Standing up for your people

Leadership takes many forms and is a destination one can reach through many different paths. But regardless of the path, the purest form of leadership is one that is earned. When leadership manifests as a call from those that are to be led, to the one that they choose to lead them, it ascends to the highest level of human governance. When people unanimously demand that a certain person lead them, we bear witness to a phenomenon that transcends rhetoric, whose testimony to the will of the people and the quality of their leader rings so loud and so true it renders mute the cacophony of debate of the merits or demerits of whatever theory pundits choose to debate. In December 2015, the people of Rwanda, in a historic referendum, did exactly that. They spoke with their vote and gave their voice to a unanimous chorus and celebration of democracy. But for a leader chosen by such a loud chorus of his people, such a charge is a duty. A duty-free of ego, free of any superiority. For such a leader is a steward in every sense of the word. Rather than espouse empty rhetoric from the podium and utter endless self-aggrandising promises that amount to nothing, it is evident in President Paul Kagame’s actions that this duty eclipses mere civic duty. He is the midwife that dutifully and masterfully oversaw the rebirth of his nation from the ashes of genocide and total devastation. This duty is a beautiful fusion of urgency, love and discipline. The love is born of empathy. This empathy is automatic; it’s a part of him because he is a part of his people. He is one of them. He has cried with them, fought with them and loved with them. His struggles are theirs and theirs are his. President Kagame grew up in a Ugandan refugee camp in a thatch-roofed hut. He joined a Ugandan rebel group shortly after high school and rose up through the ranks. As a high ranking officer in the Ugandan army, he left the comfort and peace Uganda had just attained in 1986 to command a rebel army that had invaded Rwanda eventually culminating in the taking over of Kigali and puting an end to the horrific 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. His own life story personifies the struggles of Rwanda in the last century. These experiences build into the soul a level of devotion that cannot be taught, bought or learned. Upon this foundation of love, a sense of urgency and discipline come easily. In fact, they are the inevitable outcome of such a foundation. Urgency because such a deep love for his people will not let the soul or the mind stay still. It demands immediate action to bring to life the vision of a better world for his people. And he has done exactly that and done it in a span of time that defies logic. Rwanda’s children are surviving more than ever. The child mortality rate has reduced by 70 per cent; and he has set up a national health-insurance programme — which the Western world and its experts had said was impossible in a destitute African country so recently removed from a devastating civil war. As a result, Rwandans’ life expectancy has increased to 56 years, from 36 in 1994. And, in that regard, the list of his accomplishments in improving the lives of the Rwandan people is Olympian in the scope and breath of its achievement. Rwanda has become one of the safest and the most orderly countries in Africa. GDP per Capita has more than multiplied, national health insurance and free primary education are available to all, tourism is growing, and Kigali is already known as one of the cleanest cities in Africa, if not in the world. Internet and cell phones reach all corners of the country, drivers wear seatbelts, civil servants arrive at work on time, and there is construction boom, rule of law, and justice. His calling urges a sense of discipline because the journey of a steward is as long as it is hard. The Imihigo signed by each Government official are the manifestation of this discipline in the government of Rwanda. Each year performance contracts are signed between President Kagame and local government institutions and line ministries. The institutions commit to targets they set for themselves. Local authorities are held accountable to their targets, and civil servants can be fired for below-average performance. These are not empty policies put in place so that the government can boast about its will to transform its society when it is not. One need only examine a performance and you would be awed by obsessive attention to detail, they range from the broad targets down to the number of adults in a specific rural district who were going to be taught to read (1,500) to the number of cows inseminated (3,000). Such seemingly obsessive care can only be born of a deep love and care for one’s people and nation to put in place practical, enforceable policies that bring that discipline to life. The fruits of the union of such a leader and his people are a sight to behold. Africa’s needs as many Kagames as it can get. Men uniquely suited to the task at hand to navigate the treacherous path that is governance in Sub Saharan Africa, where it is not a one size fits all. Where action, discipline, prudence and an unshakable will are the requirements. The list of the accomplishments of Rwanda under Kagame is long and, as amazing as it is, what is important to note is that, that list is not the cause, it’s the effect. The cause is the union of a leader and his people. The cause is the result of the right man, at the right time in the right country. Look at the history of Rwanda, the history of Kagame and examine his temperament and methodologies, and you will see more than coincidence. You will see that not only did fate pick the right man for the right country, it picked the right country for the right man at the right time. Western powers condemned the referendum in December. They had their reasons and decrees, they all sounded great. That is what they are supposed to say. But one must forgive their short memories. One must let them be for forgetting their own times of crisis, when during the most horrible of times, the very democracies that pass judgment on Rwanda teetered on the brink of annihilation. When fate saw it fit, it gave their nations the leaders they needed in those times of dire need. One can only imagine the history of America without Lincoln, where London would be today without Churchill, and then a post Genocide Rwanda without Kagame. Fate is as kind as she is repetitive; Lincoln, Churchill, Mandela, Kagame; the pattern in the same. To the West, we say, as fate united you with your leaders to lead you through your times of crisis, so it has done with us and Paul Kagame. Whether it is Gandhi, Mandela or Kagame the pattern is the same. Whether it takes shape among the rolling hills of Kigali the banks of the Ghanges or the suburbs of Johannesburg, the effects of the right leader at the right time on both the physical realm and the hearts and souls is a sight to behold. This is Rwanda today, a modern miracle: Fate has picked the right man for the right country, and the right country for the right man at the right time. The writer is the Founder and Group-CEO of MobiCash Group, a technology evangelist and an advocate for financial inclusion

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Standing up for your people