Highs and lows of 2014 and what to look out for in 2015

Cord goes back to the High Court on Monday to challenge the Security Laws (Amendment) Act 2014 in what will mark the end of an eventful year.

Opponents of the new laws say it infringes on basic rights while its proponents say the laws will help boost government’s ability to fight insecurity. 

The case sets the stage for a looming showdown between the Jubilee administration and the opposition in 2015.

It is interesting that a dispute over the handling of security issues should mark the end of an year which has been dominated by insecurity and changes in the Interior ministry, the National Intelligence Service and the National Police Service.      

There are also major international news that gripped the country this year. The disappearance without a trace of a Malaysian Airline flight in March (and the shooting of another one month later over Ukrainian airspace, the football World Cup in Brazil and the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

Here are some of the key events in 2014:

UHURU OFF THE HOOK

• The December 5 decision by the International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to withdraw charges against President Uhuru Kenyatta was a game-changing moment.
• Though the celebration within Jubilee was muted, probably as a precaution not to upset Deputy President William Ruto whose case is still pending in The Hague, there was palpable relief for President Kenyatta and his supporters.
• According to Africa Nazarene University law lecturer James Mamboleo, the withdrawal gave President Kenyatta a lot of political mileage and for a moment relegated the insecurity stories to inside pages of newspapers.
• Weeks earlier, President Kenyatta had made history as the first sitting head of state to attend The Hague-based court. But before he left, the President addressed Parliament and went through the process of handing power to his Deputy President William Ruto. This was, however, largely symbolic.
• Mr Mamboleo notes that the move drew admiration for President Kenyatta and the country momentarily forgot the Pesa Mashinani and Okoa Kenya referendum campaigns.

OSCAR FOR LUPITA NYONG'O

• Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o proved all dreams are valid when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role as Patsey in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave.
• The daughter of Kisumu Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o has gone on to play in other movies such as Non-Stop alongside Liam Neeson and will be joining the Star Wars cast.
• She will also star as Ifemelu in the film adaptation of Americanah, a highly acclaimed novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

MEN IN BLACK

• ODM, the single largest political party in Kenya, planned an election in February that they hoped would help rejuvenate the party. But things fell apart violently when a group of men in black suits disrupted proceedings. They men were later nicknamed “Men in Black”.
• The violent image in ODM was repeated when the party’s then Executive Director Magerer Langat was ejected from ODM headquarters and again during the botched Homa Bay Senate seat primaries after the death of Otieno Kajwang’.
• The party will have to work hard to change its image. 

COURT HALTS RECRUITMENT OF POLICE

• It was meant to be the biggest police recruitment since independence. But it was not to be after the High Court dampened the hopes of 10,000 potential recruits following claims of corruption compiled by the Independent Police Oversight Authority.

EURO BOND

• The Sh174 billion ($2 billion) Euro Bond was floated as the government sought resources for capital developments, especially in the infrastructure sector.
• Ahead of the Eurobond issue, the government was at pains to defend the decision to pay Mercantile Finance Corporation of Switzerland, one of the 13 Anglo-Leasing companies, some Sh1.4 billion.
• The argument was that failure to settle the debt would hamper the issuance of the Euro bond. The successful uptake of Euro bond was cited as a vote of confidence on Kenya despite the numerous cases of terrorist attacks as well as the pending ICC cases.

INSECURITY ON THE RISE

• The country suffered multiple terror attacks with al-Shabaab claiming responsibility for some of them. The senseless killings in Mpeketoni, Lamu County in June and Mandera in November and December demonstrated a change of tact in the militia to seek soft targets in remote areas. The December attack in Mandera that left 36 people dead was the last straw that led to the sacking of the much criticised Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku and resignation of the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo.
• Mr Lenku has since been replaced by retired general Joseph Nkaissery; a new IG is yet to be picked. The changes came four months after the shock resignation of National Intelligence Service Director-General Michael Gichangi, whose agency had come under scrutiny after the deadly Westgate Mall  attack in September last year. 
• The killing of the al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane in an American airstrike in September does not seem to have dismantled the group, which remains the single biggest security headache in Kenya going into 2015.
• The killing of 20 police officers in Kapedo on the Turkana-Baringo border last month also signified the security challenges in northern Kenya.

 TWIN REFERENDUM PUSH

• Opposition chief Raila Odinga returned from a three-month stay in the US on May 31 and declared that Cord would push for a referendum to change certain aspects of law to strengthen devolution and improve insecurity.
• To strengthen devolution, the Council of Governors launched the Pesa Mashinani through which they hoped to have at least 45 per cent of the national revenue sent to counties. It is expected that the referendum push will come up again in next year.

WAGE BILL

• The subject was ignited in March when President Kenyatta and his deputy Ruto announced that they would take a 20 per cent pay cut to show the government’s commitment in reducing public sector wage bill. This is after the Salaries and Remuneration Commission raised the flag over the wage Bill. 
• In later months, SRC, the Devolution ministry and the Public Service Commission started the Capacity Assessment and Rationalisation of the Public Service (Carps) to weed out ghost workers in government and re-align the workforce in the national and county governments.
• Part of the Carps has been the biometric registration of civil servants which revealed that some 12,000 workers did not turn up to register and could not be accounted for. It remains to be seen if the restructuring will lead to job losses.

