My barbs and bouquets to those who made a difference in 2024

Kamotho Waiganjo  is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

It is that time of the year when this column appreciates those that made a difference for Kenya and throw some barbs the direction of those who caused distress. Our first bouquet goes to the teaching profession, specifically lecturers in public universities.

I have recently gone back to school and have interacted intensely with this portion of a much-neglected profession. Firstly, the typical university lecturer belongs to the top percentile of our brightest and many have taken teaching as a service to country.   

We ought to be celebrating and giving them incentives to enable them convert their intellect for the benefit of the country. Instead, we shoulder them with a punishing load of teaching, allocating them numerous barely related undergraduate classes, supervision of scores of Masters and PhD students and then pay them a pittance. To survive, they have to engage in moonlighting as part time consultants or in professional fields.

Theirs is a tough life. To the committed ones, because there is also a population of malingerers among them, a bouquet is well deserved.

The next bouquet goes to Generation Z, the youngsters who in June put their lives on the line to demand a fairer and more just country. Because this group comprised our children, our nephews and our nieces, we interacted closely with them and know just how passionately they felt and how well informed they were.

Predictably, their protests were infiltrated, and many were caught up in senseless violence, destruction and mayhem that defined later days of the protests.

These latter events must not detract from the passionate but tribeless, classless nature of the initial Gen Z protests and the way that generation utilised their smart phones, the internet and social media to innovatively advance their cause. Kenya owes this group a debt of gratitude.

We trust that the consciousness they unleashed will not go to waste but rekindle a new patriotism willing to pay a price for a fairer more just Kenya. The final group which gets a bouquet and a barb is our police officers.

While we love to hate our cops, the reality is these fellows interact with society at its worst and deal with situations we would not be caught near. They handle cases of extreme violence, grisly accidents, and irresponsible and rude drivers in the scorching heat or heavy rains.

Many do this with zest and good humour. Despite all their many other faults, these fellow Kenyans, who are paid minuscule wages and live in dingy police lines, deserve our respect. They hereby get a bouquet.

The first barb however also goes to police officers. These are the fellows who clobber women as they demonstrate against gender-based violence. Whatever IG Douglas Kanja says, these officials, in whatever formation they are operating, are responsible for the ongoing abductions and disappearances, otherwise they would have arrested the abductors or fake abductees, if such exist.

The second barb goes to Kenyan drivers. I am not talking about the “matatu madness” lot. My barb is reserved for the otherwise rational, sensible and cultured Kenyans who go nuts when on the road. They blatantly and predictably ignore basic traffic rules, desecrate basic courtesies and ultimately produce the snarl ups that we have seen on the Nairobi-Naivasha highway this holiday.

This selfish foolishness is part of the reason our leaders, many of whom have similar approaches to life, have contempt for us. My final barb is international since its infamy defines the globe in 2024. It has to do with the ongoing carnage in Gaza.

While I accept that the terrorist events of October 6th demanded a strong response, the State of Israel is not a terrorist organisation. It must therefore operate within certain bounds especially in relation to civilians. The wanton deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians cannot be justified under any circumstances.

For those acts, Netanyahu and his ilk get a barb, however ineffective it may be. As the year comes to an end, I pray that the acts of those we have celebrated will give us the impetus to be better in 2025, while avoiding the errors that the barb receivers made in 2024. Merry Christmas and a blessed 2025.  

-The writer is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya