Akumu Nyanjoga (1918-2006)

Habiba Akumu Obama
 * Also known as Akumu Nyanjoga. Barack Obama's paternal grandmother, and the second wife of Hussein Onyango Obama. She gave Onyango three children: daughters Sarah and Auma, and son Barak (Barack Obama's father). Her father was named Njango and she was born and raised in the Western Kenyan village of Karabondi. In his memoir Dreams from My Father, her grandson wrote that she was miserable in her marriage and abandoned her husband and children and subsequently married again and moved to presend-day Tanzania. Luos are given name related the circumstances of their birth and Akumu means mysterious birth, a conception after a birth, but before resumption of menses. She took the name Habiba upon her conversion to Islam. A photograph of her holding her son, Barack Sr, on her lap is on the cover of her grandson's memoir. (See image at right margin.)