African press review 16 July 2015

Kenya is troubled by the outbreak of a strange illness that paralyses children. And, an inside account about why US President Barack Obama never inherited his father's estate.

Daily Nation reports that parents in Teso North are in shock over their children’s legs becoming weak or paralysed after they were administered an injection at a local dispensary. Daily Nation says that as many as 30 children have been reportedly diagnosed with the bizarre condition, and some parents claimed that their children’s feet had started rotting away.

On Wednesday, residents stormed the office of Busia Governor Sospeter Ojaamong, accusing staff at the Akichelesit Dispensary of harming their children. One parent says she was told by at the dispensary that her child was suffering from a hereditary problem.
The county health executive Dr. Maurice Simiyu told the Nation on Wednesday that a team of medics sent to the dispensary last week to investigate the cases had to flee for their lives after residents threatened to lynch them.

He says the children may have been injected with the wrong or expired drugs, adding that he is not ruling out the possibility that they were injected in the wrong place.

As Kenya prepares to welcome US President Barack Obama to his father’s homeland, Standard Digital delves into a very sensitive issue for the American leader – why he never inherited his father’s estate.

According to the newspaper Barack Obama actually wrote a letter to the High Court in Nairobi in July 1997, six months after winning the Illinois Senate seat, disavowing any claims he might have on his father's assets. That was three months after his father’s death and following the outbreak of a family tussle over the elder Obama’s property that had divided his family into two warring camps.

The elder Obama’s assets valued at about 410,500 shilling (about 4,000 euros) including a 55,933-shilling life insurance policy held by the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority has never been paid to his beneficiaries upon his death, according to Standard Digital.

The Nairobi newspaper says the name of the US president is mentioned in the case files in Nairobi's High Court as some of his late father’s wives and children were also embroiled in the battle to choose his legitimate heir.

Standard Digital reports that the colourful legal drama, which has gone on for years, pits Obama Senior’s first wife against the fourth and the eldest son against the youngest, quoting excerpts from Sally Jacobs’ book titled "The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father".

A host of family members who took sides on the issue provided "conflicting affidavits peppered with name-calling and insults," the book says. The brawl is captured in the affidavit filed by Grace Kezia Aoko Obama at the High Court of Kenya, Nairobi, in November 1988. Standard Digital says it has found out that in her affidavit, she claimed she had never divorced her husband, insisting she was still his wife.