Shame of security lapses, scuffles at high-profile African summit

President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron during the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi. [PCS]

For several months, Kenya seemed prepared to host the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi from May 11 to 12, with banners and huge billboards bearing images of President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron dotting the city.

In fact, months before the Summit, President Ruto announced that one of the flagship projects intended to ensure the event was successful and talk of the continent was the construction of a mega arena at Bomas of Kenya.

On December 11, 2025, Ruto revealed that the Bomas International Convention Complex (BICC) would be completed by April 2026 to host the historic Africa Forward Summit in May.

“At Bomas, we are building the best and the largest conference facility in East and Central Africa, which will be ready in April. We have waited thirty years for this, yet we have built it in in just one and a half years,” he said

“It is already booked, the France-Africa Summit has requested to hold their meeting there in May,” he added.

However, the project is far from complete. This is likely why the venue for the summit was shifted to the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in the city centre and Kasarani Stadium.

But it appears that either KICC was inadequate or the organisation was poorly coordinated.

At such a high-profile conference attended by heads of state and government, as well as global entrepreneurs and chief executives, security lapses should never have occurred. Yet they did several times with scuffles reported outside the venue.

At some point, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda was stranded outside for a minutes before he was allowed in, while Chief Executives of some global companies were locked out.

In another embarrassing incident, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was briefly blocked by the Egyptian security, leading to tense moments outside the venue as delegates watched in shock.

The second day of the summit descended in chaos as some delegates were unable to access KICC after the as clearance and accreditation process failed.

Security analyst George Musamali argues that the lapses occurred because Kenya was not prepared for the number of Presidents who attended the summit, noting that there was disconnect between the local security team and the people that are accompanying the other presidents.

“There was no synergy between our local team and the team that was coming out from the other countries with their presidents. In normal circumstances, once a president lands in Kenya or in a foreign country, the security is supposed to be taken over by the local team,” Musamali explains.

The analyst says that it emerged that security of African Presidents do not trust local teams, yet in well-organised situations, people from the local presidential escort team ought to be attached to a visiting president.

“Arrangements must be made locally. But when this other team arrives with their person, they don't want to hand over the security of these presidents to the local team,” he says

This means local security teams understand the terrain and the environment.

“But these other African presidents, they were coming in, wanting their teams to take charge of their security while we have a local team that had been prepared to take over from them,” he adds

An officer from the National Police Service who was part of the planning partly agrees with the analyst arguing that somehow, security teams that accompanied African Presidents overlooked their Kenyan counterparts.

“We prepared for the Summit for several weeks, but when they arrived, they wanted to take over everything, including issuing clearance badges to the delegates, but generally we did our best in ensuring safety for everyone,” the officer says.

“space was also another factor, some security teams accompanying Presidents were locked out of the venue not because we did not respect them but due to space,” he adds.