kbd fails to cross-build

kdb fails to cross-build.

The build command is:
xdeb --only-explicit -a armel --prefer-apt --apt-source --debug --force-rebuild kbd

The actual build command xdeb issues is:
debuild --no-lintian -eUSER -eCONFIG_SITE=/etc/dpkg-cross/cross-config.armel -eDEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck -eGTEST_INCLUDEDIR=/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/include -eGTEST_LIBDIR=/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/lib -ePKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/share/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig -eDH_VERBOSE=1 -aarmel -b -uc -us -tc

To easily reproduce the build environment in which this bug was discovered follow the HOWTO here:
https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/DevPlatform/CrossCompile/CrossBuildNano

The build uses the wrong (build-arch) compiler, and thus fails with a strip error when packaging at the end:

dh binary-arch --after dh_installdocs
   dh_strip -a
 arm-linux-gnueabi-strip --remove-section=.comment --remove-section=.note debian/kbd/usr/bin/splitfont
arm-linux-gnueabi-strip:debian/kbd/usr/bin/splitfont: File format not recognized