Photo: Katy Gabel/AlllAfrica

A giant billboard of Obama along Nairobi Road, Kisumu.

At about 7am (EAT) yesterday, Obama sent out a tweet to the world: "Four more years" and right after that it became the most popular tweet.

When his re-election was confirmed, the president thanked his supporters through twitter saying, " This happened because of you. Thank you. We are all in this together. That's how we campaigned and that's who we are." And then followed, "Four more years" posting a picture of him and Michelle hugging.

According to Twitter, it was the latter that quickly became the most re-tweeted with over 300,000 retweets in less that 40 minutes and barely four-and-a-half hours later, the figure had crossed half a million.

The previous record of tweets was held by Justin Bieber but Obama's broke the record within 22 minutes of being posted.

Here in Kenya, Prime Minister Raila Odinga was among those who congratulated Obama by tweeting, " On behalf of Kenyans and the people of Kogelo, I wish Barack Obama and the people of the United States my heartfelt congratulations."

Presidential aspirant Martha Karua tweeted, " Congratulations America, congratulations president Obama." Many of Obama's enthusiasts took to twitter with some terming his re-election as a great day for democracy in the world.

Another Kenyan tweeted, "Looking to Kenya to do the same" while another one said in the US election, changing demographics was the key, and wondered whether we will see the same in the forthcoming Kenyan election.

Other interesting tweets read, "Obama wants to see a world that isn't threatened by the power of a warming planet: time to act on", "it's only in America where a candidate concedes and be cheered by their supporters. Perfect!" And another one saying, "50 million more Americans just got health insurance".