Many Kenyans are disappointed that “our son”, President Barack Obama, did not choose to come “home” on his first official trip to Africa.

The general feeling is that Obama is “punishing” the Kenya Government for its slow pace of reforms and its unwillingness to deal with corruption.

Although I believe that shunning Kenya is part of the Obama administration’s strategy for dealing with poorly governed African states, I am convinced that Obama, unlike his predecessor, George Bush, has deeply personal reasons for avoiding Kenya.

Every trip Obama has made to his ancestral land has been both a revelation and a disappointment. As a young man in search of his roots in the 1980s, he saw a country ravaged by a despotic regime, and a people without faith in a better tomorrow. He saw siblings, cousins and aunts, whose lives showed little promise, and who envied him for not being born in Kenya.

When he came back to Kenya as a US senator in 2006, the government pooh-poohed him for being just a “junior senator from America” who had no right to lecture Kenyans on issues such as corruption and the rule of law. Is it any wonder he is avoiding Kenya now?

The full story here.