Dear Mr. president,
I was listening to your encounter with the leaders of Rwanda in the 12th edition of The leadership retreat and I could not hold my urge to express my feelings to you, feelings I believe I share with many who listened to your remarks. It is worth it.
First of all, let me say that for many, the speech was a little unpredicted. We did not expect you to come on the leaders that harshly. It seems something or someone upset you severely in Paris. But that can happen. I too get cranky after long flights and you can imagine how crankier I might be when I ride commercial with numerous connections. If you might have been cranky in your private jet, I might be getting insane too! Anyways, back to my original thought.
According to what I read on many article stories in papers you approve and disprove, RWANDANS liked what you said. They feel you were talking the truth in getting the leaders attention back and get them back to producing results. RWANDANS know many of them are useless and waste time and resources.
However, I disagree. I did not like your approach because you blamed everybody else but yourself and I honestly believe that the number 1 blame should be on you. Yes your excellency, the blame is on you and let me elaborate that to you.
Primo, you pick them. You singlehandedly approve each and everyone of the most significant leaders. We all know nobody will nominate a minister and get them into the cabinet without your approval. If they fail, you ultimately fail too. When I suck at my job, the person who hired me gets the blame of making the wrong choice. It is how it goes in the real world, unless if you have your own world functioning differently. You see, some of the leaders you pick are mainly picked not because of their credentials but rather connections they have with you, your wife and family or other criteria like where they grew up, what language they speak and many many. It is known that people like Musoni James are as useless as they come but yet, you seem to switch him from office to office. Is he really that qualified? I doubt it. Any leader who may be qualified and yet criticizes you a bit get thrown out immediately. Last night you mentioned criticism and hopefully you may be about to change. We have been telling you that criticism is good but you seem to be allergic to it. Hopefully you will embrace that. You pick them, you get the blame.
Segundo. Mr. President, you have instilled a culture on praising and worshipping you that you tend to keep those who are good at that. Example, one of the longest serving Musa Fazil. He may be qualified but I bet if he was to screw up you would keep him won’t you? He campaigns the first and is always singing your praises.
You have this thing of showcasing fake results or results built on lies that eventually, you realize you have fake results and fake leaders. Why? Because reality and accountability seems to be hard to come by in Rwanda. All is good, Rwanda is clean, Internet this internet that but yet we lack electricity, the rural areas are in the dark ages and the only place that seem to step on modernity ladder is Kigali. Other cities are far behind and that difference also shows in the wealth distribution o the people. I think less than 1% owns and run 99% of the biggest resources of the country starting from you and crystal Ventures. You may think Rwanda is advancing but it runs on a few people’s resources and when this happens, the risk is that if something was to happen to that wealth, the whole economy scrambles.
You like to parade your achievements a lot and you forget the real issues. In Rwanda days for example. All that is discussed is positive this and amazing that and then everyone praises you but the question of students bursaries, teachers salaries and other big issues are looked at like trash.
With this attitude, the leadership gets into the culture you built around them. No one sees reality. They all live in Utopia Rwanda so much they feel they can produce electricity with no water! That is a good one! I hear you want to get a rail way to Kigali. May I remind you that this may need enough electricity and electricity is produced with the use of water if you plan a hydro plant! Do not forget that.
Recently, I saw a statistic report that said that 9 out of 10 people are employed in Rwanda? Who comes up with this? Well,someone there who will like to please you. Wake up!
I was glad yesterday you realize how bigot and idiot is to have Andrew Mwenda as your approved praising master. He comes up with all this statistics and then parades them all over. Really? How much does he get paid and expense paid for him?
Thirdly, Mr president, you cannot be mad at the leaders you chose because they are all puppets. They are all leaders with no authority and autonomy to do a thing. You have spent the last decades building yourself and considering the power in your hands,Rwanda has no institutions to speak of and the leaders in those none existent institutions are as useless as the four walls they seat in all day. How do you expect People like Mayor Ndamage to do their job when you override the laws while fixing an issue while in fact they had tried to fix it legally? You are the everything in this country and this is as bad in short term for Rwanda as worse it will get in the long term.
You see Mr. president, a well run country is like an aircraft. Aircrafts are design to have a high capacity of autonomy to run itself. The captain and first office are their to monitor the systems in place and to make sure all is running smoothly. When an aircraft is in high altitude cruising, it is set on auto pilot because the designer wanted to make sure the plane runs itself and on well designed and built system. Captain job is to steer it in difficult situations like landing, take off and turbulences. You should have done this with Rwanda. You should have built stronger, independent institutions able to run smoothly regardless of who is managing them. Now, if the institutions turns worse, you hold the new captain in charge because he must have done something wrong with the aircraft design and put people’s lives at risk.
But what you did is that you designed an aircraft that runs on you and you alone and confided the captains and their first officer in the back seat. How do you expect them to fly a such poorly designed systems.
Mr. President, you have to realize you will die at one point and that aircraft will drop from the sky as soon as you drop dead. Your legacy will then be erased. You better get to work now. Start from scratch to be honest. Built institutions based on the rule of law and get competent people to run them.
Otherwise, when you blame them, the finger is actually pointing towards you first. You are the biggest loser in the room. You are the supreme leader of losers and that makes you the supreme loser.
My regards to you and all Rwanda
Peace.
A concerned Rwandan
Source: https://www.facebook.com/robert.higiro/posts/10152752455118753
