President Paul Kagame has called for self-examination among African leaders, emphasising that the challenges facing continental organisations like the African Union (AU) are not rooted in their structures but in the leaders entrusted to operate within them.

He was responding to a question by Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo during a press conference on Thursday, January 9.

Onyango-Obbo, asked Kagame for his opinion on the African Union's diplomatic and security intervention failures in the Horn of Africa, as well as the 'fiasco' the East African Community faced in eastern DRC and the mixed outcomes of the Luanda Process.

"Some have gone as far as calling for the disbanding of the AU's Peace and Security Council, and the creation of a new more effective mechanism. Do you agree, and what reforms, if any, do you think can make change?” Onyango-Obbo asked.

ALSO READ: Kagame meets AU reform advisory team

In response, Kagame said the structure is not the problem but the people working in the structures. He gave an example of how he witnessed such challenges during his time as the head of the AU’s reform commission between 2016 and early 2024.

"We sit in meetings – leaders, prime ministers, and agree on something, in a room like this – suggestions that have come from us. We agree to put something in place and then, and in the end nothing works. Do you think it is a problem of the process” Is it a problem of the structure? I think the answer is obvious, the problem is us,” he said.

ALSO READ: AU today is fit-for-purpose, says Kagame as Ruto takes over reforms team

He pointed out that when such things continued to happen, he decided to call it a day.

"I told the leaders that, ‘you know what, I have been very happy to serve you but I think it has come to the time we try someone else, before you get tired of me or before I get too frustrated myself,” he revealed.

"I told them that to serve the cause of reform, I think we can here in this room, choose somebody else to lead the process so that we try different people, different angles of dealing with the matter. That is how the process went to a different person – the president of Kenya,” he added.

Kagame was appointed to lead the AU institutional reforms process in 2016, and led the process for eight years until 2024.