Solo among more than 100 ambassadors and high commissioners accredited to Kenya, United States envoy Robert Godec went out of his way to write an opinion-editorial piece on the occasion of Kenya’s 51st Independence celebrations that was run in all newspapers.
Diplomacy analysts read a great deal into the gesture, including the British High Commission, Kenya’s former colonial masters. The message which had the full blessing of Washington is seen as a change of policy from the much publicised veiled threat that choices have consequences which was propagated by Johnny Carson, then state secretary for African Affairs. The US ambassador to Kenya then was Gration Scott.
Impeccable sources informed Weekly Citizen that the piece was quietly crafted, discussed and analysed in many foras including the Chinese embassy, British, German and Japanese.
Foreign spies disguised as political attachés came to one conclusion: that President Barrack Hussein Obama is preparing to come back home to the land of his father, while still flying both the American presidential flag and Old Glory, as the US national flag is referred to. “He has been saying that he is coming and this has been attested by the grandmother Mama Sarah,” a family source said.
Washington foreign policy towards Nairobi is thus bound to change dramatically as analysts forecast a major paradigm shift in its policy towards Kenya.
Before the general elections last year in which Jubilee coalition under its flagbearer, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, the duo facing crimes against humanity following the 2007-2008 post-election violence, carried teh day, the US tone bordered towards Uhuruto candidature bordered the hostile.
Once the duo won though, America and the West had no option but to swallow their pride and work with what Kenyans gave them. That Kenyans did not heed West to reject Uhuru seems to have worked advantageously for Uhuru. It is said that the West had preferred Raila Odinga and it is against the backcloth of a Raila presidency that Obama was planning his grand return to the land of his forefathers. It is to be recalled that Obama while on a tour of Tanzania said that he would like to come to Kenya but the matter of ICC was preventing him.
It is not idle talk therefore that which suggests that the American president being the actual power that controls the ICC might have pulled strings to untie the noose from round Uhuru’s neck. Had Obama waited for Raila or any other but Uhuru to be president so as to visit, those of this view say, he would not himself be president of America by then which would have no impact on Kenyans, and which he does not want.
The withdrawal of Uhuru’s crimes against humanity charges at the ICC at The Hague is therefore to be seen in light of this. It finally opened the way for Obama to come and visit his late father’s ancestral land when his paternal grandmother is still alive.
Diplomacy and security analysts on the diplomatic circuit in Nairobi are well aware that Obama is in a world of trouble inside America. Now, in his late second term (he must vacate the White House by January 20 2016), Obama’s popularity ratings are at their lowest ebb. Obama’s is so ineffectual that it qualifies to be referred to as paraplegic, or even wheelchair-bound lame duck.
Things are so bad for Obama that there is talk of race war as white policemen continue to shoot unarmed black men, including teenagers and children, dead and to get away scotfree.
Obama has only one last card to play - the homecoming safari to Kenya. It is a very iconic card, full of symbolism and positive propaganda elements laced with it.
Reliable protocol sources say that an American-Kenyan committee is already at work behind the scenes planning what is going to be the longest and most dramatic visit to Africa of the Obama presidency.
The highlights of Obama’s homecoming tour are being kept a closed secret for security reasons.
Obama’s homecoming safari will be on the front pages of leading newspapers and magazines and on TV and computer screens of at least two billion people worldwide, like a World Cup final.
Analysts have quietly agreed that in order for the Obama Safari to happen, Uhuru had to be a free man without the albatross from The Hague around his neck. The son of Jomo Kenyatta, who will still be president after Obama, has left the White House, will be playing host to the most powerful man on earth at a critical juncture in his own life.
The Obama Safari will be taking place at a time of high insecurity in Kenya, but the country will be in total lockdown by the security forces of the world’s lone superpower. In fact, US security for the visit will be so tight that Kenya’s security forces can take the much-needed leave while Obama is in town and country.
Signs of the changing times were evident on Friday, December 12 during the Jamhuri Day celebrations, when the opposition led by Raila Odinga and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula, made good use of their invitation cards and actually attended the fete, not only the parade at Nyayo Stadium, but also the State House Garden party after being invited impromptu infront of cameras.
The Obama Safari is going to be such a big deal in town that no one wants to be given a protocol snub by being left out or having his region demarcated.
Obama’s homecoming will be designed to make Africans forget China’s forays into the region. How will Obama’s homecoming impact Kenya’s domestic deeply divided politics? Keynote speeches in Kenya will be keenly and deeply analysed.
As for Raila, who claims both a “special relationship” and “cousinship” with Obama, he might be shocked to find that Uhuru is now playing the West’s game so totally that Washington might actually wish him a second and final legacy term - and work towards it. Raila and his handlers will want to stage a protocol coup when Obama is in town.
Obama’s language and attitudes - including body language - will be closely watched, monitored interpreted and translated, so politically to speak.
This new happenings comes as an estimated 125 US companies are headquartered in Nairobi. They are internet service Google, energy and technological infrastructure conglomerate General Electric, Coca Cola, General Motors, Bretton Woods institutes (International Monetary Fund and World Bank) and technology infrastructure titan IBM.
Others are insurer AIG, business investment firm Stratlink Global, the Rockefeller Foundation, environmental sustainability consultant First Carbon Solutions, Ford Foundation and internet-based micro financier Kiva Microfunds.
Nairobi is the home of a number of US giants in sub-Saharan Africa, operations such as card maker Visa Inc., wireless telecoms product maker Qualcomm, Motorola Solutions and Hill International. Citibank, Cisco Systems, Intel Corporation, Mastercard and Pfizer that use Kenyan capital as their hub to penetrate the East and Central Africa market.
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