On which day do you celebrate your first birthday?

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

17 December 2023

It is now clear to me that Kenyans do not know how to measure time; or, perhaps we have our own peculiar way of doing it. For a very long time, I tried to convince all and sundry that we should have held our third general election under the new constitution in the year 2021. I wrote to the chairman of the electoral body (IEBC) giving a detailed explanation of the correct way to count the years but he ignored my advice and organised the election in the wrong year - 2022.

Then, ten years ago, the country held 12 months of festivities to celebrate 50 years of independence in the wrong year! I pointed this out to the organisers but, again my advice was ignored. You see, Kenya gained independence on 12 December 1963. Hence, it’s first year as an independent nation was the period from 12 December 1963 to 12 December 1964.

If the years are listed down, one after the other, it turns out that the 50th one is the period from 12 December 2012 to 12 December 2013. However, we did our festivities from 12 December 2013 to 12 December 2014. That was the 51^st year!

Fast forward to today – 2023 – and on 1st May, we commemorated, correctly, the 60th Madaraka day. But come the 12th of December, we celebrated the 60th Jamhuri day. This was wrong!

A quick review of Kenya’s journey to independence reveals that the process started with internal self rule (without our own constitution) on 1st May 1963 (madaraka). Then came independence (uhuru) with our constitution on 12 December 1963. A year later, came the declaration of republic (jamhuri) on 12 December 1964.

Therefore, this year, we were celebrating the 60^th year of independence as well as the 59th year of the republic on the same day. Since that day is officially named “Jamhuri (i.e., Republican) Day” and not “Uhuru (i.e., Independence) Day”, then it was the 59th Jamhuri (Republic) Day.

When I pointed this out on the X forum, many people claimed that we should start the counting at 12 December 1964; according to them, this was the first Jamhuri. Then when you count year by years, you get that 2013 is the 60th. But there is a problem. Consider the person who was born on 12 December 1964; which birthday did that person celebrate this year (2023)? Is it the 60th or the 59th? In peculiar Kenyan system, it is the 6th!