Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka, a staunch member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, has faulted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over Raila Odinga's failure to secure the African Union Commission Chairperson seat.
Speaking in an interview with Citizen TV on Monday, February 17, Onyonka said that the former Prime Minister and President William Ruto needed to surround himself with a team of trained, experienced, and educated experts from the Ministry during the elections to clinch the seat.
He hinted that the lack of experts in the team campaigning for the former Prime Minister may have cost him the seat.
"We need serious experts and these are workers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A team which is experienced, a team of ambassadors who have been trained and some of them who have gone to the best universities were the ones supposed to be around President Ruto and Raila Odinga," he explained.
"Instead of taking many of our colleagues from the broad-based government arrangement to Ethiopia, we should have just taken the ambassadors of the countries who were going to vote, taken them to Addis Ababa, and let them sit and come up with a plan on what to do," he added.
Furthermore, Onyonka noted that the Ministry's lack of professionalism and geopolitical awareness during the campaigns played a key role in denting Odinga's chances of securing the seat.
Onyonka said that the former Prime Minister's campaign strategy should have been executed "quietly" to guarantee healthy diplomatic relations with African countries.
"The moment I saw everybody running all over the place, how the former prime minister is taking his jet and is flying over the 48 countries and meeting the presidents and the people surrounding him during the trips, other countries don't operate like that," he said.
"You do it quietly because there are certain countries that if they know you have visited in some areas, and there was a conflict of interest, they rebell back. They say, 'look at what that guy is doing with our enemies and yet that was not your intent,'" he added.
Onyonka's sentiments came a day after the Former Prime Minister was eliminated in his bid to become AUC chairperson, losing it to Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who was voted as the seventh African Union Commission (AUC) chairperson since its establishment in 2002.
Before the election, Raila’s campaign team had indicated that he had support from at least 21 countries. However, he took an early lead, garnering 20 votes in the hotly contested election, before making it through to the second, third, fourth, and fifth rounds and eventually being eliminated in the sixth round.
After the election, Raila conceded defeat adding that that he did not harbour much regret over the loss.
"I therefore concede defeat and want us to use this as an example of strengthening democracy on our continent. I wish Mahamoud Ali Youssouf all the best and success in his undertaking," Raila commented.
According to Odinga, his new plan is to return home. But he maintained that he is still available to offer services to the continent in any other capacity.
