Kenya starts celebrating Obama

Hours before Barack Obama's inauguration as the U.S. 44th President, people are celebrating in the Kenyan village of Kogelo. ‘Obamamania’ has gripped Africa as Obama’s father was born in western Kenya.

Barack Obama senior moved from Kogelo to the U.S. after he won a scholarship to study at the University of Hawaii.

And despite the President-elect barely knowing his father, who left the family when Obama was a child, Kenyans are hailing him as one of their own.

Barack Obama is popular throughout the whole continent.

“Africa today celebrates one of its most famous sons,” said a woman from Kogelo who claimed to be a distant relative of Obama.