REBASING OF THE ECONOMY

• The county changed how it calculates its economic figures in 2014, making its GDP 25 per cent larger than previously estimated.
• The rebasing saw Kenya jump from a low-income to a middle-income country in the World Bank ranking.
• It also meant that the economic growth for 2013 was 5.7 per cent and not 4.7 per cent.
• Kenya’s GDP was placed at Sh4.76 trillion ($53.1 billion) in 2013 after rebasing, up from Sh3.8 trillion, the Devolution and Planning Secretary Anne Waiguru said in September.
• The new figures now place Kenya as the fourth biggest economy in sub-Saharan African after Nigeria, South Africa and Angola. Poverty levels, however, remain at 45.9 per cent, as estimated by the World Bank and life expectancy at 61.
• Kenya had not rebased its economy since 2001 to factor in some of the new sectors like mobile telephony and internet, among others, that have been contributing to the economic growth.

SUPREME COURT SAVES GOVERNORS

• The court handed a lifeline to governors who were facing the axe after losing election petitions. They included Peter Munya (Meru), Okoth Obado (Migori), Evans Kidero (Nairobi).

NEW WORLD RECORDS

It was quite an illustrious year for Kenyan sportsmen and women with several records broken and set.

• On February 16, Kenya’s Florence Kiplagat broke the world half marathon record in Barcelona. She stopped the clock in 1:05:12, slicing 38 seconds off the previous mark of 1:05:50 set by Mary Keitany at the 2011 RAK Half Marathon.
• On September 16, Dennis Kimetto broke the marathon world record in Berlin in 2:01:57, shattering the previous mark of 2:03:23 set by Wilson Kipsang at the same course last year.
• Kenya’s Victor Wanyama scored a contender for Goal of the Season in the English Premier League to lead Southampton to a 1-0 victory over Hull City in November 8.
• And finally in November 29, Kenya’s Telkom Orange retained African hockey title after a dominant performance in the continental championships in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

KAREN LAND SCANDAL

• Kenyans woke up one morning to news that another 134-acre piece of land had been grabbed by powerful individuals under mysterious circumstances.
• Allegations that some Jubilee MPs and goverment officials had been bribed to sweep the scandal under the carpet also raised further concerns.
• The issue revived concerns of land grabbing. It came months after the suspension by President Kenyatta of titles of land in Lamu over attempts that they were irregularly allocated.

LOOK FOR IN 2015

BUDGET FOR COUNTIES

• President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has promised more money for counties in the coming year. Should the Jubilee government keep its promise of more money to the counties, it would have the twin effect of slowing down the Pesa Mashinani referendum campaign and scale up economic activity in the devolved governments.

KOT (KENYANS ON TWITTER)

• Social media especially Twitter will be a group to watch.
• It’s the rallying point for Kenyans when they wish to advocate for or against a subject. And most definitely, this Twitter crowd will play a big role in 2015. The group came out strongly on myriad issues affecting the country and it is expected their advocacy will go a notch higher in the New Year.

SECURITY FORCES

• Kenyans will closely watch Maj Gen (Rtd) Joseph Nkaissery and the man or woman who takes over Mr Kimaiyo’s job to see how they handle the security matters. The two will have the tough job of restoring public confidence in the security agencies.

MILITARY SHAKE-UP EXPECTED

• President Uhuru Kenyatta in an interview with NTV earlier this year said that Kenya Defence Forces Chief Gen Julius Karangi would retire when his time comes in 2015.
• The departure of a military boss often brings with it key changes in the top echelons of the military.
• The public will be watching to see who takes over the weighty mandate at KDF as Kenya battles extremist militants at home and in Somalia where Gen Karangi sent in troops to pursue the trouble makers in 2012.

FROM MDGS TO SDGS

• Back in 2000, all countries under the United Nations agreed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, and reduce child mortality.  
• They further decided to improve maternal health, combat HIV and Aids, malaria, and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.
• These targets were to be achieved by 2015. So, at the turn of the New Year, the world will take a collective breath of failure: few of these have been achieved, especially in Africa. It is for this reason that the world has now shifted to Sustainable Development Goals.
• These are 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of issues, including ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests.

DECISIVE YEAR FOR RUTO'S ICC CASE

• The International Criminal Court judges will determine this coming year whether Deputy President William Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang have a case to answer in the crimes against humanity charges facing them. The decision of the court will undoubtedly have ramifications at home. President Uhuru Kenyatta was cleared after the prosecution told the court it did not have sufficient evidence to commence trial.

2015 COULD BE REFERENDUM YEAR

• 2014 saw the launch of the Okoa Kenya movement born out of a clarion call by Cord leader Raila Odinga in July this year. Political watchers believe that 2015 will be the year of the referendum, should Cord carry on with their push for a referendum next year. Separately, the governor’s Pesa Mashinani campaign that seeks changes to the constitution to lock down the percentage of the national income that should be allocated to counties.

CHICKENGATE'S SCANDAL

• Already running on very low public confidence, infighting and sustained attacks from the opposition Cord and the civil society groups, the “chickengate” scandal could not have come at a worse time for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
• It involved a UK ballot papers printing firm, Smith & Ouzman which was accused of bribing senior officials of the Interim Independent Electoral commission — IEBC’s predecessor—to influence the award of tenders.
• Kenya National Examinations Council officials were also accused of receiving bribes. Senior officials of Smith & Ouzman have since been found guilty in the bribery scandal by UK court. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has since announced it will start investigations.
• Those under the scrutiny are the IEBC chairman Ahmed Issack Hassan, Energy secretary Davis Chirchir (who previously served in IIEC), former IEBC chief executive officer James Oswago and the former Kenya National Examination Council boss Paul Wasanga.