He indicated that he got to know about his grandfather who was a cook during the colonial times from his belongings which he found in his house in the rural village.
“My grandfather for example was a cook for the British and as I went through some of his belongings when I went upcountry, I found a passbook that he had to carry as a domestic servant. It listed his age, his height, tribe, the number of teeth he had missing and he was referred to as a boy even though he was a grown man in that passbook,” he stated.
He stated that his grandfather was in the King’s African Rifles during the Second World War and was taken to the far reaches of the British Empire all the way to Burma and back home and that after the war, he was eventually detained for a while because he was linked to a group which was opposed to the British rule.
“Eventually he was released, he forged a home for himself and his family and earned the respect of his village and lived a life of dignity although he had a well earned reputation of being so strict that everybody was scared of him and he became estranged from part of his family and then my father came of age as Kenyans were pursuing independence and he was proud to be a part of that liberation,” he stated.
He revealed that his father also wrote quite a number of letters to universities in America for a scholarship and eventually was accepted to one college where he pursued his dream of being an economist.
“I found letters that he had written to 30 American universities asking for a chance to pursue his dream and pursue a scholarship. And ultimately, one university gave him that chance and that is the University of Hawaii,” he said.
“He would go on to get an education and return home. And here he found success as an economist, worked with the government but ultimately, he found disappointment in part because he couldn’t reconcile the ideas he had for his young country with the hard realities that confronted him and I think sometimes the history and the past tell us something about the future.”
In his speech, Obama also had kind words for Kenya’s transformation, recalling how far the country has come in democracy and development, although saying there is much more that needs to be done.
He is encouraging more progress to be made on expanding democracy, human rights to be able to achieve good governance which will spur growth in the country.
The American President further emphasised the need for everybody to intensify the fight against corruption.
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