Obama urges Kenyans to vote peacefully, wisely

BY PHILIP MOMANYI MAOSA

MONDAY AUGUST 7 2017

Former U.S. President Barack Obama visits with youth leaders at the University of Chicago to help promote community organizing on April 24, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. He has told Kenyans to vote wisely. PHOTO | SCOTT OLSON | AFP 

In Summary

• Mr Obama said that for the nation to advance, Kenyans must embrace inclusive democracy.
  
  
  Former US President Barack Obama has urged Kenyans to vote for the right leaders in Tuesday's elections in order to secure a bright future for the country.

Mr Obama particularly called on President Uhuru Kenyatta and his main challenger Raila Odinga to ensure unity among Kenyans prevails regardless of the outcome.

"I have witnessed your remarkable progress and I'd like to return to see you fulfill your even more remarkable potential.

"This election is one more milestone for Kenya, and I urge President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, and all other Kenyans to act with respect to the proverb: 'we have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children."'

INCLUSIVITY

Mr Obama further said that for the nation to advance, Kenyans must embrace inclusive democracy by rejecting "politics of tribe and ethnicity".

With the huge deployment of security forces across the country, he called on them to be impartial.

On justice, he said polls petitions should be resolved amicably through the legal institutions and the rule of law.

HOPE

More importantly, he encouraged Kenyans to think progressively.

"The choices you make in the coming days can either set Kenya back or bring it together.

"As a friend of the Kenyan people, I urge you to work for a future defined not by fear and division, but by unity and hope," the statement uploaded on Twitter by Zeke Miller, TIME White House correspondent, said.