US President Barack Obama arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, late on Friday, making his first visit to the country of his father’s birth since his election as president.
Obama said yesterday that “Africa is on the move,” as he praised the spirit of entrepreneurship at a business summit.
“I wanted to be here, because Africa is on the move, Africa is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world,” Obama said. “People are being lifted out of poverty, incomes are up, the middle class is growing and young people like you are harnessing technology to change the way Africa is doing business.”
Photo: AFP
The US embassy warned the summit could be “a target for terrorists,” but Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the event showed a different side to Africa than that often portrayed in the media.
“The narrative of African despair is false, and indeed was never true,” Kenyatta said. “Let them know that Africa is open and ready for business.”
Obama was greeted by Kenyatta with a handshake and embrace as he stepped off Air Force One.
“It is wonderful to be back in Kenya,” Obama said. “I’m proud to be the first US president to visit Kenya, and obviously this is personal for me. My father came from these parts.”
Obama is linked to his Kenyan family via his father, Barack senior, a pipe-smoking economist who Obama has admitted he “never truly” knew. He walked out when Obama was just two and died in a car crash in Nairobi in 1982, aged 46.
The president’s half-sister, Auma, was also on the tarmac to greet him and travel in the bespoke, bomb-proof presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast,” for the drive to a hotel in the city center, where he dined with members of his extended Kenyan family.
Throngs of Kenyans lined the route of the convoy, cheering, whistling and waving as Obama’s motorcade sped by and a helicopter circled overhead.
A massive security operation was under way in Nairobi, with parts of the usually traffic-clogged capital locked down and airspace also closed for the US president’s landing and his scheduled departure late today for neighboring Ethiopia.
At least 10,000 police officers, roughly a quarter of the entire national force, have been deployed to the capital.
Top of the list of security concerns is Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Shaabab, which has staged a string of suicide attacks, massacres and bombings on Kenyan soil, including an attack on a university in April that killed 147 students and the siege of the Westgate shopping mall in the heart of the capital nearly two years ago that left 67 dead.
Obama said he had seen big changes in Kenya’s rapidly growing capital since his previous visit about a decade ago, saying it looked “pretty different” and praising the “incredible progress.”
Excitement has been building in Kenya, with the visit painted as a major boost for the east African nation’s position as a regional hub — something that has taken a battering in recent years due to al-Shabaab attacks and political violence that landed Kenyan leaders in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The visit is also the first ever to Kenya by a sitting US president.
Obama is celebrated as a hero throughout the country, yet many Kenyans have been disappointed it has taken him until almost the end of his second term in office to make the trip.
A presidential visit to Kenya had been put on ice while Kenyatta faced charges of crimes against humanity for his role in 2007-2008 post-election violence.
The ICC has since dropped the case, citing a lack of evidence and accusing Kenya of bribing or intimidating witnesses.
Kenyatta has signalled that Deputy Kenyan President William Ruto, who is still on trial at the ICC, would be present when government officials meet Obama.
However, Ruto was not part of the greeting party at the airport.
Obama is traveling without first lady Michelle Obama.
Counter-terrorism is expected to be a key topic for discussion, with Nairobi the scene of one of al-Qaeda’s twin 1998 US embassy bombings and the country’s Muslim-majority regions facing a major al-Shabaab recruitment drive.
Obama was also due to hold bilateral talks and a joint news conference with Kenyatta later yesterday and deliver a keynote address to the country today.
In Ethiopia he is to be the first US leader to address the African Union.
He was not scheduled to visit family relatives or his father’s grave in the village of Kogelo in western Kenya, and Obama earlier this month himself bemoaned the heavy security restrictions.
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