Barack Obama, Sr. - Return To Kenya

Return To Kenya

Obama returned to Kenya in August 1964. Baker followed him, and they married 24 December 1964. They had two sons together, Mark Okoth Obama in 1965 and David Opiyo Obama in 1968. Baker and Obama separated in 1971, and divorced in 1973. Baker subsequently married a Tanzanian named Ndesandjo and took his surname, as did her sons Mark and David. Mark said in 2009 that Obama had been abusive to him, his late brother David, and his mother.

After working for an oil company, Obama served as an economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Transport. He later was promoted to senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. In 1959, a monograph written by him had been published by the Kenyan Department of Education, entitled Otieno jarieko. Kitabu mar ariyo. 2: Yore mabeyo mag puro puothe. (English: Otieno, the wise man. Book 2: Wise ways of farming.) That same year, Obama published a paper entitled "Problems Facing Our Socialism" in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the blueprint for national planning, "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya", which had been produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. The article was signed "Barak H. Obama." In December 1971, Obama was still recuperating after an almost year-long hospitalization following an automobile accident. He made a month-long trip to Hawaii, during which he visited with his ex-wife Ann and son Barack II. The visit was the last time the boy would see his father. On that trip Obama took his son to his first jazz concert, a performance by the pianist Dave Brubeck.

President Obama recalled his father giving him his first basketball:

I only remember my father for one month my whole life, when I was 10. And it wasn't until much later in life that I realized, like, he gave me my first basketball and it was shortly thereafter that I became this basketball fanatic. And he took me to my first jazz concert and it was sort of shortly thereafter that I became really interested in jazz and music. So what it makes you realize how much of an impact that they have on you. But I think probably the most important thing was his absence I think contributed to me really wanting to be a good dad, you know? Because I think not having him there made me say to myself 'you know what I want to make sure my girls feel like they've got somebody they can rely on.'"

According to his son's memoir, Obama's conflict with President Jomo Kenyatta destroyed the economist's career. The decline began after Tom Mboya was assassinated in 1969. After Kenyatta fired Obama he was blacklisted in Kenya and found it impossible to get work. He began to drink heavily and had a serious car accident in 1970, requiring almost a year in the hospital. By the time he visited his son in Hawaii in late 1971, he had a bad leg. Obama's life deteriorated into drinking and poverty, from which he never recovered. His friend, journalist Philip Ochieng, has described Obama's difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper, Daily Nation.

Obama later lost both legs in a second serious automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He fathered another son named George. Six months after George's birth, Obama died in 1982 in a car crash in Nairobi, his third since 1970. He was interred in his native village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District. His funeral was attended by ministers Robert Ouko, Peter Oloo-Aringo and other prominent political figures.