It still doesn’t really make sense that he was talking about the violence in Kenya, because it started in December of 2007 and ended in April 2008....LONG BEFORE OBAMA EVEN WON THE 08 election. At least that’s what I gather from a quick wiki read. If it was in reference to the violence... Why would Obama be talking about ‘sorting out a problem’ that had already been sorted out?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_Kenyan_crisis
Obama called him in the beginning of the year, so that would be early 2008. Fits your dates.
I thought at the time and still think it was a trail of evidence that was “the problem”.