KAMPALA – President Yoweri Museveni has described the fallen Kenyan former president Daniel Arap Moi as a true Pan-Africanist, who worked closely with the masses.
According to the president, deceased Kenya, East Africa and the entire continent have lost a great leader.
“I learned with sadness about the death of Mzee Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, the former president of Kenya,” he said in a statement.
Mr Museveni noted that he first met Moi in 1979 after the defeat of Amin.
“Later, when we waged the Liberation Struggle, he was critical and we kept him abreast of our struggle. He actually worked as a mediator in the 1985 Peace Talks,’ he said.
He added that the late was an active East African.
“He supported the East African Community and its integration. He, Mzee Hassan Mwinyi and I revived what had become the defunct EAC,” said Museveni.
The president further revealed that Moi was also a deeply religious person.
He extended his condolences and that of Ugandans to His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, the Moi family and all Kenyans on the passing of the icon.
The deceased died on Monday, February 3, 2020, and his death was announced on Tuesday morning by President Uhuru Kenyatta who has sent his condolences to the family.
Moi has been in and out of the hospital in the past years.
According to Wikipedia, Moi became president as a result of the death of the then president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
Through popular agitation and external pressures, he was forced to allow multiparty elections in 1991; he led his party, KANU, to victory in the 1992 and 1997 elections. Prior to becoming President, he served as the third Vice President of Kenya from 1967 to 1978.
Moi is popularly known to Kenyans as Nyayo, a Swahili word for “footsteps”, as he often said he was following in the footsteps of the first President, Jomo Kenyatta.
He also earned the sobriquet “Professor of Politics” due to his long rule of 24 years, the longest in Kenyan history to date.
At 95, he was currently the oldest living former Kenyan president.
