At age 66, a ‘young man’ relatively speaking, President Paul Kagame stands on the precipice of a new five-year term. I know a few things about this president, having observed him for well over two decades (starting in 1999 as a junior news reporter). Kagame is a teetotaler whose strongest drink is tea. ALSO READ: Rwanda’s 2024 election: What stood out He is a man with no known vices, who keeps himself in great shape working out, exercising regularly, and watching what he eats – meaning no excessive consumption of the kind of food products that could cause an onset of bad health over time. Plus, he has a great family life. All this is to say that Kagame may be 66 but he has the health attributes of a man probably twenty years younger. He is a person still very much in his prime. Which is why I find it jarring when people keep harping away with questions like when will he “step aside”, when will he “pass the torch” and more, as if stepping aside is an end in itself. What these questions ignore is that Kagame still has a lot to offer Rwanda, something very important to keep in mind. For one thing, Rwanda may have recorded remarkable achievements under his administration, but ours still very much is a fragile country. In my humble opinion we haven’t yet reached the stage as a country where we would be assured continuity on our national developmental trajectory in the absence of the unifying, strong guiding influence that President Kagame is. We have the country we have today – stable and secure – thanks to the efforts of the government of national unity which imposed them throughout Rwanda upon taking power thirty years ago, ushering in a period of peaceful co-existence between Rwandans unknown since the end of colonial rule. Yet the threat that Rwanda could relapse is always present. It is posed – as ever – by the purveyors of the politics of ethnic divisionism and violence, who now have a base in the Democratic Republic of Congo (and in fact are entrenched right in that country’s center of power), and who always are waiting to pounce at the slightest smell of weakness in Rwanda. The things to keep in mind are, 1: a hundred percent, they fear nothing like they do Kagame. 2: a strong, healthy Kagame fills them with dismay. They understand, and dread that the longer he is at the helm of Rwanda, the faster the country will develop, the stronger it becomes. A thought to keep in mind: a middle-income Rwanda becomes impossible for the likes of FDLR to destabilize. ALSO READ: 2024 elections reinforced Rwanda’s image as beacon of peace, unity, progress – political party’s forum So, give me another term of Kagame, and less talk of his needing to step aside. In fact, give me ten more years of him! The loudest cries for Kagame to step aside, in case you haven’t noticed, come from Rwanda’s worst enemies – the ones that would love someone new, unproven, and therefore more uncertain to take his place. Then they would fancy their chances of destabilizing us. It goes without saying that it’s in our collective interest as Rwandans to ignore the noise and give this president – who has been unrelenting in showing he has our interests at heart – all the support we can in the push for Rwanda to attain even higher developmental goals. We have to understand that our future well-being as a country depends, like nothing else, on our becoming an economically well-off, very prosperous country. The government over the past thirty years has done something very well: putting in place the pre-requisites for business to thrive. Let every patriotic Rwandan that makes a fortune abroad, overseas take the opportunity to invest their money back home, here, where it’s very easy to open a business, where there is almost zero corruption of the kind that hinders business, where the electricity and water utilities reliably deliver services, and more. This, in tandem with the government’s policies to attract direct foreign investment, will do wonders for economic growth. Let’s, as a country, make it possible to achieve “reverse brain drain”, making it attractive for Rwandans that’ve acquired all kinds of skills all over the world to flow back in ever greater numbers, thus addressing the shortages of know-how that still hinder so many sectors. In such ways, development becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a truism that countries with a critical mass of middle-class citizens – families or individuals that earn enough to afford a house and other property while retaining enough to finance the purchase of a car, household appliances, a bit of travel, et cetera – are the least susceptible to instability. Demagogues usually exploit bad economic conditions – poverty, hunger and more – to inculcate ideologies of hate (ethnic hate in Rwanda’s case), succeeding at whipping up discontent and civil strife. That is why each and every sign of Rwandan progress from poverty to prosperity drives their online, or social media propagandists insane with rage. Paul Kagame is our best bet, ultimately, to become a middle-income, middle class society. Which is the reason we are so fortunate he is all the things mentioned at the beginning of this piece.
