What Raila Odinga’s foreign trips mean ahead of 2022 polls

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga with President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia after assuming office. [Courtesy]

Opposition leader Raila Odinga is taking the battle for next year’s General Election outside the borders, riding on his ballooning network of friends who are assuming seats in their respective country’s top seats of power. 

With full awareness of the importance of regional networks, Raila is nowadays not missing any chance to affirm his place as a Kenyan statesman who has come of age, and whose time has come. 

Last week, Raila made visits to Zambia and Tanzania. He was in Zambia, alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, to attend the inauguration of the country’s new President Hakainde Hichilema.

While Uhuru flew back to Kenya, Raila passed by neighbouring Tanzania for talks with President Samia Suluhu, and to visit the widows of former President Benjamin Mkapa and John Pombe Magufuli. Presidential inaugurations are usually high visibility events in media and international leaders’ attendance.

Presidents Hage Geingob (Namibia), Filipe Nyusi (Mozambique), Emmerson Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe), South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Mokgweetsi Masisi (Botswana), Suluhu (Tanzania) and King Mswati III of the Kingdom of Eswatini attended the inauguration.

“Held talks this afternoon with the President of the United Republic of Tanzania H.E Samia Suluhu Hassan that focused on ways of boosting infrastructure connectivity within the EAC. We also explored options of enhancing regional marine transport through Lake Victoria,” Raila wrote on his social media page on Wednesday.

All this happening at a time when his main rival, Deputy President William Ruto dreads venturing out of Kenya following a recent State purge against his foreign trips. Ruto was stopped from flying to Uganda earlier this month in an incident which turned messy, with a member of his entourage being ‘deported’ to his country, Turkey.

Before this, Ruto had began building a regional image, cultivating relationship with Uganda’s strongman Yoweri Museveni and making forays into Zambia and Congo DRC, among other countries. But Raila’s trips precede the handshake politics.

From 2007 when important international players sided with former President Mwai Kibaki in the presidential election dispute and forced through a negotiated settlement, Raila appears to have began appreciating the importance of international networking and bonding.

Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Raila traveled extensively and benefited from the visibility of former US President Barrack Obama’s ascendancy to the helm of American politics. In 2014, Baba took a three-month speaking tour in the US triggering a “Baba while you were away” catchphrase when he came back.

In the years since his October 2018 appointment to the AU, Raila has dropped his scathing criticism of Uhuru’s government. Since then, too, he has increased the frequency of his travels through which he meets heads of states and governments globally.

He has met with high-ranking government officials from Morocco, Togo, Indonesia, Namibia, DRC, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Sudan, South Africa, China and US.

The ODM leader’s appointment came after thawed relations between him and President Kenyatta, and he is making his latest stab at the presidency on the capital of that relationship.

The network of like-minded countries that Raila has visited in his infrastructure diplomacy has helped him reclaim his continental leadership role.

The trips evoke the days when Raila was Prime Minister, and lawyer and political analyst Martin Oloo believes Raila has taken advantage by embarking on the foreign trips that grow his stature in Kenya and the region.

“It is important for his image, especially in his quest for the presidency. It is giving him an edge over his competitors in terms of his acceptability by foreign leaders,” he opines.

It has also been an opportunity to benchmark with the infrastructure projects transforming other African countries such as Ethiopia and DRC, and to review alternative funding models.

Raila’s message has been that Africa can prevail against the pressures of high debt levels to fund its own infrastructure. These are issues that resonate with Kenyans.

It is instructive that the ODM leader has been one of the biggest supporters of President Kenyatta as he recasts his agenda to focus on big infrastructure projects.

Uhuru, either by coincidence or design, made a passionate appeal for the country to back his investment in mega transport projects such as building ports, reviving the railways, and reconditioning derelict water vessels, while in Raila’s base in Kisumu. 

But the government is facing criticism for borrowing heavily to finance mega infrastructure projects. Raila’s favourite topic in his continental assignment has been how to how to mobilise funds for infrastructure projects in Africa amid donor fatigue and increased taxation to repay loans.

The ODM leader has positioned himself to take over Uhuru’s vision of economic growth from mega infrastructure projects even as he pushes for sustainable development and integration through infrastructure.

In mobilising political support for regional infrastructure projects, Raila also stands to gain from winning the political support of neighbouring countries.

But Prof Philip Nying’uro – who teaches political science at the University of Nairobi – contends that the assertion that the ODM leader is taking advantage of his position is “stretched.”

“Some of his trips may not be because he is an AU official. For instance, the recent ones to Zambia and the DRC to attend the swearing-in ceremonies of their presidents may have been personal,” argues Prof Nying’uro, adding that the AU would ordinarily send representatives to such events.

“Raila’s advantage over his competitors is that he has established throughout his life, even before he got his AU job. In 2007, he was funded by foreign entities,” he adds

“Saying that Raila is taking advantage of any situation would “mean that he stands to benefit from anything, none of which I can see from meeting Tshisekedi, who is a personal friend to him,” says the don.

But even so, Nying’uro concedes that foreign trips are beneficial to any presidential hopeful. He attributes this to the fact that Kenya depends on foreign nations, majorly for financial gain.