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We need visionary leadership, the Africans lost at sea are crying to us

Saturday July 04 2015

On July 4, Rwanda marks the 21st anniversary of Liberation Day. On this day, the country was liberated from a murderous regime, and the genocide that claimed a million people was stopped.

The day must remind Rwandans of that period when history seemed to stop as the country reverted to ground zero. It was a period from which recovery seemed impossible. Hope had died.

And yet even as they remember those days and nights of death, they must also pride themselves enormously for emerging from hopeless darkness.

Today, Rwanda is described by many independent observers as a country moving fast towards middle-income status. The per capita income is galloping towards the $800 mark. According to World Bank statistics, the country has been one of the fastest growing economies in Africa over the past couple of years.

Many sources also rate the country as one of the least corrupt in Africa. A country that once manufactured death at the greatest rate in recent history, is today one of the safest in the world.

Kigali, where dead bodies once lay everywhere, is one of the cleanest cities in Africa. So how did this country that in 1994 seemed to have turned its back on history, emerge from darkness to achieve such spectacular transformation and, in so doing, become a shining example for the rest of Africa? How did it reinvent itself from being the killer to the giver of hope?

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The answer is “leadership.” Rwanda has proved what analysts, who were once derided by nationalist scholarship as pandering to Western stereotypes of Africa, had pointed out — that the crisis of leadership was the major contributing factor to Africa’s underdevelopment.

The newly independent African countries were less nations than conglomerations of mini-nations that had earlier existed as independent entities.

Thus, to build nationhood from these disparate mini-nations, to inculcate a sense of shared values and to inspire all to work towards a clear vision, to practise inclusive as opposed to exclusive politics, to give all citizens access to resources and opportunities, etc, was a task that was fatally underestimated by the nationalist leaders who came to power.

Soon, these nations began to unravel, some more rapidly than others, while some, like Rwanda, were characterised by seasonal bloodletting that would culminate in the 1994 genocide. The rest rattled along, mere skeletons of nationhood.

On coming to power, Paul Kagame began the impossible task of rebuilding a nation from fragments of hope, inspiring survivors and perpetrators of genocide to believe that Rwanda could be rebuilt, that it was possible to have a prosperous country where all ethnic groups could have equal opportunities.

He encouraged hard work and discipline, and imposed on himself the high standards of performance that he expected of everyone, especially those in government.

As Rwanda celebrates Liberation Day, Africa is reminded of the tragedy of its own Independence. As in a fatalistic ritual, we celebrate Independence Days with pomp, ignoring the meaninglessness of it all.

We pretend not to know that Independence did not bring freedom or prosperity, but tears and a great gnashing of teeth. Today, thousands of Africans prefer to die on the high seas than suffer slow deaths in their own countries. These scenes of hopeless Africans dying trying to get to Europe must surely be an indictment of our Independence.

Rwanda, instead, chooses to celebrate a more meaningful day, a day on which they began the journey to becoming a socially and economically dynamic country. They choose to celebrate a day on which they began a wondrous journey of national reinvention.

We must now resituate the question of leadership at the heart of discourse on Africa. As we see so often, excellent policies or fine constitutions will translate into nothing if we have leaders whose sole motivation is self-aggrandisement and megalomania.

Rwanda has taught us important lessons: It is possible to reinvent yourself, and visionary leadership is the difference between life and death. The Africans lost at sea literally and figuratively remind us that we ignore those lessons at our peril.

Tee Ngugi is a political and social commentator based in Nairobi.

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