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.

The Avid Readers’ Forum held a significant webinar on 11 September 2024 focused on fulfilling economic and social rights as outlined in Article 43 of the Kenyan Constitution. The panel featured distinguished experts: Dr Gautam Bhatia, a renowned constitutional lawyer and comparative constitutional scholar; Dr Victoria Miyandazi, a constitutional researcher from St Andrews University; Dr Jill Ghai, co-founder of the Katiba Institute and an advocate in education, gender studies, and human rights; and Mr Ian Mathenge, an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Ruth Jebet, a law student at Kabarak Law School, moderated the discussion.

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.

On Thursday, September 5, 2024, the Avid Readers’ Forum hosted a momentous webinar for its fifth-anniversary celebrations. In partnership with Ms Wanjiru Gikonyo, the webinar focused on the accountability of debt contracts in Kenya and was part of a series of discussions on public finance accountability. The discussion centred on the increasing national debt and a constitutional petition by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and The Institute of Social Accountability (TISA) cited as Kenya Human Rights Commission & Wanjiru Gikonyo-V-CS National Treasury and Planning & Attorney General (Constitutional Petition/E179/2022), challenging the government's failure to disclose public debt information and emphasizing the importance of accountability in debt procurement and management.