Fidel Castro, he said, it would be much more of an issue.
“But if you criticise Obama because he is related to a Kenyan leader who arrived at a compromise over the disputed election to save his nation, how would that hurt him?” Mr Wolf asked.
Mr Lone described the e-mail campaign as one of the last gasp efforts by right-wing activists in the US to dent Senator Obama’s campaign to become the Democratic Party’s standard bearer in the race to the White House.
Mr Lone, however, claimed that Mr Odinga and Senator Obama were related by blood and came from the same clan.
“It is true that the Prime Minister and the senator are related. Senator Obama comes from a family and clan to which the Prime Minister’s mother belongs, and they are cousins,” he said.
In the American sense, a cousin is the child of your parents’ siblings. But in Luo culture, the members of your father’s or mother’s clans are your cousins.
A clan would typically have hundreds of thousands of members, and the relationship is more social than biological.
Mr Obama is the son of Barack Obama Sr of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas.
He was raised by his maternal grandparents. In October last year, Mrs Lynne Cheney, wife of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, announced that she had discovered, while researching a book on their family, that Mr Cheney and Mr Obama were blood relatives.
They were eighth cousins, she said, with a common ancestor, a 17th-century immigrant from France.
The Illinois senator is acknowledged as perhaps the most charismatic American politician since John F Kennedy.
December election
Mr Davis and his wife, noting Mr Odinga’s contention that the December 27 presidential voting was rigged, said in their message, “As we watch Obama rise in the US we are sure that whatever happens, he will use the same tactic, crying rigged election if he doesn’t win and possibly cause a race war in America.”
A conservative Internet commentator, Michael Gaynor, speculated earlier this month that Senator Clinton’s campaign might play “the Kenya card” against Mr Obama.
Mr Gaynor says “the Kenya card” involves unspecified connections between the Kenyan-American senator and “the radical Kenyan prime minister.”
An author who succeeded in smearing Democratic Senator John Kerry in the 2004 US presidential race may also make negative use of Senator Obama’s Kenyan heritage.
A February 27 report by the McClatchy-Tribune News Service in the US says that author Jerome Corsi intends to research “Obama’s connections to Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga and Odinga’s ties to Muslim groups.”
Mr Corsi wrote Unfit for Command, a text effectively used by Republican Party partisans seeking to discredit Senator Kerry’s service in the US military during the Vietnam war.
Evidence assembled by Mr Kerry and his supporters showed that these charges were either exaggerated or flatly false.
The Davises’ allegations concerning Senator Obama and Mr Odinga “are all kinds of false,” states an online commentator for The New Republic, a respected US political magazine.
But one effect of the response to the Davises’ lies by so prestigious a magazine will be to call further attention to those lies.
Politifact, a political accuracy check maintained by two reputable and non-partisan publications — The St Petersburg (Florida) Times and Congressional Quarterly — published a detailed rebuttal of the Davises’ claims in a May 2 analysis by researcher Amy Hollyfield.
She quoted Mr Lone as saying: “This is absolutely ridiculous” in regard to the Davises’ claim that a group associated with Senator Obama donated nearly $1 million (Sh62 million) to the ODM campaign. “Mr Obama did not donate a single cent to Mr Odinga’s campaign,” Mr Lone told Politifact.
He said the group the Davises say gave the money to ODM does not exist, Politifact reports, citing several US election campaign monitoring organisations, including one sponsored by the US government.
Politifact also investigated the Davises’ claim that Mr Obama is a cousin of Mr Odinga.
That assertion is based on a BBC interview in January in which Mr Odinga said, “Barack Obama’s father is my maternal uncle.”
The BBC then asked, “You’re related to him?” Mr Odinga replied: “Yes, I am.”
The Obama campaign denies that the senator and Mr Odinga are cousins. And three Kenya experts interviewed by Politifact also dismissed this claim, Ms Hollyfield reports.
Normal sense
“To my knowledge, they are not first cousins in the normal sense,” Kenya election expert Joel Barkan, a professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, told Politifact.
“To my knowledge, there’s absolutely no relationship at all.”
Prof Barkan also took issue with the Davises’ characterisation of Mr Odinga as a “socialist.”
Such a charge is intended to incite still-virulent anti-communist sentiments among many Americans and to suggest that Senator Obama has a sinister, far-left agenda that he is concealing from US voters.
“He’s a populist politician,” Prof Barkan says of Mr Odinga, “but he’s no socialist.”
Because the Davises’ e-mail was written by missionaries long active in Kenya, “it somehow carries more credence than your average blog posting — and it’s spreading rapidly,” Politifact commented.
“But even with the credibility of a real author, the claims in this e-mail are as baseless as anything you’ve read from an anonymous blogger.”
Speaking to the Sunday Nation Saturday, Mr Lone said Mr Odinga and Mr Obama enjoy good relations.
However, Mr Lone was categorical that Senator Obama and the PM have never sat down to discuss their ideological commitments owing to the fact they play politics in different environments.
“Claims that the two have discussed their ideological commitments are completely far-fetched. The senator has Kenyan roots, but he is an American first and foremost,” he said. He further dismissed claims that Senator Obama, or groups connected to him, contributed to Mr Odinga’s campaign kitty, stating that they never received a cent from the Illinois senator.
Mr Davis and his wife claim to have preached among Muslims for 20 years, 12 of them in Kenya.
The Sunday Nation’s efforts to track them or their Kenyan ministry down Saturday were fruitless by the time of going to press.
REFERENCES:
1. Odinga says Obama is his cousin — Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he is a cousin of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
2. Could US elect a Luo before Kenya? — It is said there is a bitter joke among Kenya’s Luo community that the United States of America will elect a member of their tribe as president before the East African country does.
Her movements have been restricted for security reasons and the two governments are monitoring every move at her home as the clock tick’s to January 20 — the day President-elect Barack Obama takes over as the President of the world’s most powerful country.
Proud Grandma: Mama Sarah Obama and one of her grandsons, Mr. Wycliffe Omondi read 
CNN was live at Alego Kogelo at 10am, showing villagers holding bottles of ‘Senator’ beer to celebrate the Illinois Senator’s win.
