EAC FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTERS BACK AMINA MOHAMED FOR AU POST

Kenya's foreign affairs minister Amina Mohamed during a past event. Her EAC counterparts on November 12, 2016 resolved to back her bid to chair the Africa Union Commission.

East African Foreign Affairs Ministers have endorsed their Kenyan counterpart Amina Mohamed’s bid to chair the African Union Commission.

The ministers; Uganda’s Sam Kutesa, Aimable Otis of Burundi and Rwanda’s Louise Mushikiwabo vowed to lobby other African heads of state to back Ambassador Mohamed’s candidature.

The Tanzanian Foreign Affairs minister Augustine Mahiga, who chairs the community council of foreign ministers, was represented by the country’s head of chancery at its High commission in Nairobi, Talha Mohamed.

The meeting held at the Villa Rosa Kempinsiki in Nairobi on Saturday, resolved that Ms Mohammed was the best for the job.

The Nairobi meeting comes just a day after Ms Mohammed accompanied Deputy President William Ruto in a campaign blitz in ten West and Central African countries to ask for their support in the January 2017 elections.

Ms Mohamed wants to replace South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who has finished her four-year-term and did not seek a second term.

In the visits, Mr Ruto and a host of the delegation campaigning for the CS met presidents Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria), Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Ernest Koroma (Sierra Leone), Ali Bongo (Gabon), Joseph Kabila (Democratic Republic of Congo), John Mahama (Ghana), Alassane Ouattara (Ivory Coast), Ibrahim Keita (Mali), Idriss Déby (Chad) and Algeria's President of the Senate, Ben Saleh.

Daily Nation