Like GW Bush, our leaders should join Facebook

One of the big stories in the past week has been the one about Former US President, George Bush joining Facebook, the popular social networking internet site. It was actually on BBC’s website listed in the most popular stories section. In just one day, Mr. Bush’s account had attracted over 67,000 fans. As expected, some users could not believe it was George Bush for sure. One commented, “This isn’t really you...” while another wanted him to change his profile photo. His spokesman, David Sherzer told the AFP news agency that the account indeed belonged to the former president. For the uninitiated, Facebook is currently the largest social networking website in the world with over 400 million active users. Facebook has such huge numbers that if it was a country then it would be the fourth biggest in the world. Only China, India and United States have more numbers. The significance of President Bush’s decision to join the social media world is the changing technological uses in the recent past. Founded by a young man named Mark Zuckerberg, the site has proved to be an enormously popular new way for people to interact and voice opinions. With over 400 million people interacting and voicing opinions it is sheer folly for a politician not to join this hurricane of interconnectivity. The interesting thing to note is that our own President, Paul Kagame has numerous fan pages where his admirers (fans) join and debate about different issues concerning the president in particular or Rwanda in general. More to that, there is even a website for the president www.paulkagame.com with lots of information about the president. Considering that Rwanda bears huge ICT ambitions, it is a mark of smart leadership for the president to have a presence on Facebook in particular and the internet in general. Another common Rwandan face on the Facebook network is the Sports and Culture Minister, Hon Joseph Habineza. With our MPs required to be IT compliant, more should join this network and interact with other people in Rwanda and the world in general. At the beginning of the year, President Kibaki had the audience in tear-jacking laughter when he stressed the importance of embracing new social media trends but failed to properly pronounce Myspace. This was a sign that the old man was not so comfortable with current ICT trends. Meanwhile, Tanzanian’s president, Jakaya Kikwete is considered to be completely at par with such developments. It has been reported that he is often seen typing away on his BlackBerry phone whenever he has the time. In this day and age, we simply need leaders who can connect with their people through such arrangements. Of course you can easily point out that the people in Africa that use sites like Facebook are only a drop in the ocean but you cannot ignore the fact that such people represent an important segment of society. Facebook is mainly patronised by the younger generation and Africa for instance has more people below the age of 30 than any other continent. So the majority of the educated young people will be found on such sites. They are the ones that have been educated enough to link up with the rest of the world through modern technological options. Politicians ignoring this facility need to be reminded that US President Barack Obama used such sites to popularise his “Yes We Can” message. Through sites like Facebook and Twitter, Obama was not only able to connect with the younger generation but to also motivate them to register and take part in the voting. Of course some countries like Pakistan, Syria, China, Vietnam and Iran have had problems with Facebook. However we should not forget that these are the same countries with limited freedom of expression. And in my opinion they are only postponing the inevitable because the internet is here to stay. More importantly it will further become an indispensable part of our lives in the near future. With East Africa gearing up for better internet speeds thanks to the numerous undersea fibre optic cables, we should expect more usage of such sites. Leaders and politicians using sites like Facebook are more likely to be appreciative of the opportunities offered by such facilities. Because of that, they are more likely to be supportive of further ICT developments. Since Rwanda has decided to hinge its Vision 2020 development agenda on creating an ICT hub, it is imperative for us to have leaders that appreciate modern technological trends and can therefore support programmes in the same direction. ssenyonga@gmail.com