Wiper Patriotic Front leader Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka has released the programme for a seven-day working visit to the United States. He will lead a nine-member delegation to six cities: Washington, DC; Boston; Germantown and Baltimore in Maryland; Minneapolis; and Cleveland. The delegation leaves Nairobi on November 16. The official programme starts on November 18.
The tour opens on Capitol Hill. According to The Star, Kalonzo will meet US lawmakers there on November 18. That evening he will attend a dinner with Washington's leadership. On November 19 he travels to Boston for an engagement at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A reception there will bring together alumni, faculty and people from the technology and investment sectors.
On November 20 he returns to Washington and heads to Germantown, Maryland. There he will hold a town hall with Kenyans from the DMV region, which covers the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. A US East Coast dinner follows. On November 21 he will attend a Sabbath service at Living Springs Seventh-day Adventist Church in Baltimore, The Eastleigh Voice reported. He will then travel to Minneapolis for the Somali Hero Awards and Somali Book Fair with Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Afey.
Cleveland is the final stop. Kalonzo will attend a Thanksgiving dinner with the diaspora on November 22. On November 23 he will meet several organisations. He will also appear as chief guest at the Building Bridges: Cleveland-Kenya-Africa Reception. The delegation leaves the US for Nairobi on November 24.
The Star reported that a media advisory from the Wiper Patriotic Front and The Ukombozi Alliance announced the trip on Thursday. The Eastleigh Voice said the statement came from the Kalonzo Musyoka Presidential Advisory Council. According to the advisory, the visit combines "a formal engagement with the United States Congress on Capitol Hill with town halls, institutional engagements and diaspora mobilisation."
The advisory recalled that Kalonzo served as Kenya's 10th Vice President from 2008 to 2013. He also held several Cabinet posts, including Foreign Affairs, Environment and Natural Resources, Education and Tourism. The advisory said that as Foreign Affairs minister he led the negotiations that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the birth of South Sudan.
The Eastleigh Voice noted that the trip comes days after Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna announced his own US tour under the Linda Mwananchi campaign. That tour starts in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on November 20. It then moves through the Washington, DC area, Dallas and Houston before ending in Seattle and California on December 4. The two tours are being organised separately.