Obama's brother: Meet the hopeless drunk from a Nairobi shanty town who is the U.S. President's BROTHER

• Whilst the President inhabits the luxurious surroundings of the Oval Office and flies aboard Air Force One, his half-brother George Obama lives in a notorious African slum
• George Obama has battled addictions to drink and drugs for most of his life at the same time as his relative has enjoyed a meteoric rise to power
• The 30-year-old, who was once hooked on cocaine, says that his surname is frequently a burden to him

As a tall, strangely familiar figure leaves his one-room shack in a notorious African slum this week, a few people jokingly call out to him: ‘Mister President! Mister President!’

Heading for breakfast through his junk-strewn yard, stepping over streams of sewage, the appearance of this slim, angular man prompts giggles and pointing from children in rags playing in the muck.

The man’s name is George Hussein Obama and his half-brother is Barack Hussein Obama, Kenya’s most famous son, the first black President of the U.S. and the most powerful man in the world.

George Hussein Obama, the half-brother of the most famous man in the world, pictured in the Nairobi slum he calls home

George Hussein Obama in Nairobi: The half brother of Barack Obama has agreed to appear in a documentary which is critical of the U.S. President

The two men may share the same father, but while Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to his father’s American second wife, George — born in Kenya — was the product of Obama Senior’s fourth marriage.


Today, while Barack entertains at the White House, flies aboard Air Force One and is a friend of film stars and royalty, George, 30, is to be found slumped in his corrugated iron shack which even fellow slum-dwellers regard as a hovel.

 

Details of his unorthodox lifestyle emerged with news that he has agreed to appear in a documentary film being made by one of Barack Obama’s most trenchant critics.

Called 2016, and directed by the production team behind Schindler’s List, the film sets out the supposed horrors of another four years of Obama in office — though George does not criticise the President on screen. It is the idea of U.S. author Dinesh D’Souza, whose book The Roots Of Obama’s Rage paints a deeply unflattering portrait of the ‘narcissistic’ President.

George Hussein Obama George now spends his time drinking what locals call Chang’aa — a spirit distilled with maize and spiked with chemicals — from the moment he wakes to the moment he slips into unconsciousness

Whilst his half-brother inhabits a desolate Kenyan slum, U.S. President Barack Obama, pictured during an election campaign rally in Colorado Springs, is firmly in the limelight

George has also written a memoir, called Homeland. Published in 2012, it details how he turned his back on a middle-class Kenyan upbringing to live among the desperately poor in Nairobi’s infamous slums. The book’s precis tell us: ‘George chooses to live in the Nairobi ghetto, where he works to help the ghetto-dwellers, and especially the slum kids, overcome the challenges surrounding their lives.’

And the book quotes George thus: ‘My brother has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Here in Kenya, my aim is to be a leader among the poorest people on Earth: those who live in the slums.’

In what sounds like the script for a Hollywood film, he claims to have been the driving force behind the transformation of a slum football team into one of the top sides in Kenya, known as ‘Obama’s champs’.

Details of the lifestyle of Obama's half-brother emerged with news he has agreed to appear in a documentary made by one of the President's most trenchant critics

Such, apparently, is his devotion to good works that many Kenyans want George to stand for President, believing anyone sharing the name and blood of the most powerful politician on the planet can transform their lives.

But, as I discovered, this may prove beyond George. Indeed, standing — let alone talking much sense or walking in a straight line — is tricky for the U.S. President’s brother much of the time, due to his chronic addiction to drink and years of drug abuse.

Nor is there anything heroic and altruistic about his motives for living in the slums. His principal reason is that the potent local moonshine is cheap and readily available here, as is cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

Clearly following the dictum that the best place to hide a tree is in a forest, George’s decision to settle in a slum called Huruma — which is scarred by alcoholism, drug addiction and violence — means his own destructive behaviour attracts little attention.

Although he claims not to be using heroin or cocaine, George now spends his time drinking what locals call Chang’aa — a spirit distilled with maize and spiked with chemicals — from the moment he wakes to the moment he slips into unconsciousness.

Laced with ethanol, embalming fluid or battery acid to give it more kick, this substance is regularly blamed for causing blindness and death when the criminal syndicates behind the trade mix it wrongly.
A glass costs about 10p and, after just five small shots, even hardened drinkers can barely remember their own name. Regular users suffer liver and kidney failure, as well as mental impairment known as ‘wet brain’.

George Hussein Obama says that his last name is a curse, but members of his community say that he trades on it shamelessly for alcohol and food

Whilst Barack Obama enjoys all the perks which come with the role as U.S. President, his half-brother is caught in a spiral of chronic addiction to drink and drug abuse

Barack Obama and his father Barack Obama Sr. at Honolulu airport after the only meeting that the U.S. President can recall over Christmas in 1971

When I track George down early one morning to find out about his life, he’s already been for a liquid breakfast at the nearest Chang’aa den, where sex with prostitutes is also on the menu in a bed kept at the back.

Introductions are made by George’s ‘security man’ — a red-eyed slum dweller and fellow heavy-drinker who drags George out of the den, shouting at him to come and see the ‘muzungu’ (white man) outside.

Then, after shaking hands, I make a mistake. I invite George to lunch at my hotel. For the next two days, he lays siege to my mini-bar, invites a succession of girlfriends and ‘security advisers’ to wine and dine at my expense, and behaves like he is a famous, spoilt celebrity.

He also repeatedly demands ‘kitu kidogo’ — Swahili for something small, which, of course, means something large and financial — and is appalled when I refuse to hand out cash to his assorted girlfriends.

President Barack Obama, pictured aboard Air Force One, is as far removed in the imagination as could be possible from his Kenyan relative

The Huruma slum of Nairobi which is scarred by alcoholism, drug addiction and violence - and is where the President of the United States' brother lives in squalor

Paradoxically, George also moans endlessly about the Obama name being a burden and a curse — yet, at the same time, unashamedly uses it to make as much money as possible to spend on drink and drugs.

‘People are only interested in me because of my brother,’ he sighs, slurping a double Johnnie Walker, with a beer chaser — one of many. ‘I hate it. People all want me to be someone else.’

George first met his now-famous sibling in a playground when he was at primary school. Barack was a young visitor to Nairobi just a few years after their father died in a car crash. George recalls he was playing football when his brother arrived to say hello.
The second time their paths crossed was when Obama — then a Senator — was on a tour of East Africa in 2006, and visited Nairobi to see his family. They shook hands — the two utterly different worlds they inhabited coming together under the African sun.

‘He is an inspiration,’ George observes. ‘We have met a couple of times. We do speak . . . he is my brother.’