WASHINGTON: Barack Obama will make a long-awaited return to Kenya this July, visiting his father’s homeland for the first time since becoming US president, the White House announced on Monday.

During the much-delayed visit, Obama will attend a summit to encourage entrepreneurship and meet the country’s controversial leader Uhuru Kenyatta.

Obama’s late father was from a small village near the shores of Lake Victoria. He met Obama’s white American mother in Hawaii, where they had a son before divorcing. America’s first black president has visited sub-Saharan Africa four times since taking office in 2009, but political scandal has blocked a presidential visit to his ancestral home.

For much of Obama’s time in power, Kenya’s president Kenyatta had been under investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2015

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