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The year was 2018, November. The handshake had happened some months earlier, but I had not yet gotten a chance to meet Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga. The 2017 elections campaign had been very brutal even on these streets, so I was not sure how our first interaction would be. Now here I was in Zimbabwe, attending a summit that Raila was also set to attend. This was the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) Week. On the eve of the event, my boss then called me and informed me that the former Prime Minister had invited him for dinner, and he wanted me to accompany him. I panicked. “Sir you know this is not a good idea. The memories of last year’s campaign are still fresh in everybody’s mind.” I told him. He reminded me that that was politics and this was a different kind of work, and said he didn’t think Raila would hold it against me. We went for the dinner. It was just the 3 of us and I was quite tensed at first . But Raila was easy, so I kinda relaxed. After our discussions on the agenda of the PIDA week, Raila asked if anyone wanted to join him for a bottle of wine. I knew my boss was a staunch SDA who never indulged in anything stronger than soya, and I wondered how it would look it I accepted the wine offer. But me being me, nikasema hiyo wine ikuje. We shared a bottle with Raila as we talked more about infrastructure development, and he narrated to us very interesting stories about the discussions and the events that had led to the launch of the LAPSSET project under Kibaki. While at it, for the first time he mentioned a dream he had about connecting the Eastern Coast of Africa and West Africa by rail: He called it the Lamu-Douala Beltway. It amazed me the kind of passion and determination with which he spoke about this. He emphasized on the need to focus on railway line even as the continent builds cross boarder highways, saying that rail transport made things much easier and faster especially in transportation of goods across countries. The volumes of cargo the train carries are much more and once it sets off from the port, it does not stop at check points or weight bridges. The following day I was once again impressed by his grasp of continental issues, when I listened to him making a case for the Yamoussoukro Decision in one of the sessions. This was a decision that had adopted by African Heads of State in 2000, aimed at liberalizing air transport to deliver improved safety, lower fares, and increase traffic in Africa. But its implementation has been very slow over the years due to lack of political goodwill and we know even to this point, the number of direct flights from one African country to another are disappointingly few. It has been almost 6 years since my initial interaction with Raila, where our engagement focused on easing movement of people, goods and services across the continent. At that point, we never imagined that a time would come, where we would be discussing his bid for the African Union Commission Chairmanship. But here we are. Raila Odinga or Baba as we love to fondly call him has a big vision for Africa! Aspiration no. 2 of the AU Agenda 2063 is an Integrated Continent, Politically united and based on the ideals of Pan Africanism and the vision of African Renaissance. One of the goals set for achieving this aspiration is building world class infrastructure, criss-crossing Africa. Infrastructure connectivity is therefore a priority area for AU, and Raila’s heart is right there. #BabaWaAfrica #RailaForAU (Photo: Zimbabwe, 2018)

Kenya and Uganda are committed to the deepening of the long-established diplomatic and economic ties between our two countries. This relationship includes bringing all the seven East African Community nations closer in their ultimate goal to form the East African Political Federation.