Obama Finally To Visit Kenya As President

When Barack Obama visited his father’s homeland of Kenya in 2006, thousands flocked to the streets to see the fast-rising U.S.senator whom many embraced as if he were a native son.

Now, Obama is preparing to make his first visit to Kenya as U.S. president for a global entrepreneurship summit there in July, the White House said Monday. While Obama has traveled throughout Africa as president, visiting Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa, he steered clear from Kenya for nearly a decade, in part because of unrest and political considerations there, including a case by the International Criminal Court against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, which was dropped last December.

The Kenyan government is co-hosting the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, the first time the meeting will be held in sub-Saharan Africa. The trip may also provide an opportunity for the president to return to Kogelo, the village in western Kenya where his late father was raised, and to reunite with step-grandmother Sarah Obama, who is in her mid-90s.

This article appeared in print on page 3 of the March 31st, 2015 edition of Hamodia.