Mohammed Hersi . A hotelier passionate about Tourism & Governance in Africa

Rwanda has it’s own road map to democracy. Leave them alone.

Rwanda held elections on 4th August and HE Paul Kagame won and he starts another term of 7 years. This is a man I have met on 3 occasions courtesy of my hospitality role . I have also personally taken alot of interest to read more about Rwanda while I have also been to this beautiful country on numerous occasions.

Many have accused PK of hanging onto leadership and refusing to go. If only you take time to read and understand about the tragedy of genocide only then will you empathise and appreciate that Rwanda is a very special case. Many also dont know that there have been many attacks against the minority Tutsis over the past 100 years but of course the 1994 was the worst one where even moderate Hutus were not spared.

In Kenya during PEV of 2007 1300 people died and we felt the pain. In Rwanda 1,000,000 people were massacred in under 100 days. When Rwanda was crying for help the western world could not even locate Rwanda on the world map let alone send help. The UN were busy pussy footing to do anything. On the hand OAU then was a useless body.

Well one man led a ragtag army under RPF and brought to a stop the genocide that was not showing any signs of slowing down. This is a man who chose not to rush to be President, he even went ahead to work with people who supported the genocide for the sake of forgiveness and moving on. Rwanda showed the world that if it was to jail everyone involved it meant more than half the population will be behind bars hence Gachacha court came into being. This is only unique to Rwanda. The rest as they say is history.

I am not here to enumerate the achievement of PK, I have done that on many other occasions.

I am here to give my own simple analysis why PK opted on a further term of 7 years. It means that in 2017 anyone who was born in 1994 during the genocide is now 23. If you were 10 at that time you would be 33 today. In 2024 God willing anyone who was 10 at that time would be turning 40.

Rwanda has taken a policy NOT to identify it’s people according to tribe but as Rwandans . It is the intention of PK that by the time he is handing over the majority of the population will be post genocide and they see themselves as Rwandans. Dont rule out a post genocide citizen taking over from PK .

Now why would anyone have an issue with that time table?

Why are they so pained yet they are not even Rwandans?

It is laughable when some of my fellow Kenyans are asking PK to exit to support democracy.

Rwanda should be left to heal in its own way . Rwanda should be left to pursue it’s own form of democracy.

If the world is itching to help there are many places that need serious help . We NEVER helped Rwanda when they needed help and it is an insult for anyone to try to patronize them on what to do .

PK is focused on a united Rwanda and anyone questioning that can as well go hang .

As always I choose to remain an optimist