Why Drogba, Eto’o, Lupita will visit Kisumu this week
Ex-football stars Samuel Eto’o and Didier Drogba plus star actress Lupita Nyong’o are among 8000 guests set to visit Kisumu and grace the Africities Summit in the coming week.
This will be the second time inside a month that Eto’o, a celebrated football who played for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and Inter Milan in Europe, is visiting Kenya.
The ex-striker who currently serves as the Cameroon Football Association president was recently in Malindi, along the Kenyan coast, on holiday with his family in April.
Drogba too, is a retired footballer who represented Olympic Marseille, Chelsea, Galatasaray and the Ivory Coast national team during his playing days.
He is remembered for helping Chelsea win the UEFA Champions League and considered among the best strikers to have come out of Africa.
Having been named as one of Africa’s ’50 Most Powerful Women,’ Lupita Nyong’o, is a skilled actress cum author whose book became number one of the best selling in New York.
Known for his role in the Black Panther the actress, whose father is Kisumu governor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, is the first Kenyan to win an Oscar Award.
She accomplished the feat in 2014 for her supporting role in the movie 12 Years a Slave.
The Africities Summit will hold its 9th edition from May 17-21 in Kenya’s third largest city which is located along Lake Victoria.
The theme of the summit is The Role of Intermediary Cities of Africa in the implementation of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and the African Union Agenda 2063.
Africities is a Pan Africa conference that is convened by the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa’s (UCLG-A) and brings together the leadership of cities and sub national governments and their associations for the advancement of decentralization and local governance aimed at improving the living standards of the citizens.
Africities Summits have been held every three years since 1998 when the first meeting was held in Abijan, Ivory Coast. Other Cities to host the summit include Johannesburg-South Africa, Dakar-Senegal and Marrakech-Morocco (twice).