Mohammed Yusuf

Indeed, Tuesday, June 25, 2024 was an unprecedented day of chaos and deadly violence never seen in Kenya's 61-year history of independence. I captured some moments here: 📸Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi. Kenyans seemed unbowed even when police sprayed them with itching coloured water from water cannons.

Sudan, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and now in Kenya, young people are standing up against oppression, dictatorship, economic inequality, corruption, rights violations and abuses. Tonight 1700GMT, 8pm EAT: @XSpaces. xitter.gq/i/spaces/1BRJjPwzYeQKw

Excerpts of #Kenya's 🇰🇪 Candidate for the post of #AUC Chairperson, Raila Odinga's Speech on how he intends to help Africa invest in infrastructure, Open-Skies. #AU “Africa does not trade with itself for reasons which are actually solvable. There are non-tariff barriers which have been introduced by some African countries which makes it difficult for goods to move from one African country to the other. There's infrastructure challenges that make it difficult for Africa to trade with itself. African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, is now 2 years old. But little progress has been made because of these barriers. I have been talking about the Intra-African Highways, the Cape-Cairo, Dakar-Djibouti, Dakar-Lagos, Lagos-Mombasa, and so on and so forth. I have been talking about the Continental High Speed Railway Network, Beira to Walvis Bay, one old Benguela line, Lobito to Lubumbashi. The other one is the High Speed Railway along the coast from Lagos to Cairo, then the LAPSET Corridor (Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport) which as a Representative of the African Union High for Infrastructure Development we extended from Juba, South Sudan through Bangui in Central African Republic to the Port of Cameroon (Douala) to create a land bridge that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and opening up the interior of the continent, which are landlocked, for trade. For example, Kenya grows tea. But how does Kenya export its tea to the Central African Republic? Between Kenya and Central African Republic, there's only South Sudan. But how do you take your tea there and there's no infrastructure? You have to find a ship that will go around the Cape along the Western Coast to the Cameroonian Port of Douala and then by road to Bangui. The French are there ahead of you, that's why they drink in Bangui, Kenyan tea christened as English breakfast tea. With LAPSET, we can be able to take our goods there. But this infrastructure cannot be developed country by country, we need to have a mechanism at the centre that is coordinating funding for the infrastructure. I am also talking about the High-Speed Fiber Optic Network to connect all African capitals, Open-Skies to move freely in the African Airspace without so much impediment. At the moment traveling across Africa is so much problem. Recently, when I traveled to the funeral of the President of Namibia, we chartered an aircraft here in Nairobi, had to spend 3 hours at the Wilson Airport (Nairobi) waiting for clearances of airspaces of the transit countries. We have to get a clearance to fly over Tanzanian airspace, DRC, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia itself. And it is very expensive. The other day, I was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania going to Niamey in Niger, I spent 10 hours waiting. We need clearances over Uganda, over DRC, over Central African Republic, over Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. That's what is making the Air Transport on the continent so expensive. It is easier to move good by air. We need to put facilities across the continent and then have African Continental Air Traffic Control. In Europe, you only need one Permit and you can fly all over the countries of Europe. Here, you need permission from Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kinshasa, Lusaka, and so on. We need to make the Nile River navigable so that you can move the Mediterranean sea to Lake Victoria. Ships can move from Europe and don't have to go through the Horn to come to the coast on the other side. They can go direct on the Nile to Lake Victoria and land there in Jinja, Kampala, in Kisumu and Mwanza. These are some of the projects that can be done. I have ideas which I think if implemented will improve Intra-Africa Trade.”