Tom Mboya monument gets facelift for Obama visit
The Tom Mboya monument in Nairobi’s CBD is undergoing a major facelift as part of the rehabilitation works that the city’s county government has undertaken on various facility in the capital ahead of US President Barrack Obama’s visit to Kenya next month.
The iconic piece of artwork along Moi Avenue was unveiled by Kenya’s former President Mwai Kibaki and his c0-principal in the Grand Coalition government Raila Odinga in 2011, in honour of the firebrand politician who was assassinated near that spot in 1969.
President Obama’s father Barrack Obama Senior, was a beneficiary of Mboya’s famous airlifts for bright Kenyan students to pursue higher education in the US in the 1950s and 60s.
Obama Senior who went to the United States in 1959 through Mboya’s programme ended up getting married to Ann Duham with whom he sired a son who would go on to become America’s first black president.
Thus, Obama is expected to visit the monument during his stay in Nairobi.
The facelift is part of the rehabilitation works agreed upon by the Nairobi County Government, under the stewardship of Governor Evans Kidero – who incidentally happens to be Mboya’s son in law.