Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga made a case for his African Union Commission chairmanship bid Sunday at the East African Community (EAC) Ministerial Retreat on Peace and Security in Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania.<\/p>\n
Raila took time to explain to the EAC Ministers why he wanted to be the next AU Commission chairperson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am Africa and based on my experience over the years, I have the ability to go to this institution and transform it,\u201d said Raila<\/p>\n
He told the ministers how regional integration is important as a building block to continental unity even as he reiterated his suitability to take continental aspirations a level higher than it is today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe AU is an institution that can do more than it is doing today. That\u2019s why I want to go there,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Top on his agenda if elected to succeed Moussa Faki, Raila indicated he wants to promote peace and security initiatives in the continent which he singled out as the most important feature for development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be no development without peace. AU has a Peace Fund but that peace fund has not been properly developed. Some countries make contributions but it is still very little. We need to expand that fund so that Africans can be able to deal with issues of conflict in the continent themselves,\u201d<\/p>\n
The opposition leader also promised to revisit the Resolution that was passed at the AU aimed at Silencing the Guns by 2020, but only ended up being just on paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a lot of guns around. We should see how we can use the peace fund to help bring peace across the continent. That is one of the things I intend to promote,\u201d averred Raila<\/p>\n\n
The Azimio la Umoja Coalition leader was introduced to the summit by Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi to speak about his candidature at the AUC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge fellow EAC ministers to support this visionary and transformative leader, to champion Africa\u2019s integration, growth and prosperity,\u201d said Mudavadi<\/p>\n
While reiterating President William Ruto\u2019s support for Raila\u2019s candidacy, Mudavadi told the Ministers their backing underscores the unity and collaboration vital for advancing Africa\u2019s agenda globally. He thanked the organizers of the retreat for giving Odinga a chance to address the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can only appeal that please, give his (Raila Odinga\u2019s) candidature a favourable consideration based on the issues he has been able to highlight,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n
The EAC Ministerial Retreat brings together Partner States\u2019 Ministers of Foreign and EAC Affairs to discuss critical issues affecting the EAC region.<\/p>\n
The post Raila, Mudavadi seek EAC Ministers\u2019 backing for AUC post<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga made a case for his African Union Commission chairmanship bid Sunday at the East African Community (EAC) Ministerial Retreat on Peace and Security in Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania. Raila took time to explain to the EAC Ministers why he wanted to be the next AU Commission chairperson. \u201cI am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}