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Friday, January 28, 2011

EXPECTATATIONS OF THE YEAR 2011

By Brian Tumwa
This year seems to have taken off fast, typical of every January. As times and seasons change, so do behaviours and the course that guides many a people’s lives. It is therefore a time of newness and renewal.
This semester has not proven to be any different judging from the way things are turning out to be. Firstly, the turnout at the beginning of the semester was unenthusiastic to say the least. The lecture halls remained shut despite the fact that it had been more than a week since the semester officially began. Whether it has anything to do with it being the beginning of a new year remains to be seen.
2011 is the year we get to cross over to year two of the second decade since the new millennium began. It has many pointers that stretch far beyond campus.
To the North-west of Kenya, the Sudanese are holding a first time political exercise that could leave their country divided right in the middle in a secession bid to separate the South from the North. The consequences are varied, from the return of refugees from neighbouring countries to the possible upwelling of violence due to conflicts regarding the sharing of oil revenue between the north and the south. There’s also the question of how the newborn in the community of nations that form Africa would be able to sustain itself in terms of logistics in forming a new administration and the frameworks it needs to support itself with like a constitution.
Back home, it is not such a promising year for farmers and herders as La Nina looms large. The whole country is covered with dust and the skies are radiating with scorching heat that threatens to burn life out of the living. Kenya being an agriculturally dependent country, it calls for urgent measures to prevent the occurrence of starvation and the dwindling of the economy. It makes many a Kenyan hold their breath and hope that yet again the government will not perfect its wait and see stance, that turns an early warning into a confused alarm call in the wake of an ‘emergency’ everyone saw coming.
It may also be the year when the so called nine lives of several veteran politicians run out. The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission has its guns directed towards several cabinet ministers with one already being tried in the high court for gross abuse of office. The embattled former Industrialization minister and Member of Parliament for Tinderet is also facing international criminal charges in connection with the 2007 post election violence. If found guilty of any of these charges, Mr. Kosgey will be automatically excluded from participating in any political activity in the country in keeping with the new constitution. Others are William Ruto facing land fraud charges, Moses Wetang’ula facing the charge of embezzlement of funds in the embassy scandal in his ministry and Charity Ngilu who is yet to vacate office for practicing nepotism in her water ministry.
For the rest of the public who have lives to live, may you have a rewarding semester.

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