Opposition leader Raila Odinga was banned from visiting various western nations and his visas cancelled, forcing him to work with President Uhuru Kenyatta on March 9, 2018, ANC chief Musalia Mudavadi has said.
In a new autobiography, Mudavadi, who was Raila’s Chief Campaigner in the 2017 election, claims Raila had been banned from visiting many countries, including a key Western nation, and was worried about what the US’s next course of action would be.
Soaring Above the Storms of Passion is co-authored with his long-time ally and his party’s Secretary-General Barrack Muluka, and published by The Mudavadi Memorial Foundation Trust Fund in association with Midas Touch Media Limited.
“Raila also mentioned to us at this meeting that he had received letters of cancellation of his visas by various foreign missions in Kenya. He showed us a copy of one such letter he had received from a leading western mission,” Mudavadi writes in the autobiography.
Mudavadi goes ahead to explain how Raila asked him to cross-check with other diplomatic missions whether they were aware of this development and what their countries’ governments were thinking.
“I cross-checked with [US] Ambassador (Robert) Godec, who affirmed that he was aware of the developments …” Mudavadi says.
It widely been said that the US was behind the handshake deal, and coincidentally, the two rivals shook hands shortly before the arrival of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Kenya.
“We were very pleased to see the two coming together. President Kenyatta and the opposition head showed great leadership in coming together to address the deep divisions,” Tillerson said during a press briefing with his Foreign Affairs CS Monica Juma.
On December 8, 2017, Western ambassadors met the then NASA candidate in last-ditch efforts to stop him from swearing himself in on Jamhuri Day, the day on which the oathing was initially scheduled.
They were Godec, then German Ambassador Jutta Frasch and ex-British High Commissioner Nic Hailey.
