Barack Obama, Sr

Obama, Sr. with son, Barack c. 1971
Born 1936
Kendu Bay, Kenya
Died 1982 (aged 46)
Nairobi, Kenya

Resting place Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya, Kenya
Nationality Kenya
Alma mater University of Hawaii
Harvard University
Occupation Economist
Known for Father of Barack Obama
Partner Kezia Obama
Ann Dunham
Ruth Nidesand
Jael
Children 1. (with Kezia): Abongo (Roy) Obama, Auma Obama,
Abo Obama, Bernard Obama
2. (with Ann Dunham): Barack Obama II
3. (with Ruth Nidesand): Mark Ndesandjo, David Ndesandjo
4. (with Jael): George Obama
Parents Hussein Onyango Obama and Akumu Habiba

Barack Hussein Obama (1936–1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist, and father of Illinois Senator and United States president-elect Barack Obama. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, Dreams From My Father.

Biography
Obama Sr. was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kendu Bay, Rachuonyo and grew up in Nyang’oma Kogelo, Alego, Siaya, Kenya. He was the son of Hussein Onyango Obama (c. 1895–1979) by his second wife, Akumu Habiba. His family are members of the Luo ethnic group. Obama Sr. had already turned away from Islam and become an atheist by the time he moved to the United States. Barack Obama Sr.'s daughter Auma has commented that her father "was never a Muslim although he was born into a Muslim family with a Muslim name."

Personal Life
Obama Sr belonged to goat herding family and his father was a village chieftain and he excelled in school.He got married at the age of eighteen in a tribal ceremony to Kezia . He moved to the Kenyan Capital Nairobi where he received a scholarship in economics through a program organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya. The program offered Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students including Wangari Maathai. Senator Obama said of his father's scholarship, "The Kennedys decided: 'We're going to do an airlift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama, Sr. got one of those tickets and came over to this country.'" An article by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post, however, states that the Kennedy family did not become associated with the educational airlift until 1960, a year after Obama Sr. was studying in the United States. Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama Sr.'s early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University. At the age of 23 he Obama Sr. enrolled at the University of Hawaii, leaving behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son.

On 21 February 1961 he married a fellow student Ann Dunham in Maui, Hawaii who was pregnant with his child without informing her that he had not divorced his wife Kezia whom he rejoined and had children. Their son, Barack Obama ll, was born on August 4, 1961. Ann Dunham left school to care for the baby, while Obama Sr. completed his degree. He graduated from the University of Hawaii in June 1962. He was offered admission in New York University where he was offered a scholarship with which he could sustained the family but he declined it prefering Harvard over his new family. Later that summer, Dunham and the year-old baby Barack stopped to visit her friends in Mercer Island, Washington, the Seattle suburb where she had grown up, before joining Obama Sr. in Cambridge. However, mother and son soon returned to Seattle, where she enrolled in the University of Washington. Dunham, missing her family, then moved back to Hawaii and filed for divorce in Honolulu in January 1964. Obama Sr. did not contest, and the divorce was granted. He only saw his son again once, in 1971, when Barack was 10 years old. While at Harvard, Obama Sr. met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand. She followed him to Kenya when he returned there after receiving a Masters degree (AM) in economics from Harvard in 1965. Nidesand eventually became his third wife and had two children with him before they divorced. He told his friend "I consider myself a serial polygamist" and added "That is, one wife at a time". His third marriage was unknown to his first wife Kezia and came to know about it only after he lost his legs in an accident.

Return to Kenya
On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation, and later became senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. In 1965 Obama Sr. wrote a paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism," published in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the blueprint for national planning titled "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya" produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. As Senator Barack Obama describes in his memoir, his father's conflict with President Kenyatta destroyed his career.

Obama Sr.'s life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never recovered. His friend, Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng, has described Obama Sr.'s difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Nation. Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile collision, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterward at the age of 46 in a car crash in Nairobi.

Obama Sr. is buried in Alego, at the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya.