"To live in today's Rwanda is to exist in a country where all dreams are possible and nothing is beyond those who dare to dream”.
I tweeted those sentiments on Saturday afternoonas I sat in my seat, looking around in wonderment at the newly refurbished Amahoro Stadium. It literally felt like a fever dream.
A gentleman sitting next to me said, and I quote, "this doesn’t feel like Rwanda.” And to be honest, he was right.
From the lounges, to the elevators, to the bathrooms, to the seats, the lights, the sound system, the pitch, to even the quality of football the youngsters from the PSG and Bayern Munich academies showcased, none of it felt real. It was like we were living in the future, today.
Looking at all the 45,000 people there and the joie de vivre that was on display, our national ambitions (of becoming an upper middle-income country by 2035, with every Rwandan earning at least $4,466 per year) felt so real, I could almost touch it.
Unfortunately, while we were inside enjoying the stadium facilities, I learned much later that a few issues occurred right outside the stadium gates. Videos spread like wildfire on social media showing young men (and women) crowding the fences, pushing their way forward, and finally destroying at least one stadium gate.
Videos on Twitter showed the young horde forcing their way into the stadium, much to the chagrin of the police personnel who tried in vain to keep them at bay.
As a result, the obvious conversation that ensued has been largely about crowd control and the security failings. Firstly, that is a conversation that needs to be had, and knowing our security forces, it is one that was had and knowing them, Saturday’s incidents will never happen again on their watch.
I personally want to talk about a much larger topic though; how we, as Rwandans, all relate to public property.
It is my belief that this country’s development will be predicated on the manner in which we, the general public, relate to the things that belong to all of us. Building public property is hard, but in my view, maintaining public property is even harder. Let me explain.
The treasury had to find over $160 million to renovate Amahoro Stadium and the teams at the ministries of infrastructure and sports (not forgetting Rwanda Housing Authority) had to figure out how to build it on time and on budget. The fact that they were able to build it within two years is to be commended.
But as we’ve seen across our continent, the issue hasn’t really been the building phase. I mean, since independence, African governments have built all sorts of projects, from dams to universities to power plants. Some have even built space observatories.
Unfortunately, what we, as Africans, have largely failed to do is maintain those projects and build upon them. Many of them have been allowed to decay and fall apart.
It’s easy to blame ‘government’ for this decay, but we need to remind ourselves that ‘government’ is actually ‘us.’ That the things that the government builds are actually ‘ours.’
Watching the thousands of young people, in their excitement, destroy parts of the stadium, I got the sense that they didn’t feel any sense of ownership. Instead of pointing our fingers at them and calling them ‘vandals,’ I believe that what we need to do is improve our civic education, especially at the primary level.
There is a reason that Rwandans say, "iti kigororwa kikiri gito” (a tree is straightened when it is still a sapling). If we are able to properly educate our children, and give them a sense of ownership of not just government property but the entire country as well, then we shall not fall victim to the ‘African infrastructure curse.’ If we fail at this, then everything that we are building today is in vain.
The author is a socio-political commentator