When I visited Kenya this month, it seemed that pretty much everyone I came across wanted to talk about the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and the tragedy in Libya.
As soon as I touched down, the first person I came across – David, a Namibian public official who shared a taxi with me from the airport into town – confessed how compulsively he had been watching events unfold in Egypt, and how the north African revolutions evoked in his mind and those of other Namibians an excitement they had not felt since the fall of apartheid.
I was surprised that, on the other side of the continent, in a country with almost no political, economic, cultural or historical ties with Egypt, the Egyptian revolution could resonate so intensely. But perhaps I shouldn't have been, as there is something universally appealing about people braving oppression to defeat tyranny.
Besides, as one Kenyan NGO worker put it, millions of Africans are cursed with dictators and tyrants, and so the fact that some of the longest-serving leaders on the continent have been ousted or are on their way out – and all this through the unleashed power of ordinary people – is inspirational to marginalised and disenfranchised citizens across the continent.
So, could the spirit of the Arab revolution spread south into sub-Saharan Africa? Some people I met are hopeful that it will, citing the fact that many African countries share similar social, economic and demographic realities with Egypt and Tunisia, and that young Africans are waking up to their potential.
This "youthquake" certainly appears to be a factor in Nigeria. "As Nigerians prepare for presidential elections next month, what is happening, much less dramatically than in north Africa but with perhaps as much long-term significance, is that the youth is finally awake," Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote recently.
Kenya is a good example. Despite large income inequalities and a relatively high crime rate, clean and green Nairobi exudes prosperity and self-confidence. Though the city does not have much of a past, it exhibits a hope in the future and the power of freedom and knowledge. In fact, education seems to be a national obsession in Kenya, with some newspapers even leading with their education section.
Politically, Kenya has already had its own "revolution", when its former dictator, Daniel arap Moi, was forced to step down in 2002, and his anointed successor, who also happened to be the son of Kenya's founding father, was hammered at the ballot box.
Things have soured somewhat. Kenya's current president, Mwai Kibaki, has exhibited psuedo-dictatorial tendencies and managed to hold on to power in 2007 amid accusations of vote-rigging, which sparked a wave of protests and violence that rocked the country.
"In Kenya, we take
