Former US President Barrack Obama did not visit his K’Ogelo home during his tenure because his plane could not fit at the local airport, he said as he launched the Sauti Kuu Foundation.
As POTUS he used a Boeing 747 popularly known as Air Force One. It is 63 feet 5 inches in external height, its wing span being 195 ft 8 inches and 231 ft in length.
The air force one has an occupancy of at least 539 passengers and 3 crew members. As a private citizen, the 44th POTUS jetted in in a VistaJet owned by a Swiss company, VistaJet that flies government, corporate and affluent private clients.
Speaking at the launch, Obama, 56, recounted events from his maiden trip to K’Ogelo back in 1991 where he noted that he and his half-sister Auma Obama took a bus from Nairobi and another crowded “matatu” to Mama Sarah’s home.
The comfort that came with being at home, he said, is one a five star hotel could never bring him.
He also praised Kenya for the tremendous progress she has made but noted that more can be realised should vices like ethnicity and corruption be shunned.
“But we know real progress lies in addressing the challenges that remain. It means rooting out the corruption to make a civic life. It means not seeing different ethnicities as enemies but rather as allies and seeing the diversity of tribes not as a weakness, but as a strength,” he noted.
He also applauded President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga for working together towards a building a better Kenya for generations to come.
“What we see here in Kenya is all part of an emergent, more confident and self-reliant Africa,” he said.
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After the unveiling of the basketball court, the former POTUS is expected to leave for South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s 100th anniversary.
Word also has it that before jetting in on Sunday, he and his wife Michelle Obama spent eight days touring the Serengeti National Park.
Many have questioned why Michelle skipped the trip back home after she was on Sunday evening photographed getting down at Beyonce’s concert.
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