THE name of Barack Obama, the father of the American president, is on top of a list of names revealed in a hitherto secret British colonial file of Kenyans studying in the US. The file notes the US state department had told British officials in 1959 that they were concerned Kenyan students in the US had a reputation for “falling into the wrong hands”.

British administrators in Nairobi expressed concern about the calibre of Kenyans receiving scholarships to go to US universities, claiming they were “academically inferior” to their contemporaries who stayed in Africa to study. They criticised a US-based body, the African American Students Foundation, which gave Obama Sr grants to study business administration at the University of Hawaii. Supporters of the project included the singer Harry Belafonte and the actor Sidney Poitier.

The president’s father is listed as “OBAMA, Barrack H” in the file of Kenyan students in the US drawn up by British colonial officials.

A year later Obama Sr met a white American called Ann Dunham on a Russian language course at the university. They married the following year and had a son, elected the first black US president in 2008.

Obama Sr died in car crash in Nairobi in 1982. His father, Onyango, was jailed in 1949 for involvement in the Kenyan independence movement. Obama Sr’s stepmother, Sarah Onyango Obama, has said he was subjected to beatings and abuse which caused permanent disabilities, and a hatred of the British.

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