Categories: NEWS

How Late Granny Raised My Father, Barack Obama Laments Death Of Grandmother

 

How late Granny raised Obama’s biological father as the former US President loses grandmother
OpenLife Nigeria reports that Barack Obama, a democrat and the 44th President of the United States of America has lost his Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama.
Obama who, just last week, announced the commencement on the building of the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago, is currently in sorrow.
In a well crafted words of lamentation, the former president stated that the entire family would continuously miss Sarah Obama who he described as loving and kind
Obama wrote on how late Granny raised his father:

“My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as “Mama Sarah” but known to us as “Dani” or Granny. Born in the first quarter of the last century, in Nyanza Province, on the shores of Lake Victoria, she had no formal schooling, and in the ways of her tribe, she was married off to a much older man while only a teen. She would spend the rest of her life in the tiny village of Alego, in a small home built of mud-and thatch brick and without electricity or indoor plumbing. There she raised eight children, tended to her goats and chickens, grew an assortment of crops, and took what the family didn’t use to sell at the local open-air market.
Although not his birth mother, Granny would raise my father as her own, and it was in part thanks to her love and encouragement that he was able to defy the odds and do well enough in school to get a scholarship to attend an American university. When our family had difficulties, her homestead was a refuge for her children and grandchildren, and her presence was a constant, stabilizing force. When I first traveled to Kenya to learn more about my heritage and father, who had passed away by then, it was Granny who served as a bridge to the past, and it was her stories that helped fill a void in my heart.
During the course of her life, Granny would witness epochal changes taking place around the globe: world war, liberation movements, moon landings, and the advent of the computer age. She would live to fly on jets, receive visitors from around the world, and see one of her grandsons get elected to the United States presidency. And yet her essential spirit—strong, proud, hard-working, unimpressed with conventional marks of status and full of common sense and good humor—never changed.
We will miss her dearly, but celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”

 

Share This
Openlife Reporter

Recent Posts

Nigerian Leading Actor, Jide Kosoko, Laments Debt Burden

Jide Kosoko in N300m Debt as Cinema Flop Exposes Nigeria's Harsh Economy

4 hours ago

Millions Of Websites At Risk As AI Exposes Critical PHP Flaw

AI tools from OpenAI and Google have uncovered two decade-old critical remote code execution flaws…

7 hours ago

How To Build Citizen Patriotism: The Singapore Example And Why Nigeria Fails

Singapore PM Lawrence Wong announced every Singaporean child will now receive almost S$70,000 (about N85m)…

10 hours ago

While Ebola Spreads, Nigerian Senators Vote Against Critical Spots’ Physical Oversight

The Nigerian Senate voted down a proposal for physical oversight of international airports over fear…

12 hours ago

Bleak Outlook For Insurance Investors And Policyholders As CBN Blocks N300bn Recapitalisation Funds

Insurance companies have been unable to access about N300 billion raised during the just concluded…

13 hours ago

This website uses cookies.