KENYA DEMANDS PRESS GET PERMISSION FIRST

The Kenyan government has blocked members of President-elect Barack Obama’s extended family from talking to the media. http://www.allafrica.com/ reports that the Kenyan government told family members that they would have to ask for official permission before issuing any statement concerning Obama. It said the government would also vet all those seeking information about the family. “We are doing this because we want to ensure better flow of information. (And hide what we do not want disclosed). The government has decided that you should inform its officers who will be based here if you want to address the media,” Athman Said, an Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Heritage, told the Obama family in Kogelo on Thursday. A proposed Obama Cultural Home, comprising a museum, a gallery, a library and a leadership centre would be put up in Kogelo, Said told the family. A cultural officer, Dorcas Obege, will also be assigned to Kogelo to vet visitors and others seeking information about the family. How much for all this upgrade below has the Obama campaign donated to buy silence or block disclosure? Again, what is being so urgently hidden at such high cost? Said, who led a delegation from the Department of Culture, said the government had set aside Sh30 million to upgrade the proposed Obama cultural home. Athman said his department was liaising with the United States government to have Obama’s published and un-published materials on display at the proposed library while it would also show a video of Mama Sarah Obama, the president elect’s step-grandmother, telling the (revisionist) history of the Obama family. The government has graded all the roads leading to Kogelo and set up a police station within the home to protect the Obama family after an attempted robbery. The report said Kenya Power and Lighting Company had also connected power to what used to be a sleepy village. The value of land has doubled in the last few months and several investors are understood to be planning to build hotels in the area, to provide for the many tourists who are expected to visit Kogelo on what will be known as the Presidential Heritage Tourism Circuit. Heritage minister, William Ole Ntimama, confirmed that the government had decided to transform Obama’s father’s home in Kogelo, Siaya district into a national heritage site. He said, “This is a great opportunity to open up the western tourism circuit and we have asked Treasury to find us some money so that we can roll out a number of projects that will make this a truly memorable cultural site.” WHY ALL THIS? BECAUSE......