A recent diplomatic spat between Uganda and Rwanda has since seen the two landlocked states close their common border making things even worse for Kenya making President Uhuru launch a whistle-stop shuttle diplomacy visit to Kigali and Kampala in one day.
In 2016, Uganda’s decision not to partner with Kenya in the construction of a pipeline was a major blow to the region’s biggest economy and could strain relations in the bloc with some top officials in Kenya have accusing Uganda and Tanzania of locking the country out of talks.
Kenya and Uganda raised the stakes in East Africa’s infrastructure development race after Nairobi offered Kampala land to construct a dry port in Naivasha, 100km west of Nairobi, where the second phase of Kenya’s standard gauge railway line terminates.
President Uhuru Kenyatta made the offer in Mombasa on Thursday during a meeting with Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni who was on a three-day tour of the country.
“We have agreed that we shall make land available in Naivasha for Uganda to develop a dry port for its cargo,” President Kenyatta announced, adding that the railway will have reached Naivasha by August.
The land deal is seen as President Kenyatta’s effort meant to lock Uganda into the project, whose fate appeared uncertain in the wake of Kampala’s recent dalliance with Tanzania.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame visited Dar es Salaam last month in the heat of the diplomatic spat with Kampala, a move that was seen as a firming up of diplomatic ties and to ultimately deepen Rwanda’s use of Tanzania as its main route to and from the sea. That would leave Kenya’s Mombasa port as the big loser.
President Kagame and Tanzania’s John Magufuli also discussed the ongoing construction of Tanzania’s standard gauge railway to the border with Rwanda — a project they agreed to speed up and whose completion would amount to Kigali’s total liberation from its current dependence on Uganda for trans-shipment of goods.
With Kenya’s own railway project seemingly halted in Naivasha, 250km away from the lakeside city of Kisumu and the border with Uganda, these moves appeared to leave Nairobi in the regional diplomatic cold.
It would be disastrous for Kenya if President Magufuli once again staged a diplomatic coup and got Uganda to sign up for Tanzania’s railway.
President Kenyatta having suffered his biggest diplomatic humiliation since taking office in the hands of Presidents Museveni and Magufuli in the pipeline deal, did not wait for things to roll on this time round.