The Ivory Coast assignment was in my view presented both danger and opportunity to RAO as a senior Kenyan politician. The moment when he verbalized his honest opinion of the solution that he deemed fit in IC, then he lost the opportunity to be a mediator in the crisis. Even if AU and UN approached him to take lead, on retrospect, he should have declined or opted to play a less visible supporting role. But I can understand where he is coming from: the opportunity to be cast as Chief Mediator in a high profile - media saturated environment was simply irresistible. When it unraveled as it has, then he has to take part of the blame - these are not my words - but Gbagbo who refereed to him as biased. Why is this important in the high octane Kenyan politics? It simply cast him as a leader incapable of recognizing his own limitations - if the payoff is high enough. Much more critical is the fact that as a head of state, he probably would be called upon to mediate and negotiate on a daily basis groups and individuals with competing interests - whether economic, political or social. Those will require sober judgment to navigate and simply not to be seen to be doing something. Any unresolved issues have a nasty habit of coming back to bite. On the basis of these two criteria, he has failed. I am sure other opportunities will still come up for him to demonstrate if this is a habit or a one off. I am afraid that so far, his choices suggest to be the former. I am sure there are other wazurans with better arguments on this but for me this will do for now.

Africa Union, Wake Up!

Its really irresponsible of the entire African continent with a population of 1B, 90% of the negro population to entrust the responsibility of mediating in Ivory coast to RAO, it is even more surprising that they did not seek the opinion of Njore, Ngalaka, murira ... before making such a critical decision.