President Uhuru Kenyatta has dismissed as far-fetched and “impossible” calls for him to extend his term beyond 2022.
“There is no such provision in our Constitution (for me to extend my term), because we cannot see on the one hand we are fighting impunity, and then on the other, turn back and support the very thing we are fighting,” he said in an exclusive interview with the BBC Hard Talk’s Zeinab Badawi.
Some analyst had called for a change to the Constitution to have President Kenyatta extend his term beyond the set threshold of not more than two terms.
On his relationship with the US, Britain—ahead of his hosting British Prime Minister Theresa May Thursday—and China, where he will be hosted by Chinese prime minister Xi Jingping, President Kenyatta said the future could only be brighter for Africa.
“Africa is looking to do business. We want to get the best deals. There has been dramatic change across the African continent where people are beginning to get a better understanding of themselves, who they are and where they want to be,” he said, adding that “Africa has come of age and does not look to the world for aid but how to foster win-win partnerships that benefit all parties involved.”
In 2011, Forbes Magazine ranked President Kenyatta as number 26 in the list of Africa’s 40 richest people.
The magazine said the president and the Kenyatta family own “at 500,000 acres of prime land acquired by his father in the 1960s and 1970s when the British colonial government and the World Bank funded a settlement transfer scheme that enabled government officials and wealthy Kenyans to acquire land from the British at very low prices.”