Opinion
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Has Demonstrated That He is a Statesman, Not a Mere Politician
Yet the question of a power vacuum never arose. Apparently, in his absence, Moi left the reins of rule in the hands of non-politicians, probably security agents.
The manner and dignity in which young Uhuru Kenyatta carried himself last week and all the way into The Hague also revealed a mind entrenched in the 21st century.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is based in the Netherlands – a state which has only recently committed a hundred times greater human rights crimes when it colonized large sections of Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Americas.
Debonair, self-confident, sophisticated suave, with it, youthful, he might have charmed even his most dedicated detractors in Kenya’s opposition movement.
But, as I say, Uhuru Kenyatta relinquished power in order to free the country from charges that are purely personal. That is our saving grace. It is what lifts Kenyatta from a mere politician to the much higher rung of a statesman.
Philip Ochieng is a veteran journalist and African political commentator based in Nairobi, Kenya. The original version of this article was published in the Daily Nation
