President Barack Obama's half brother in Kenya has married a teenager 30 years his junior. Malik Obama, 52, told a Kenya news station that the 19-year old quit school and wanted to get married.

"She decided she doesn't want to go back to school. She wants to get married now. She came here, and what am I supposed to do? So we are married," Malik Obama said on a video broadcast by NTV.

Sheila Anyango is now Malik Obama's third wife, although no information over the wedding is known. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under religious or cultural traditions.

The 19-year-old's mother said she is furious over her daughter's action. According to Mary Aoko Ouma, her daughter tried to marry Malik Obama two years ago, but she wouldn't give her the  permission.

Ouma said she was severely disappointed Anyango didn't finish her studies and that she has struggled to send her six children to school since her husband died in 1996. Ouma considers  Anyango's behaviour as a bad example for her other daughter who is still in high school.

The case is being investigated according to Jane Omogi, a district education officer in Siaya in western Kenya, but she declined to make any further comment.

Barack Obama's father had at least six other children in his native Kenya. Kenyans have claimed the U.S. president as one of their own even though he was raised by his mother and did not know his Kenyan father or relatives there well.

Source: AP