Kenyan president praises Lupita Nyong'o's Oscar win

"You are the pride of Africa," Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta exclaimed on Twitter as he celebrated Kenya's first major Oscar win by actress Lupita Nyong'o, The Associated Press reports.

Nyong'o was the topic of the day on Kenya's radio and TV stations Monday, the day after her Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress in "12 Years A Slave." At a conference at the United Nations headquarters in Nairobi, more than 300 people broke out into applause after Wanjira Maathai -- daughter of the late Kenyan Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai -- mentioned her mother and Nyong'o in the same sentence.

"We all had hoped of course that she would win. Everybody feels a sudden attachment to her, she's a Kenyan woman," Maathai said in an interview later. "A lot of her work, a lot of her experience in film started in Kenya."

Nyong'o, 31, was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents but was mostly raised in Kenya.