NAIROBI, Kenya (ENI-RNS)– A row is simmering between Christians and Muslims in Kenya over reported attempts to convert President Obama’s grandmother, Sarah Obama, to Christianity.

“We had invited her to grace our meeting in Kisumu which was to mark the end of a three-week convention, but although she had prepared, she did not attend,” Lewis Ondiek, an official with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kenya, told Ecumenical News International.

Some family members stopped Sarah Obama from attending the service, which was led by an Australian evangelist, John Jeremic. Apart from stating that she is a Muslim, they said she had a knee injury and they could not guarantee her safety.

Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, secretary of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, said “Mama Sarah should not be forced by anybody to join Christianity since she is a Muslim. Conversion must take place in a voluntary manner.” He said, “Muslims will not sit and watch one of their own being coerced by some religious leaders to convert to Christianity.”

The 87-year-old Obama captured the media spotlight in the remote, mainly Christian village of Kogelo, in western Kenya, soon after Barack Obama was elected president in November. She is widely sought after to preside over occasions because of her new status.

“Mama Sarah had assured us that she was converting, and we were ready to baptize her today, but it seems her family has prevailed upon her,” Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Tom Obuya told Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper last Sunday (April 19).

Sarah Obama is the third wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather.

Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan father and American mother who met at a university in Hawaii. He was born in 1961, but his parents split up when he was two. His father returned to Kenya where he worked after independence in the administration of Kenya’s founding president Jomo Kenyatta, while his mother settled with Barack and a new partner in Indonesia. Barack Obama had little contact with his father’s family after his parents divorced.

The son of Sarah Obama, Saidi Obama, said, “She would have attracted unnecessary attention, which is not good for her.”

Some SDA leaders had denied they wanted to convert Sarah Obama.

A number of protesting Muslims leaders in the country have sought state intervention, warning of a religious stand-off. Some of the leaders raised questions about Christians being interested in her because she is now seen as influential.