Let's make 2012 sing us a better song, 2011 was off-key!

Kenya has had one tragedy after another, there is no day that passes by without a new report of fatal road accidents, massive deaths from fires started at leaking fuel pipelines.  The latest has been the KCPE results fall out.  Children committing suicide because they have "failed" their end of primary school examinations.  Teachers who also do likewise, since they perceive they have failed as teachers.  Principals and teachers being chased away from schools with sticks and stones, irate parents shutting down schools.  I read in a local daily, that there was a suggestion to turn the worst performing school's facilities into a brick making business, since clearly it cannot be used as an institution of learning.

There is talk of changing the education system.  My opinion is, we must realise, when people feel the need to end their lives, it is very rarely because of one event.  Usually, the event is the final straw that breaks the camel's back.  The cost of living is so high, most of us are wound up as tight as a guitar string.  Many of the comforts we occasionally enjoyed have long been forgotten, and now even what we considered bare necessity, we have to do without.  Many families are down to one meal a day dinner.  Many now use charcoal because LPG and Electricity prices are unbelievable.  The festive season has just ended, characterised by high prices of everything, the fuel, the food, the fun, everything cost twice as much, and many did not bother to celebrate at all, they simply sat it out.

Add on top of this the threat from the Al Shabaab.  No fireworks, no street parties, because we could be bombed any time.  There are families that had Christmas without their daddies, because they are in Somalia in Operation Linda Nchi.  Now the year has begun, and we are all waiting to hear the decision from the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC on the fate of the "Ocampo 6" as they are now famously known.

This is an election year, parties are being formed every morning, and then there is the new Political Parties Act, (that is a whole topic on its own I tell you) that has changed the ball game completely.  Everyone is scrambling to hold party elections to remove politicians from office.  The politicians don't seem to get it, they cannot "own" or "run" parties legally anymore.  Their mistake my gain, since I belong to a newly registered party too, and all our ducks so far seem to be in a row.

We need to pray for this land.  We need a newness, a freshness, so that all we hope to achieve in the implementation of the Constitution as far as Institutional Strengthening is concerned, is actually achieved.  I voted No during the Referendum in 2010, but I have since realised, I had more interest in seeing real change than some so-called "Reformists"  who do things more out of personal gain and political expediency than real genuine love for this land.

This is the year folks, we sink or swim.  Unless we get fed up with all the man-made tragedies and disasters around us, we shall keep having the same issues plaguing us over and over again.  Let us take stock, stand up and be counted.