The 59th Jamhuri Day was presided over by President William Ruto at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi yesterday, Monday 12th December 2022. The celebration was marked by much fanfare from dancers, musicians, athletes, and the military-whose 23 Mechanised Infantry Battalion unit (23MIB) received its regimental colours from the president in the trooping of colour ceremony.
This year’s Jamhuri Day theme revolved around the theme of technology and innovation.
“It is the first national day celebration dedicated to a theme that is relevant to our national aspirations. Our futuristic theme today revolves around Technology and Innovation. The promise of innovation is to enable us to connect, innovate and inspire,” the president said.
He added that the government had put in place interventions to revive the cotton industry through innovative technological solutions such as disease-resistant seeds.
“…our firm commitment to restore the former glory of our cotton-producing regions is the reason behind the government’s interventions to revamp the textile and apparel industries, and revive cotton farming by providing high-yielding, disease and pest-resistant hybrid varieties to farmers,” he said.
He reiterated the importance of action to combat climate change and unveiled a plan to increase Kenya’s tree cover from the current 12% to 30% by the year 2030. On his government’s efforts to revamp the education sector, he had this to say,
“We undertook to review the Competency-Based Curriculum following the concerns of many stakeholders, especially parents and teachers. As you know, we set up the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform to engage stakeholders, report, and recommend measures to be taken.
“In fulfillment of our undertaking to increase the teacher-to-learner ratio in our primary and secondary schools, the government has embarked on the single largest recruitment of teachers in independent Kenya by providing resources to the Teachers Service Commission to recruit 30,000 teachers.”
Jamhuri is Swahili for Independence. Jamhuri Day is celebrated every year on the 12th day of December to mark the day Kenya got its independence from Great Britain in 1963. This year’s Jamhuri Day celebrations at Nyayo Stadium was attended by 20,000 people including ambassadors, state officials and ordinary citizens who came to witness firsthand Kenya’s 59th birthday. In addition to the national celebrations being held in Nairobi, the rest of the 46 counties held their own Jamhuri Day celebrations presided over by their respective governors.
