TheCable

President Barack Obama’s half-brother, Malik Obama, says he would vote for Donald Trump, Republican candidate in the US election in November.

Malik, who is in his 50s, said on Monday from Obama’s ancestral home of Kogelo in western Kenya that he supports Trump’s policies, especially his focus on security.

He said he loved Trump and that he was unhappy with his brother’s leadership.

“He appeals to me and also I think that he is down to earth and he speaks from the heart and he is not trying to be politically correct. He’s just straight-forward”, he said.

Malik, a US citizen, has lived in Washington since 1985 where he worked with various firms before becoming an independent financial consultant.

Malik said that Trump’s stance against Muslims coming in to the United States was understandable even to Muslims like himself.

“I’m a Muslim, of course, but you can’t have people going around just shooting people and killing people just in the name of Islam,” he said

He criticised Obama’s record in the White House, saying he had not done much for the American people and his extended family despite the high expectations that accompanied his election in 2008, both in the United States and Kenya.

The two men, previously close, appear to have drifted apart.

Malik has visited the president in the Oval Office and was also best man at Barack’s wedding.

Obama’s election created much excitement in Kenya especially in Kogelo village where their father was born before going to study at the University of Hawaii.

Obama visited Nairobi, in the first ever trip by a sitting US president to the East African nation last July, and promised to visit more often when he leaves office.

Malik defended his right to criticise his brother, citing freedom of expression.

“To each his own, I speak my mind and I’m not going to be put in a box just because my brother is the president of the United States.”