Kenya and its East African allies will next week face a tough task of convincing other African countries to withdraw from the Rome Statute as civil society groups seek to counter Nairobi’s push at the African Union Special Summit.

Civil society groups backing the International Criminal Court have hatched a plan to block Kenya’s campaign for condemnation of the court at the AU Summit on October 12, in relation to cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang.

Those conversant with lobbying trends at the AU said most countries are likely to play lip service to the campaign.

Steve McDonald, director of the Africa Programme at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, said that the AU will refrain from making a decisive break with the ICC.

“The AU will hope that this just goes away in time, and probably won’t take a strong lead, except in paying lip service to it,” said Mr McDonald.

Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Eritrea had lodged a petition to allow President Kenyatta and his deputy to skip some ICC sessions.

But President Kenyatta, who had in many occasions maintained that he will co-operate with the ICC and attend the trial, has not indicated whether he is in support of the recent campaigns by regional leaders.

READ: How Museveni, Kagame tried to stop Ruto going to Hague

Diplomatic sources from Addis Ababa told The EastAfrican that Kenya was active in using all the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (Igad) members to lobby its case, in a similar fashion to that used by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir against his arrest warrant.

The voices of Nigeria and South Africa will be particularly influential in determining what the AU decides to do, but neither country has taken an official stand on the issue of ICC.

South Africa appears inclined towards Kenya’s cause, given that the executive committee of ANC last month said “there is clear evidence that the ICC is used more to effect regime change in the majority of cases.”

The ANC executive committee accused the ICC of attempting “a judicial coup” by requiring President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto to be present in The Hague for their cases.

On the other hand, Nigeria is likely to neither support nor attack the ICC, according to Oby Nwankwo, an official with the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre in Nigeria.

He said that Nigeria recently reaffirmed its support for the ICC following the brief visit to the country by Sudan President Bashir, who has an arrest warrant, but the court subsequently absolved Nigeria of liability for failing to arrest him.

Dr Mehari Taddele Maru of the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa said that countries such as Uganda and Djibouti may only orally declare their withdrawal.

Some countries such as Botswana are expected to oppose such a move by the AU. The main impact of this development will be that countries that have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute may decide not to ratify it.

These countries are Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, the Republic of Sudan and Zimbabwe.

East African countries would not be sufficient to trigger rejection of the ICC by the AU. A two-thirds vote is required.

READ:African leaders take ICC battle to the UN

Notably, the ICC was not mentioned by most African leaders’ addresses at the UN last week. But, according to J Peter Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, the silence could not be interpreted as opposition to Kenya’s attempt to rally an AU walkout.

“Heads of state have limited time to raise issues at the UN annual gathering, so it does not necessarily mean anything if they did not choose to use their time to address the ICC question,” he said.

By rejecting President Uhuru Kenyatta’s request to have his case deferred until next year, Mr Pham says, “the court confirms the worst fears of its critics and does little to reassure ordinary Africans, thus further undermining its political legitimacy.”

Other observers speculate that the AU will probably not take the step that Kenya desires.

Stephen Lamony, senior advisor at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, says “it is unlikely that other African states will follow suit” in calling for withdrawal from the ICC.

Many AU members believe it is up to individual states, not the African Union as a whole, to decide whether to quit the ICC’s jurisdiction. Mr Lamony’s NGO, which acts as an advocate for the court, is lobbying AU members to reiterate their support for the ICC.

An activist with another West African NGO attributes East Africa’s united front in support of Kenya to economic factors.

Ibrahim Tommy of the Centre of Accountability and the Rule of Law in Sierra Leone said Kenya has done a good job of getting EAC member states to think like a bloc, but it will struggle to find the required support at the AU Summit.

By Kevin J Kelley and Fred Oluoch