A week ago, a jovial Uhuru Kenyatta , Kenya’s former president, emerged from a Uganda Airlines plane at the N’Djili International Airport, Kinshasa, where he was travelling to attend the inauguration of DR Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi, who had won a second term in the December presidential election.
When his media team shared the pictures on social media, there was a buzz, with many wondering how the Kenyan leader was flying a “foreign” airline when there were several options, including the Kenyan flag carrier, KQ.
It turns out that he was offered a ride in the Ugandan carrier, which also ferried the country’s Vice-President Jessica Alupo, who represented President Yoweri Museveni at the event.
Later, his media team posted on his official X handle: “The Facilitator of the EAC-led Nairobi Peace Process, HE President (Rtd) Uhuru Kenyatta at the inauguration of HE Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo at the Martyr’s Stadium. Later, he called on President Tshisekedi at his official residence, The Palais de la Nation in Kinshasa, DRC where he conveyed his congratulatory message and held discussions on matters of great concern to the people of DRC as well as the region. En route to Nairobi, the former President paid a courtesy call to HE Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda.”
Then a picture of him and First Lady Janet Museveni hugging was posted by the official handle of the Ugandan State House on X, triggering another wave of speculation about the rekindling of relations between the two leaders.
While Mr Kenyatta and President Museveni did not openly differ, the veteran Ugandan leader backed William Ruto , who ran and won against Kenyatta’s preferred candidate, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
But the retired President’s hobnobbing with Museveni means something, coming when he and his friend Ruto are drifting apart, courtesy of the two countries’ spat over petroleum imports.
So bad is it that Uganda has officially approached Tanzania to licence its marketer, Uganda National Oil Company (Unoc), to facilitate fuel imports through the port of Dar es Salaam, after Kenya frustrated its quest to be registered there.
Sources have told The EastAfrican that Nairobi has only offered to register it as one of the oil marketers to the Ugandan market, exposing it to competition from Kenyan firms – which Kampala has accused of exploitation.
Kampala wants Unoc to be registered unconditionally and allowed to be the sole supplier of the Ugandan market, complete with access to the oil pipeline to Kisumu. That seems to be the deal-breaker, and perhaps the last straw that broke the friendship between Kenya and Uganda on the one hand, and their leaders on the other.
Pundits have said that the falling-out will only last a short time, as the two nations are commercially and socially joined at the hip.
For Mr Kenyatta and his side, a visit to State House, Entebbe, is personal victory, even a political coup. It takes a personal connection for the Ugandan First Lady to give you a hug. So when Mr Kenyatta got one in Entebbe, it may have showed just how welcome the Kenyan politician is at the house on the hill. State House Uganda only published the photo of the hug, with the flags of Kenya and Uganda, an indication of a strengthening bond.
His welcome is seasoned with hugs, as opposed to the icy handshake President Ruto got when he attended the Igad and Non-Aligned Movement summits on January 19.
There was speculation on why he used a national carrier from another country when there are regular flights to Kinshasa from Nairobi.
His office said that Uganda offered him a “lift” in the absence of local, convenient alternatives from Nairobi.
According to one source, this was not the first time the retired president was getting rides from “foreign” airlines. The EastAfrican understands that he has in the past also hitched rides and even taken commercial flights to the DRC.
Yet that ride on Uganda Airlines may have been a blessing in disguise for both sides: It gave the Ugandan Airline some deserved attention and Mr Kenyatta a chance to strengthen his networks in Uganda, on board and outside.
Kenyatta is the facilitator of the Peace Dialogue in the Democratic Republic of Congo, something he has tried to follow through since the last days of his tenure as president. But it is President William Ruto who named him “peace envoy” during his inauguration speech at Kasarani on September 13, 2022.
Kenyatta went on to help broker peace in Ethiopia, seeing the government sign a truce with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in November 2022 in Pretoria, South Africa.
In the DRC peace process, however, Kenyatta is the appointee of the East African Community Summit. As such, he is supposed to routinely brief the bloc’s heads of state on the progress.
But he has never briefed Ruto, with whom relations have not been cordial. Ruto and his party have “poached” some of the MPs from the Kenyatta-led Jubilee Party, and frustrated the Azimio Coalition’s political formation in Parliament.
During the political falling-out over the cost of living, some Ruto allies alleged that the former president was fomenting chaos by sponsoring violent mass protests. They even urged a boycott of the family’s businesses. At the height of the protests, goons raided the ex-president’s family farm and took away livestock and destroyed property, and the police did nothing to stop them.
The bad blood seemed to reach a crescendo then, with Kenyatta boldly asking whomever had a problem with him to go after him.
It is instructive to note that President Ruto also attended the Tshisekedi inauguration, complete with a government delegation. He and Mr Kenyatta shook hands, as his predecessor, a big hugger and glad-hander, mingled with the dignitaries.
After the ceremony, he said he “held discussions on matters of great concern to the people of DRC as well as the region.”
Officially, his courtesy call on President Museveni later was to brief him on the eastern DRC situation.
Beyond regional peace bids, though, Kenyatta’s return to Entebbe might be a personal goal. His family’s businesses, especially at Brookside Uganda, have suffered since he left power. The company was forced to lay off some employees and destroy thousands of litres of milk after failing to routinely secure export licence to Kenya, a result of constant trade disputes spanning the past two years.
Yet it is in Uganda’s interest for the business to stay afloat, for its economy, which means that Kenyatta and Museveni have a common interest. Indeed, the Ugandan leader has been shopping around for milk markets on the continent, all the way to Algeria.
How the apparent rapprochement with Mr Kenyatta will impact his relations with Dr Ruto remains to be seen.
A frustrated Museveni has recently lambasted Kenya-based cartels for exploitation in the fuel trade. His government sued Kenya at the East African Court of Justice over frustrations in obtaining an oil import licence.
In days gone by, when Ruto appeared at Museveni’s campaign rallies, legal suits between the two countries would be unheard of. Fishermen were being arrested and forced to eat raw fish, or being freed only after paying fines in Ugandan courts. There would be dozens of Ugandans being hounded out of buses in Busia for entering the country illegally. And there was the Migingo Island, whose ownership initially raised tension, but is now a common source of jokes. These hardly breached communication channels between presidents, nor raised the possibility of legal suits between the capitals.
The recent escalation probably had to do with a deep sense of betrayal by a friend, which forced Museveni to go to Arusha – and Dar.
