In Kenya, the late former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is revered for his success in ending the 2007-2008 post-election conflict that left more than 1200 people dead.
Annan was able to bring the then President Mwai Kibaki and his political rival Raila Odinga around the negotiating table, convincing them to agree to share power.
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has sent his condolences to Annan’s family, while Odinga has hailed him for the role he played in ending the 2007 ethnic massacres.
Kofi Annan was a guiding force for good. I join the world in mourning his loss. In these turbulent and trying times, his legacy as a global champion for peace will remain a true inspiration for us all. https://t.co/psJ9viPIeu pic.twitter.com/SKfBk5zaY2
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 18, 2018
2007 – Kenya was burning. Contested presidential election results had led to bloodshed and threatened to bring East Africa’s biggest economy on its knees.
January 2008 – with at least 500 people now dead in the spiraling conflict, Kofi Annan arrived in Kenya to lead a panel of eminent African personalities to mediate between Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) and Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
The Annan-led efforts brought Kenya from the brink is in no doubt. News of his death met with shock in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Indeed, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga alluded to these same sentiments in his tribute indicating that Annan stepped in and saved the country from collapse following the 2007-8 Post election violence.
Other parts of the continent are however littered with cases of conflicts that he failed to stop while at the helm of the UN including the bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region as well as the civil war in Somalia and the Rwandan genocide.
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