Former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, the African Union Envoy for Infrastructure could highly determine the direction of African Union-sponsored peace talks between the Ethiopian Government and rebels from the country’s Tigray region given their proximity to the key players involved in resolving the conflict.
The AU talks will be mediated by a trioka of negotiators including the Horn of Africa Envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, and former South African Deputy President Mlambo Ngcuka.
Obasanjo, also a former Nigerian President has been fronted by Prime Minister Abiy government to represent its interests in the talks. The TPLF is fronting Uhuru Kenyatta to broker dialogue.
Both leaders, now negotiating for truce between the two warring factions are personal friends to Mr. Odinga.
Mr. Obasanjo and the Odinga family have ties dating back to 1994.
Obasanjo’s biography My Watch reveals how attending Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s funeral in 1994 following Raila Odinga’s invitation, was one of the reasons he was arrested and detained by the late President Sani Abacha.
“I was invited by Raila for the final funeral rites for his father, Jaramogi Oginga, and for the dedication of his mausoleum in Kenya,” Obasanjo reveals in a chapter titled My Arrest: The Abacha Saga.
“The instruction given to the security at the Nigerian Embassy and the report written by the Nigerian security in Kenya…
It was to the effect that since Oginga Odinga was in opposition to the government of Kenya when he died, I had gone to Kenya to create problems for the Kenyan government by supporting the opposition, and the Nigerian government should restrain me from causing great problems between Nigeria and Kenya. I was interrogated on this same issue when Abacha arrested me.”
The house arrest and imprisonment grounded his political life. His ranch was also degraded, forcing most workers to flee.
Uhuru Kenyatta, on the other hand, is Mr. Odinga’s comrade in the current political struggle in Kenya, under the Azimio-One Kenya Coalition, in which Mr. Kenyatta is its Chairperson. Odinga is the Coalition’s leader.
