On the day he left State House, Nairobi, for the last time as Head of State, former President Uhuru Kenyatta was either destined to oblivion or global status.
It was up to him, and he knew it.
Interestingly, on the day he was sworn in, President William Ruto had decided to task his former boss with regional diplomatic duties.
That effectively removed Mr Kenyatta from local politics and, as a result, gave the Kenya Kwanza government a chance to craft a new regime without the pestering of a former President.
It was a strategic move – especially for the six months that a retired president is allowed by the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act to play party politics.
For the last 100 days, Mr Kenyatta has shown he will be a busy diplomat – unlike President Moi and Mwai Kibaki before him.
When President Moi left power in 2002, he had set up the Moi African Institute to “promote security, stability and prosperity in Africa” and “furtherance of Nyayo Philosophy of Peace, Love and Unity.”
However, Moi Africa Institute was not impactful in the region since the insiders in the Mwai Kibaki government did not want to engage him with regional duties.
Moreover, attempts by President Moi to have a say in local politics, especially in the Rift Valley, were quickly thwarted by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which had reorganised the politics under William Ruto ever since he led the region in the rejection of the draft Constitution.
Age, relevance, and health soon worked against Mr Moi and, with no power base, after Kanu was reduced to a minor player in the 2007 elections, he had no role to play locally and in the region.
President Mwai Kibaki was expected to play a significant role in the region after 2012 but was also dogged by ill health.
Though he was appointed special envoy for water in Africa by Unesco’s regional office, President Kibaki played no significant role and opted for a quiet retirement.
Little was heard of the Mwai Kibaki Foundation until recently, when it was endowed with Kibaki’s papers and memorabilia after his death. Mr Kibaki kept off the regional and local politics – and did not attend national holiday functions.
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta has ended his term while age is still on his side.
At 61, he is seven years younger than when his father, Jomo Kenyatta, took over the presidency in December 1964 – and seven years older than when Moi took power in 1978.
With his current engagement in regional politics, Mr Kenyatta has been elevated to a regional power broker.
With the interests of Western powers in the region’s stability, he will be a man to watch.
The Presidential Retirement Benefits Act did not envisage a former president to idle at home.
For a person who earns 80 per cent of what the current holder gets and is entitled to a housing allowance of Sh300,000, entertainment allowance of Sh200,000, and fully furnished office – Parliament had given a retired president to “play a consultative and advisory role to the Government and the people of Kenya.”
He may also “be requested by the Government to perform specific official functions and shall be paid a reasonable allowance in respect of such official functions.”
The Ethiopian crisis is one of the challenges thrown at Mr Kenyatta. As the African Union mediator, he will have to find a winning formula to have foreign forces withdraw from Tigray in the next few months. Besides Mr Kenyatta, other African Union delegates in the Ethiopian negotiation include former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Mr Kenyatta is expected to visit Mekele with the African Union’s monitoring and verification team to check the implementation of the Ethiopian peace deal. The deal was signed in Durban, South Africa, early last month, ending two years of fighting between the federal government and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front – a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Before he broke for Christmas, Mr Kenyatta told the press that his team would be traveling to Mekele “before the end of the year” to check the progress of the peace agreement.
“We agreed that the true statement that they need to make would be the statement they make when we are in Mekele in the next few days observing and verifying the actions because documents are one thing, what we want now is the deliverables and this is why we are heading to Mekele,” Kenyatta said.
Because of this diplomatic role, Mr Kenyatta has become a constant feature in the international press.
The focus in 2023 will be on how he manages to convince the groups to establish a joint monitoring team to oversee the peace agreement.
The hardest bit is the withdrawal of foreign troops, primarily from Eritrea, and the internationalisation of the Tigray conflict. While the rebel groups claim to have demobilised 60 per cent of their forces, Ethiopia is sluggish in removing its troops from the war frontier.
Mr Kenyatta is also busy in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the regional bloc East African Community (EAC) facilitator and African Union peace envoy.
DR Congo, perhaps more than Tigray, will keep Mr Kenyatta busy due to the various interests that converge in the mineral-rich provinces and which have become theatres of atrocities.
More so, Mr Kenyatta was taken to see the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Goma and start the disarmament and demobilisation of armed groups, including the M23, also known as Armée révolutionnaire du Congo (Congolese Revolutionary Army).
M23 is made up of ethnic Tutsi combatants, once claimed to have the backing of the Kigali government, which has created a major dilemma for the region.
While Kenya has sent its troops to the mineral-rich region to help Kinshasa maintain civil order, Mr Kenyatta has managed to bring the combatants to Nairobi for the third Inter-Congolese dialogue.
Known as the Nairobi Peace Process, it brought together armed groups, women and youth groups, civil society groups, survivors of the conflict, and government representatives led by Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s Special Envoy Serge Tshibangu. But it excluded the M23 – and as Kenyatta said, they will continue to engage the groups to lay down their arms.
Before the Nairobi talks, the EAC member states had ordered M23 and other foreign groups operating in eastern DRC to ease hostilities, lay down their arms, and leave the country unconditionally.
As Kenyatta is kept busy in these two wars, he will have little chance of playing local politics and will be acting as Kenya’s most senior diplomat.
Within the pan-African circles, Mr Kenyatta is regarded highly for his personal beliefs in the old Pan-African spirit, which he always invoked in his speeches during international meetings.
For the last 100 days after getting out of State House, Mr Kenyatta has been thrown to the deep end – as he navigates life after retirement. DR Congo and Tigray crisis will determine his stature in the continent.
However, back at home, he is still being vilified by his opponents, especially within the UDA regime, who accuse him of “running down” the Kenyan economy by taking billions of shillings as loans to build infrastructure projects.
He is also accused of targeting politicians who sided with his former Deputy, now President Ruto, and framing corruption cases on them – as he let go of those close to him.
Since the Presidential Retirement law in Clause 6(1) does not allow former President Kenyatta to hold political office six months after he leaves State House, it will be interesting to see how his new regional role will evolve. BY DAILY NATION