Obama signs a guestbook alongside Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta upon his arrival on Air Force One at Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
DPA/Nairobi
US President Barack Obama landed in the Kenyan capital Nairobi late yesterday to embark on a four-day state visit to the region to address terrorism, economic recovery and human rights.
It is Obama’s first visit to Kenya and Ethiopia since he became president in 2009, but his fourth visit to the continent.
Earlier yesterday Obama’s grandmother started her way to the capital to meet the US president.
Sarah Obama, affectionately known as “Mama Sarah” across Kenya, is booked to stay in the same hotel as the president, the grandmother told local newspaper The Standard shortly before her departure.
She was accompanied by her daughter Masart Obama and carried a handcrafted, wooden stool as a present for her famous grandson.
She hopes Barack Obama will visit his father’s grave in Kogelo, her home village, Sarah Obama said, even though the White House excluded such a trip from the programme.
“I am going to try and convince him to come,” Mama Sarah was quoted as saying, adding that her grandson would have a place to stay in the village.
“I built for him a simba (a house built at the family homestead) next to his father’s grave,” Sarah Obama said.
The president could also sleep in her home, she added.
Obama is scheduled to address the Global Entrepreneurs Summit today.
The US president is also due to hold talks and attend a state dinner with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Security advisers Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes as well as spokesman Josh Earnest and some 20 senators and political representatives are accompanying the president.
Obama’s visit is expected to relaunch US-Kenyan relations after Washington was widely understood to have opposed the candidacy of Kenyatta in 2013 because of charges he was facing over 2007 post-election violence at the International Criminal Court.
Kenyatta won the election and the charges against him were dropped in December.
Tomorrow, Obama is expected to deliver a public speech, which is expected to focus on his personal relationship with his father’s home country.
About 10,000 police are being deployed in Nairobi, according to local media reports.
The US navy is on standby in the Indian Ocean, while the airspace is being heavily monitored by the US military.
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.
Obama is scheduled to travel to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, tomorrow night, where he is to meet Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on Monday.
Before his return to the US on Tuesday, Obama is set to meet with civil society representatives and visit the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa.
