Kenyan police are stepping up security for Barack Obama's family after thieves tried to break into the village home of his step-grandmother.

Sarah Hussein Onyango, 86, said that she woke to find her front door had been kicked down and someone had tampered with her solar panel, installed so that she can watch the US presidential race on television.

“These are just people who think that Obama has been sending me a lot of money,” said the woman known to the Democratic nominee as Granny Sarah.

Officers say that they may install a small police post in the village of Kogelo, in remote western Kenya, where Mr Obama's father grew up herding goats.

The attempted burglary is only the latest effort by Kenyans to cash in on Mr Obama's rising star. The family's relative wealth is a tempting target in a country riddled with poverty and crime.

Ever since Mr Obama ran for the US Senate four years ago local politicians, keen to associate themselves with an African success story, have been frequent visitors to the family compound where goats still graze among the mango trees.

Villagers have been known to turn up at the family home to inquire about applying for American visas.

Kenya's entrepreneurial class has found plenty of other ways to make money. Stalls in the city of Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria about an hour from the Obama home, are doing a brisk trade in commemorative T-shirts, calendars and posters.

One tour operator in Nairobi is even running an Obama safari offering visitors the chance to spend a day in Kogelo before continuing their trip into the Masai Mara game reserve. At $2,400 (£1,370) for seven days it is not cheap.

Felix Koskei, managing director of Travel Connections, said that he expected the trip to be a hit. He came up with the idea as coverage reached saturation point during the recent Democratic convention.

“Most of my clients are Americans and I'm sure many of them will be very interested to learn more about Obama and where his roots are, as well as coming for the tradition animal safari,” he said.

Mr Koskei said that his safari was a chance for visitors to learn something of the tribal traditions that shaped the presidential candidate.

“It's the village where the family live and it's a chance to learn about the Luo culture of the Obama family,” he said.

However, he admitted that guests would not be allowed into the compound itself. “That's a private dwelling so it wouldn't be appropriate,” he said.

The different money-making schemes have irritated Mr Obama's extended family of cousins, halfsiblings, uncles and aunts. Hussein Obama, a half-uncle of the senator, said that the family was increasingly concerned about the trade.

“The Obama family is the fastest-growing industry at the moment,” he said by telephone from Kisumu.

“We are worried people may see our name connected with things that have nothing to do with us, and maybe these people are involved in criminal activities. We just don't have any control of how our name is being used.”

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