Mama Sarah Obama’s word as Malik, Auma spar on Twitter over Barack Obama’s ‘birth certificate’

By Brian Okoth and Baraka Karama

Mama Sarah Obama, the grandmother of former US President Barack Obama, has rubbished Malik Obama’s allegations that Barack was born in Mombasa-Kenya, and not Honolulu-Hawaii, United States as formally documented.

Mama Sarah’s remarks comes hours after Malik took to Twitter to post a picture of a birth certificate, which indicates one Barack Hussein was born at the Coast General Hospital on August 4, 1961 to then-26-year-old Barack Hussein Obama -- Mama Sarah’s child -- and 18-year-old Ann Dunham from Kansas City, in the US.

In quick response, Auma Obama, a sister of both Malik and Barack, took to Twitter to call out Malik over his allegations, saying Malik is “consumed by jealousy”.

“[You are] so blindly consumed by jealousy and bitterness that you will go to any length to slander your younger brother’s name – literally! Just because he has outshone you in every single aspect of his life. Seek relevance elsewhere big brother!” reads Auma’s tweet.

She went ahead to claim that Malik’s “hatred” towards Barack started the moment he (Barack) started rising politically in the US in 1997.

“[In 1987], long before he even knew he would be president, my little brother visited his fatherland and was embraced by all! Malik, you took centre stage in welcoming him!” said Auma.

And now, Mama Sarah Obama has given her word in the Barack birthplace debate.

“Malik has always been jealous of his younger brother, Barack. I think his jealousy is driven by Barack’s success story. I would like to tell Malik that his renewed hatred towards his brother is uncalled for. Barack completed his term as the 44th US President, and, therefore, there’s no need for Malik to try and malign him,” Mama Sarah Obama told K24 Digital on phone on Tuesday, June 16.

The Barack Obama birthplace debate was renewed on June 15, 2020 after it was put to rest in September 2016, when US authorities established that the former US Head of State was born in Hawaii. The then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (now president), alleged that Obama had forged his certificate, until when the White House shared Obama’s birth certificate.

Buzzfeed noted that Trump tweeted in August 2012 that “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”

In September of that year, Trump shared via Twitter an article claiming the birth certificate was fake. In a June 2014 tweet, Trump boasted, “I was the one who got Obama to release his birth certificate, or whatever that was!”

And in 2013 he retweeted someone who alleged the long-form birth certificate was “a computer generated forgery.”

After the Obama birthplace rumours were put to rest, Trump said he was very proud of himself after the White House released Obama's birth certificate, which was a response to persistent rumours he was not born in the US.

Obama had previously released an official "certification of live birth" showing he was born in Hawaii.

However, fringe "birther" theorists insisted Obama was actually born in Kenya, making him ineligible to be president.

Senators’ profiles documented on the US Senate website indicates after being born in Hawaii, Obama later pursued his education in Indonesia.

“Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He received his elementary and high school education in Indonesia and Hawaii and graduated from Columbia University in 1983. He moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods.

“In 1991 Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He served in the Illinois state senate from 1997 to 2004. Elected to the United States Senate in November of 2004, he took the oath of office and became the fifth African American to serve in the Senate on January 3, 2005. On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States. He was reelected in 2012.”