Kenya nominates Amina Mohamed for AU chair job

What you need to know:

The post became vacant after the expiry of term of South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who had been at the commission’s helm since 2012.

Kenya has nominated Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed to contest as the chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, President Uhuru Kenyatta revealed Monday.

Ms Mohamed, who has had an illustrious career as a diplomat and who has been celebrated as one of the most successful Cabinet Secretaries, will battle it out with three other Africans for the top, influential post.

“I see that Amina is doing well and this looks like an Amina thing. We have nominated her (the CS) to be the AU chairperson,” President Kenyatta said at State House when he rose to address the Youth Summit.

The three who will battle it with Ms Mohamed are former Ugandan vice president Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, the Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy and his Botswanian counterpart Pelonomi Venson Moitoi.

Suspended

The election of the Members of the AU Commission held in Kigali, Rwanda in July 2016, were suspended since none of the three contenders for the position of the Chairperson of the Commission obtained the required two-thirds majority, after seven rounds of voting.

The post became vacant after the expiry of term of South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who had been at the commission’s helm since 2012.

By October 14, the panel recruiting the team will circulate the list of those who want to be elected, in readiness for the election in January 2017.

Ms Mohamed has served in the public service for 29 years and was once Kenya’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya to the UN in Geneva.

The United Nations (UN) Secretary General then appointed her the United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi.

The CS has led Kenya organise huge global conferences starting with the Global Entrepreneurship Summit addressed by US President Barack Obama, the World Trade Organisation 14th ministerial conference and recently the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) conference, all in Nairobi.