Kirubi was speaking ahead of Obama’s visit to three African countries that started with Senegal on June 27, 2013, to South Africa and Tanzania.
“The visit of a powerful president to a country next door to you and not into your country means a lot to the investors in the world. The President of the US has the power to lead the investors, and he gave them the cue that the best place to invest in Tanzania, not Kenya,” he regretted.
He noted that his visit to Tanzania would be good for the image of that country at the expense of Kenya’s economy, which needed a rebirth of fortunes after a tumultuous electioneering period that had injected uncertainties into the Kenyan atmosphere.
“Kenyans might take it seriously. We need him here in order to grow our nation. If Barrack Obama visited Kenya, we would feature in every single media in the world, a matter that would go a long way in marketing the country to investors. This is a serious president, not the leader of a banana republic, and thus the loss is immense,” Kirubi explained.
He cleared the air, stating that it was not a political issue to snub the invite by the president, but that it was an economic issue and cultural issue.
“We are all in competition for investment destinations, and therefore it would have been great for us here, but from the look of things, those investors are going to miss Kenya,” he stated.
In terms of culture, he admitted that it was a negative picture for Obama to come close to the country and leave without setting foot into it.
Obama visited the country two years later in July 2015, the first-ever sitting US president to do so.
