Obama's brother running for office in Kenya
US President Barack Obama's political career has inspired his half-brother Malik Obama to run for office in Kenya.
"If my brother is doing great things for people in the United States, why can't I do great things for Kenyans here?" Malik Obama told Reuters in an interview on Friday in the village of Kogelo, the US president's ancestral home.
The 54-year-old is running as an independent candidate for the governorship of rural Siaya county. The election is scheduled to be held in March 2013.
"He [Barack Obama] is an inspiration to me and I feel that he is an embodiment of my father's dream," Malik Obama said.
"All he told me is ‘brother, it is not an easy thing to get into public office. Just have a thick skin because people will be targeting you. The media will be saying this and that. There will be people who love you and people who won’t love you.’"
Malik Obama said his younger brother has succeeded by modeling his life on the life of their father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who was the first African to attend the University of Hawaii and later returned home to work in the highest levels of the Kenyan civil service.
Barack Obama, Sr. went to Harvard University for graduate school, earned a master’s degree in economics, and returned to Kenya in 1964.
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