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Then Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the Westin Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa on May 5, 2011.
Then Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the Westin Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa on May 5, 2011.

Raila Odinga to attend Kofi Annan's burial

Former Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga is expected in Ghana on Thursday as a guest at the burial ceremony of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Accra.

According to Mr Odinga's spokesperson, Dennis Onyango, the Orange Democratic Movement leader will arrive in Ghana after a brief stop-over in the United Arab Emirates.

"Mr Odinga left the country this afternoon for a brief stop-over in the United Arab Emirates before proceeding to Ghana for Dr Annan’s burial on Thursday," Odinga's spokesperson Onyango said in a press statement.

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The statement added that Kenya's opposition leader (Mr Odinga) will be away from the country for about a week.

He will join other Kenyan leaders including the Kenyan National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi who President Uhuru Kenyatta chose as his special envoy at the burial of the former UN boss on September 13.

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The Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in another statement said Mr Muturi will lead a delegation of senior members of government, legislature and an official representative from the High Commission of the Republic of Kenya in Abuja, Nigeria, which is also accredited to Ghana.

Kofi Annan's key role in Kenyan democracy

Following the outbreak of violence during the 2007 Presidential elections in Kenya, the African Union established a Panel of Eminent African Personalities to assist in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis.

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The panel, headed by Annan, managed to convince the two principal parties to the conflict, President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), to participate in the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Process (KNDR).

Over the course of 41 days of negotiations, several agreements regarding taking actions to stop the violence and remedying its consequences were signed. On 28 February, President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga signed a coalition government agreement.

Known afterwards as 'the man who saved Kenya' afterwards in the East African country, Annan died on August 18, 2018, aged 80 years.

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