In early 2012, Raila Odinga and Uganda’s President Museveni held a meeting at the former Kenyan prime minister’s home in Kisumu, where they conceived an idea that later came to be known as the Coalition of the Willing (CoW), a breakaway effort of the East African Community (EAC) that would set the tone for the region’s integration – something he did not live to execute, as the presidency eluded him. As the Mwai Kibaki presidency was coming to an end, in the influential Kenyan PM – then seen as a potential president – Museveni sought an ally to drive the Community’s push towards a political federation – even if it meant risking alienating Tanzania and jeopardising Kampala’s relations with Dodoma.
But Museveni also had personal stuff to get off his chest. He had had frosty relations with Odinga after Kenya’s 2007 presidential election whose result caused violence that shook the region, and needed a sit-down to mend their relationship. The desire to smooth things over and thrash out the breakaway confederation was the underlying reason for Museveni’s February 18, 2012 trip to Kisumu, at the invitation of Odinga to launch and fundraise for the Great Lakes University’s Kisumu Education Trust, according to Michael Mukula, a long-time friend of Odinga and ruling party ideologue in Uganda, who spoke to The East African.
In 2010, Mr Mukula, then eastern region chair of Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement, brokered the first meeting between Odinga and Museveni, and was involved in subsequent meetings between the two, including the Kisumu CoW talks. According to Mr Mukula, the discussions centred on testing the idea of whether the comprehensive approach the EAC was using to establish a political federation, agreed upon by all member states, would work. The doubts of the two leaders were based on the overly cautious approach shown by some member states such as Tanzania, towards expediting processes that would lead to the fourth and last pillar of integration. The EAC members at the time were Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
‘If Uganda and Kenya, along with one or two more countries, step forward to initiate the political federation, especially after the elections in Kenya, it would gain momentum,’ Mr Mukula recalled. Odinga and Museveni discussed a lean federation under the principle of variable geometry, allowing countries to cooperate at different speeds, but only if the political federation protocol had been signed. Experts warned not only about the practical difficulties of achieving it but also the negative perception it would send to other member countries, as it would go against the Treaty that establishes the Community.
Moreover, the move would not augur well, considering that Uganda remained one of the poorest implementers of the Customs Union Protocol, and would thus be seen as jumping the gun; this, along with the continued existence of non-tariff barriers in other partner states, would breed a state of dissonance. At the time, Yona Kanyomozi, a former member of the East African Legislative Assembly, said the CoW was an approach President Museveni favoured and had pushed at other forums, borrowing from the United States, whose federation began with only 13 of the current 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Ugandan leader had made this comparison while responding to the report of the 2004 Amos Wako Committee, instituted to study public views and perceptions towards fast-tracking political federation.
Bad blood Museveni rankled Odinga in 2007, when he became the first president to congratulate Mwai Kibaki on an election that Odinga said had been rigged, and which a majority of people had disputed, including Samuel Kivuitu, the head of the electoral commission, who said he did not know who won. When deadly post-election violence broke out in December 2007 and early 2008, unconfirmed reports claimed that Uganda had sent troops across the border. Later in 2009, Museveni was reported to have referred to the Luo, Raila’s tribesmen, in unpalatable language, when some people vandalised the Kenya-Uganda railway line in expression of fury about Uganda.
As fate would have it, Odinga lost the presidential race to Uhuru Kenyatta in 2012, and with it, the initiative to be the co-driver of the lean federation. In June 2013, Kenyatta, Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame made public what had been crafted by Odinga and Museveni. The three countries are yet to evolve into a political federation, but have undertaken integration projects considered crucial to economic growth, infrastructure improvement, trade facilitation and cooperation.