Scholar and political writer Professor Ali Mazrui has died in the United States at age of 81.
Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar and Governor Hassan Joho confirmed his death.
He died today at 3am in the USA where he has been lecturing.
Plans are underway to transport his body back to Mombasa for burial but circumstances behind his death are as yet unclear.
Meanwhile, leaders across the East African region continue to eulogize fallen education icon Prof Ali Mazrui.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta says he is saddened by the death of Prof Mazrui, a towering academician whose contributions played a major role in shaping African scholarship.
Kenyatta says that Prof Mazrui’s literary works, debates and relentless cultivation of a global view of Africa have helped tell the continent’s story.
He adds that Prof. Mazrui’s legacy and commitment to intellectual advancement will always remain etched in Kenyans’ minds.
At Makerere University where the late Mazrui was also a lecturer, Professor Augustus Nuwagaba says Mazrui was a profound author and political analyst not only in Africa but worldwide.
He explains that his role at Makerere University inspired many lecturers while his writing shaped politics of the present.
He authored and co-authored more than 20 books and hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and for public media
Mazrui was born on 24 February 1933 in Mombasa. He was a political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations.
He authored and co-authored more than 20 books and hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and for public media
He was known to be a free thinker who would not distort the truth and facts to the dictates of the establishment.
Mazrui is not only known in Kenya, in 1963, he moved to Kampala, Uganda, to teach political science at Makerere University.
