Amina Mohammed's AU Chair Candidature: Kenyatta's Project with no African Agenda

So one lady told me that she is very happy and proud of Ambassador Amina Mohammed, head of Kenya’s foreign ministry, and that she prays for her to get the AU chairmanship. Asking why she was so enthusiastic about it, the answer was as any can expect: but she is a woman! I remember I have promised myself time and again that even in my struggle for gender inclusivity I must not fall into the temptation of championing a feminine cause even when it is faulty, for instance I do not vote people to public offices simply because they are women. I mean, this is way too simplistic. Over and above being a woman we must scrutinize what it is that Ms. Amina Mohammed stands for. What values does she bring to the AU’s chair position? This is someone whose arrogance cannot allow her even take questions from a TV host interviewer! It so appears that she only asks and responds to her questions as she knows how, as we recently saw in an Al Jazeera interview.

It is clear that Kenya's foreign ministry led by Amina Mohammed has in the last four years deployed more than half of its resources (tax payers’ money plus time of state officials) in addressing "personal challenges" in the name of the ICC cases that until recently faced President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto. President Kenyatta is hosting President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and top on the agenda is to lobby South Africa's president to support Kenya's candidate for the AU Chair in the name of Amina Mohammed. The lobbying is said to be spearheaded by the President himself who has been reaching out to his colleagues on the continent to “support Kenya.” In reality no support for Kenya but Amina and Kenyatta.

There is no agenda for Africa in the Amina Mohammed's candidature - it is all about individual interests. Uhuru Kenyatta and his co-accused know very well that they were never tried and acquitted by the ICC and hence they are real not off the jaws of international justice system. Nothing prevents the ICC from resurrecting Kenyatta and others' cases especially if and when regime change happens in Kenya and the incumbent is ready to allow full state cooperation with the court – which according to the ICC was lacking in a government led by Kenyatta. Kenyatta is keen in having a huge influence on the AU so that it works for him beyond his presidency and having the same person who has been waging war against the ICC from Nairobi fight it from Addis Ababa isn't a bad idea at all, after all, the AU's strained relations with the ICC is spearheaded by Kenya in which Ms. Amina Mohammed is a key functionary. And so the President in a statement yesterday said, his government will spare no resources in support of Amina's candidature. I believe him simply because he is saying the truth. The most painful part is that this resources that are not going to be spared are poor Kenyans’ heard-earned toils and sweats but the cause the resources will be committed to has nothing whatsoever to do with millions of peasant citizens of Kenya and Africa at whose service the AU ought to exist. Indeed, choices have consequences.