Unbwogable

Unshakable and indomitable - from the Kenyan termbwogo, meaning shake or scare.

It seems that Barack Obama’s reputation for cool-headed indefatigability has a description suited to his Kenyan roots. On October 12, as an Obama victory seemed increasingly likely, the front page of Kenya’s Sunday Nationscreamed “Unbwogable!” – this was, according to Global Journalistmagazine, the most appropriate Luo word for “the man most Kenyans fervently want to be the next president of the United States.”

Unbwogable appears to derive from a 2002 song by Kenyan musicians GidiGidi MajiMaji – “Who Can Bwogo Me?” In elections that year, the song was adopted by the Kenyan politicians Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, whose National Rainbow Coalition party triumphed over the Kenya African National Union. During Obama’s campaign, The African Press International wrote, “They called Raila in Kenya Unbwogable! Now they have started calling Obama Unbwogable!”