Raila Odinga’s trip to the US has been postponed to next month following unfavorable weather currently experienced in the region.
Raila attended the burial of former UN secretary general Kofi Annan in Ghana yesterday and was to proceed to a three-day visit to North Carolina. Annan mediated between Raila and President Kibaki’s sides, ending the 2007-08 election violence.
From Accra, Raila was expected to fly to the US, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Duke University, North Carolina.
He was also expected to deliver lectures at George Washington University and at the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-profit think tank that specializes in US foreign policy and international affairs.
“The CFR lecture will take place at the organization’s Washington, DC offices,” Raila’s spokesperson Dennis Onyango had said earlier.
“The postponement is due to the extreme weather conditions building up in US state of North Carolina,” Onyango said.
“Duke University advised that an extremely powerful hurricane, Florence, is expected to land on the North Carolina coast early Friday [today]. The university said it is forecast that Durham will remain under extremely dangerous conditions from Thursday [yesterday] through Sunday and has canceled classes from Wednesday afternoon through Sunday.”