Ethiopian Review

Nairobi — Turkana Central MP Ekwee Ethuro has asked US President Barak Obama to have respect for the Kenyan leadership.

Ethuro said it was wrong for the US President to talk at the Kenyan leadership.

He said Obama should instead find time to visit Kenya and talk to Kenyan leaders with a view to finding a middle ground on how to deal with the challenges affecting the country.

Ethuro who spoke on the telephone enroute to Kigali, Rwanda to attend the Inter Parliamentary Union conference said Kenya may have teething problems including corruption and nepotism but it was not fair for the US President whose father hailed from Kenya to blast the country from Accra, Ghana and Rome, Italy.

Continental challenges

Ethuro said the problems facing Kenya are very much the same as those facing other countries on the African continent, and talking at cross purposes by the US President will not solve the challenges facing the continent either.

Ethuro who is leading the Kenyan delegation to the IPU being held in Kigali, said the attack by the US President gives Kenya a bad image internationally when everything is being done to correct the challenges facing the country including corruption.

Ethuro urged the US President to look at Kenya in a different light from the negative and wrong perception he seems to hold of the country noting that when the US President won the election last year, it was only the Kenyan government that declared a public holiday in his honour and that it was a slap in the face for Obama to now turn his back on a country that has always held him in high esteem.

- By Judith Akolo | KBC