Obama visit puts Kenya in spotlight

Kenyan artist Evans Yegon alias "Yegonizer" poses for a photograph with a portrait of US President Barack Obama at a studio inside the Go-Down Art Centre in Kenya's capital Nairobi. Yeginizer, 30, a graduate of the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts (BIFA) hopes President Obama will appreciate his work and take it home as souvenir. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Kenyan artist Evans Yegon alias "Yegonizer" poses for a photograph with a portrait of US President Barack Obama at a studio inside the Go-Down Art Centre in Kenya's capital Nairobi. Yeginizer, 30, a graduate of the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts (BIFA) hopes President Obama will appreciate his work and take it home as souvenir. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Published Jul 19, 2015

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Nairobi - Outside the huge white metal gates at State House in Nairobi, the official residence of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, there’s a phalanx of heavily-armed police officers drawn from the elite presidential guard. They don’t smile. They are thorough with the security checks.

There’s a signboard warning that the large white building with a red roof in a tree-filled compound is “a protected zone”. No one is allowed in without the express authority of the Minister for the Interior or the Inspector General of Police.

Inside, there are dozens of security cameras and foot patrols. At the huge brown doors at the main visitors’ entrance there’s a magnetometer – a walk-through metal scanner like those at airports – to make sure no one smuggles weapons into meetings with the president or his staff. It is the safest place in Kenya.

But when Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s motorcade drove in the gates on Wednesday and he walked through the brown doors, no one would have guessed that under his white shirt and purple tie he wore a bulky bulletproof vest, masked by his well-cut dark suit. It was his secret and that of his security. However, it was short-lived.

As Renzi went around the room shaking hands with the president’s men, the flak jacket jutted out under his coat. When the videos of the meeting hit the media, Kenya’s online community came alive. They mocked their president on Twitter for his perennial call to Kenyans that “security starts with you” – something Renzi had taken literally.

The Italian leader, who had earlier given a talk at the University of Nairobi on “Challenges of Development: Building bridges to combat extremism”, knew Kenya was the playground for the Somalia-based al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants. A graduate of the university was involved in the April attacks on a campus in Garissa, northern Kenya. He had to take all precautions.

But as Renzi declared the “need to choose courage, not fear”, it is apparent that it was just one of those right things to say to people living in a country battling terrorism and mourning the more than 200 people killed by terrorists in the first half of this year.

Coming just a week before US President Barack Obama jets in, Kenya has a long way to go to prove to the world that it has crushed the al-Shabaab cells that threaten the safety of just about anyone in the country.

The US has warned its citizens against travel to Kenya because of the possibility of terror attacks.

It is not just insecurity that Kenya has to contend with. There’s also runaway corruption that has seen almost one-third of the cabinet suspended, and just this Friday, Kenya’s opposition chief Raila Odinga ratcheted up pressure on the government to sack a powerful minister whose past is being investigated for malfeasance.

Odinga insists that Kenyatta is playing “a game of favourites” and shielding Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru who, during her tenure as a director at the National Treasury, signed a controversial deal for the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management System. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating the deal, which was allegedly inflated by over R100 million.

Obama has said good governance would top the agenda on the inaugural trip of a US president to Kenya. He told a news conference this week his main aim on this trip would be to address “democracy and the reduction of corruption”.

It is no secret Obama’s administration has been against Kenyatta’s crackdown on civil society. It is also no secret Obama abhors corruption.

If you ask the US ambassador to Kenya, Robert Godec, what the agenda is, he will mention security, trade and investment.

“There will be a lot of good discussions around the issues that matter to all our countries; security, trade and investment, all the things that we are doing together,” he said in a TV interview.

Godec is a diplomat but he knows the country he lives in is not a place where Obama – symbol of the US government and the number one target of terrorists – will visit without heightened security measures.

“There will be security. Just as a practical matter, it is the president of the US, obviously, (so) it is critically important that we protect him. I know the Kenyan government is committed to doing that, and we have the Global Entrepreneurship Summit here, so we have to protect that. We want every Kenyan protected,” he said.

Aside from corruption and insecurity, the Kenyatta administration has to contend with the little shame of Deputy President William Ruto, facing charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

Obama has skipped Kenya before because, diplomats said at the time, Kenyatta had also been accused of crimes against humanity and was facing charges at the ICC.

Kenyatta’s case was dropped because of a lack of evidence and witnesses who the prosecution said were intimidated.

Obama has been to South Africa twice, but since his election seven years ago has not been to Kenya.

Ruto has publicly criticised gays and gay rights – an issue close to Obama’s heart – and if the two sit together in a room it is unclear what they would have in common to talk about.

For now, Kenya has a week to assure the world the hosting of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit for the first time in sub-Saharan Africa is just one of the major events showcasing its status as a plum investment hub.

Foreign Bureau

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