News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

KENYANS are increasingly getting jittery about the latest development whereby the Ugandan head of state President Yoweri Museveni has been issuing special invitation to selected individual Kenyan politicians to visit his country for some undisclosed reasons.

The latest to make such visit is the retired President Daniel Arap Moi who flew into Ugandan capital, Kampala last Tuesday at the invitation of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

Moi flew back home last Thursday after a two days visit during which time he had his host Museveni were involved in a series of secret talks whose contents remained unclear to the general public in both Kenya and Uganda.

The circumstances of these series of visits to Uganda by Kenyan politicians, particularly those who hails from the Rift Valley is causing anxiety, especially within the communities living along the Kenya-Ugandan borders.

It has become a common knowledge that such visit did not augur well with one community, the Luos taking it into account that this particular community is grieved by Museveni recent seizure of the controversial Migingo Fishing Island in Lake Victoria, which is part of the Luo-Nyanza.

Museveni seized the island and even allowed his security personnel and Uganda Revenue Authority to host their national flag on Migingo. Kenyans felt the Ugandan leader was increasing becoming belligerent and hostile to the Kenyan community, following his remarks about the mad-Luos.

This suspicion by the community has been aggrieved further by the fact Museveni list of Kenyan VIP consist of those politician known or classified as the Anti-Luos in Kenya.

This particular community has the longest border with Ugandan in the economically and commercially important Lake Victoria. The latest flirtation between Museveni and selected Kenyan politicians has therefore raised suspicion with members of the Luo community reading malice.

Moi, the latest VIP to visit Uganda is known to have marginalized the Luo during his twenty four year misrule, which had also brought Kenya down to its knees economically following the looting an destruction of various public institutions.

Uganda’s presidential election are due on February 18,2011 and Museveni has been criss-crossing the country in his campaign and reportedly neglecting all but the most urgent government business

Sources in Kampala have hinted that while in the Ugandan capital, Moi held discussions with his host and top ruling NRM officials before returning home. The series of meetings were held behind closed doors.

In the recent past, Kenyan politicians, especially those reported to be interested in running for the 2012 presidential race have been trooping to Uganda to meet with the Museveni and his ruling NRM officials

Details of these series of meetings have not been made public fuelling speculations and rumors about their agendas.. And so the suspicion are also high that such meeting have some element of covert operations against certain Kenyan communities.

It is not clear why President Museveni is conducting his charm offensive with Kenyan politicians and the Rift Valley leaders in particular. Rift Valley has the longest borderline on the land with Uganda’s Eastern region

“Museveni is currently very busy campaigning for sixth term of office ever since 1986. He is said not even doing the government work so for him to invite Moi for thee days in the middle of his-election campaign means this must be very important for him,” a source in Kampala has said.

Museveni is known to have come to Moi’s aid and rescue during his last reign power in Kenya, especially during the clamor for the multiparty political system in Kenya as opposed to the hitherto monolithic patter of governance on which the Kenya’s famous professor of politics had thrived on for a long time. Moi is believed to have received covert backing from Museveni during the first multiparty general election of 1992 and thereafter in 1997.

Moi’s visit comes shortly after the suspended Higher Education Minister and Eldoret North MP William Ruto, had attended thr launching of Museveni’s campaign and NRM manifesto in Kampala on November2, 2010. Ruto was accompanied by the Belgut Mp Charles Keter and Moi’s former roving ambassador and at one time nominated MP Mark Too, alias Bwana Dawa.

Ruto and his entourage met Museveni at Entebe State House before going to the Serena Hotel, Kampala to attend the launch of Museveni’s re-election manifesto.

During the rally Ruto was introduced as the deputy leader of the ODM and Kenya’s representative, though here at home, the Eldoret North MP had ceaselessly distanced himself from the party’s day to day activities and has hinted his intention of ditching the party for green pasture elsewhere.

Mr Too had earned his nickname “Bwana Dawa” during the Moi’s regime for his ability to cut political and business deals as an intermediary between Lonrho and the National Resistance Movement in 1985 in the final days of bush war that brought Museveni to power.

Lonrho is believed to have lent an airplane to the NRA and helped the movement to acquire guns from friendly African governments, which the Museveni rag-rug guerrilla army used in ousting former President Milton Obote from power.

Ruto’s visit was preceded a week earlier by a faction of KANU leaders team headed by the party deputy leader Gideon Moi, the favorite son of the former President Moi. He was accompanied by the party’s Secretary-General Nick Salat when they met with Museveni. This particular meeting took place in eastern Uganda at Nambole Stadium where the two represented KANU during the NRM party elections.

Reports emerging from Kampala, says that during their visit the two KANU officials extended invitation to President Museveni to attend KANU’s 50th anniversary celebrations initially scheduled for next month, but now understandably put off indefinitely.

Three weeks Assistant Minister for Land Bifwoli Wakoli and the MP for Saboti Eugene Wamalwa, both from Western Province and known to be nursing presidential ambition were in Uganda’s Eastern town of Mbale where they campaigned for Museveni in total breach of the Parliament Standing Order that demand MPs travelling to a foreign country to first inform the Speaker of the National Assembly.

The two Kenyan legislators joined Uganda’s Prime Minister Prof.Apollo Nsibambi drumming up support for Museveni on the campaign trail.

In April Museveni hosted the Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Kampala where the two discussed, among other things, the controversy surrounding the disputed Migingo Island .But so far, Kampala still hold grips on the island and there is not signs of letting it free to return under Kenya’s rule.

Former President Moi was last in Uganda on January 26, this year as the Chief Guest during the celebrations marking the anniversary of the NRA’s capture of power in Kampala in 1986. The grand old man was awarded the prestigious Nalubale Medal by President Museveni for his contributions to the restoration of “civilized and peaceful political order” in the region.

The Medal is for civilian activists who have contributed to the political development of Uganda either through armed struggle or otherwise.

Ends