EDITORIAL: Leadership is more than occupying office, it is a calling

President Paul Kagame this week broke the proverbial ice after quite some time. He hit the meet-the-people trail once again after quite a long spell, possibly due to his many engagements since the beginning of the year. But he found the same old demons were still active among the local leadership – laxity in dealing with issues affecting the population. Most of the petitions brought to the President’s attention should have, in normal circumstances, been dealt with without so much of a fuss. It is part of the local leadership’s mandate. Why does it take the President’s intervention to quell land disputes that could have been handled at the lowest administration levels? Something is definitely wrong somewhere. Grassroots leaders are supposed to ease the government’s burdens in administering their areas, and not putting more stress on it. By now we should have graduated from looking towards higher level interventions to solve simple problems, local administration structures are there for that purpose. Leadership needs a special calling: the will to serve. But as was witnessed in the presidential visit to Gikomero, some leaders warm their seats when their people are wallowing in heaps of problems. This should end. The Ministry of Local Government has for the last few years been drumming up the concept of responsible leadership among local administrators, some have heeded the call while others seem to be still finding their footing: But for how long? There should be no complacency in solving social issues by local issues; it is the people they serve that make the posts they occupy justifiable.

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EDITORIAL: Leadership is more than occupying office, it is a calling