Happy tenth birthday Katiba, may you survive the maulings

A friend recently told me a reader went into a library for a copy of the constitution and was politely told the library does not stock comics. Cynical jokes aside, August 27 marks the tenth anniversary of the 2010 Constitution. How healthy is this pre-teen and what does it need to make it to adulthood? This is the first of a series of articles this month.

National constitutions have very low life expectancies. Since the passing of the US constitution in 1798, most constitutions do not make it to their 18th birthday. This figure reduces to 10.2 years in Africa. Seven per cent of constitutions do not make it past their “terrible twos.” This unsettling life-expectancy suggests that constitutions are fragile organisms and we must bring the “fierce urgency of now” thinking to how we protect ours for the next decade.