This year snuck up on me like a mischievous friend. I was seated - sprawled in fact - on my sofa with a goblet of a just invented martini when the new year got in. Snuck in, I say again. How could I have missed the countdown? I was busy talking, chatting up my friend of a long time. We were catching up on old times, old flames and favorite spots. In the end, we both found ourselves in a year filled to the brim with promises. Let’s look at it again, now just a few days into its promise.

GAZA: A strip of land once home to a group of people is now under siege, prompting many to scramble back to their books of prediction, just to be sure that it wasn’t really 2009 that was predicted to be the end of the peaceful world as we know it. The cry of the innocent children being bombed everyday is being sadly drowned by arguments to and fro, and other silly questions as to whether or not Israel also has a right of self defense. Shame on humanity.

AMERICA. Believe it or not, This is the year, the month, when the skinny kid with a funny name, and a long pair of ears, would become president. Frankly, it’s some little wonder that he’s not in the oval office yet. Yes, I know he has to wait till the 20th, but hey, ask a ten year old in Nigeria today who the president of the United States is, and see if he won’t shout “Barack Obama!” Well, the audacity of hope!

GHANA: Dateline January 10th 2009, the new president of Ghana is sworn in. The election is remarkable in many ways. For an African country (and I can’t believe that I’m saying this), they have shown maturity in this election which had an opposition party taking over power without there being bloodshed or unnecessary litigation that is characteristic of their “big brother” Nigeria’s recent elections. Way to go.

It is a new year with promise. I enter it with hope and joy. Greetings to everyone.