Jumuiya: East Africa Community Law Journal (a peer-reviewed periodical of Kabarak Law School) is delighted to have its Co-Editor-in-Chief, Dr Harrison Mbori, and Mrs Emily Osiemo Lumumba, Associate Editor, as part of the litigation team (which also includes Mr. Elisha Ongoya, a Senior Lecturer at Kabarak University) in the first inter-state reference at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ/Court) between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Rwanda. Dr Mbori, Mr Ongoya, and Mrs Lumumba represent the DRC in the suit. The DRC filed the case at EACJ on 23 August 2023 over Rwanda’s alleged continuous military occupation in the Eastern region of DRC.    

This year marks the first quinquennial celebrations of the Avid Readers’ Forum at the Kabarak University School of Law. The idea of having formal celebrations to mark five years of the Avid Readers Forum was a brainchild of Mr. Cedric Kadima, a Kabarak University alumnus and a founder member of the Avid Readers’ Forum. It was Mr Kadima whom in the year 2019, I requested to craft a brief concept note that would inform the operationalization of the Avid Readers’ Forum. Judged in the frame of his generation, history will be very kind to Mr Kadima. He was on this occasion, as he has always been, obedient. He crafted the concept note. Five years later, that simple concept note that was barely half a page in length has yielded the grand project that we now call the Avid Readers’ Forum.

In an exciting start to their academic journey, the first-year law students of Kabarak University experienced their first class under the guidance of none other than the renowned Dean, Prof. John Ambani. This introductory class was not just an ordinary lecture—it was an invitation to step into the prestigious world that Kabarak University School of Law has dominated for years.

It is the expectation of any person that a member of the Avid Readers’ Forum (ARF) was or has always been an avid reader. Allow me to greatly fail to meet your expectations. This writing, unlike the others that may focus on the journey of the ARF, focuses on my journey through the Avid Readers’ Forum: from being a not-so-lover of reading to my “Damascus moment” of joining ARF and becoming a moderator of the forum.

There was a time in my life when I was fascinated with picking carrots, the reason being the excitement that came with not knowing what was beneath and, more importantly, the power to find out by just pulling them out of the ground.

The Late retired Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the American Supreme Court once said that, ‘reading is the key that opens doors to many things. Reading shaped my dreams, and more readings made me make my dreams come true.