As a tall, strangely familiar figure leaves his one-room shack in a
notorious African slum this week, a few people jokingly call out to him:
‘Mister President! Mister President!’
Heading for breakfast through his junk-strewn yard, stepping over
streams of sewage, the appearance of this slim, angular man prompts
giggles and pointing from children in rags playing in the muck.
The man’s name is George Hussein Obama and his half-brother is Barack
Hussein Obama, Kenya’s most famous son, the first black President of the
U.S. and the most powerful man in the world.
George Hussein Obama, the half-brother of the most famous man in the world, pictured in the Nairobi slum he calls home.
George Hussein Obama in Nairobi: The half brother of Barack Obama has
agreed to appear in a documentary which is critical of the U.S.
President
The two men may share the same father, but while Barack Obama was born
in Hawaii to his father’s American second wife, George — born in Kenya —
was the product of Obama Senior’s fourth marriage.
Today, while Barack entertains at the White House, flies aboard Air
Force One and is a friend of film stars and royalty, George, 30, is to
be found slumped in his corrugated iron shack which even fellow
slum-dwellers regard as a hovel.
Details of his unorthodox lifestyle emerged with news that he has agreed
to appear in a documentary film being made by one of Barack Obama’s
most trenchant critics.
Called 2016, and directed by the production team behind Schindler’s
List, the film sets out the supposed horrors of another four years of
Obama in office — though George does not criticise the President on
screen. It is the idea of U.S. author Dinesh D’Souza, whose book The
Roots Of Obama’s Rage paints a deeply unflattering portrait of the
‘narcissistic’ President.
George Hussein Obama George now spends his time drinking what locals
call Chang’aa — a spirit distilled with maize and spiked with chemicals —
from the moment he wakes to the moment he slips into unconsciousness
Whilst his half-brother inhabits a desolate Kenyan slum, U.S. President
Barack Obama, pictured during an election campaign rally in Colorado
Springs, is firmly in the limelight
George has also written a memoir, called Homeland. Published in 2012, it
details how he turned his back on a middle-class Kenyan upbringing to
live among the desperately poor in Nairobi’s infamous slums. The book’s
precis tell us: ‘George chooses to live in the Nairobi ghetto, where he
works to help the ghetto-dwellers, and especially the slum kids,
overcome the challenges surrounding their lives.’
And the book quotes George thus: ‘My brother has risen to be the leader
of the most powerful country in the world. Here in Kenya, my aim is to
be a leader among the poorest people on Earth: those who live in the
slums.’
In what sounds like the script for a Hollywood film, he claims to have
been the driving force behind the transformation of a slum football team
into one of the top sides in Kenya, known as ‘Obama’s champs’.
Details of the lifestyle of Obama’s half-brother emerged with news he
has agreed to appear in a documentary made by one of the President’s
most trenchant critics
Such, apparently, is his devotion to good works that many Kenyans want
George to stand for President, believing anyone sharing the name and
blood of the most powerful politician on the planet can transform their
lives.
But, as I discovered, this may prove beyond George. Indeed, standing —
let alone talking much sense or walking in a straight line — is tricky
for the U.S. President’s brother much of the time, due to his chronic
addiction to drink and years of drug abuse.
Nor is there anything heroic and altruistic about his motives for living
in the slums. His principal reason is that the potent local moonshine
is cheap and readily available here, as is cocaine, heroin and
marijuana.
Clearly following the dictum that the best place to hide a tree is in a
forest, George’s decision to settle in a slum called Huruma — which is
scarred by alcoholism, drug addiction and violence — means his own
destructive behaviour attracts little attention.
Although he claims not to be using heroin or cocaine, George now spends
his time drinking what locals call Chang’aa — a spirit distilled with
maize and spiked with chemicals — from the moment he wakes to the moment
he slips into unconsciousness.
Laced with ethanol, embalming fluid or battery acid to give it more
kick, this substance is regularly blamed for causing blindness and death
when the criminal syndicates behind the trade mix it wrongly.
A glass costs about 10p and, after just five small shots, even hardened
drinkers can barely remember their own name. Regular users suffer liver
and kidney failure, as well as mental impairment known as ‘wet brain’.
George Hussein Obama says that his last name is a curse, but members of
his community say that he trades on it shamelessly for alcohol and food.
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