President Kagame follows tweeters for the first time

With more than 700,000 Twitter followers, President Paul Kagame is the most followed African leader on the social media platform, followed by his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta – with over 630,000 followers. Yet since joining Twitter in May 2009, President Kagame was until this week not following anyone’s Twitter feed. However, things changed dramatically on the President’s verified Twitter handle (@PaulKagame) on Wednesday as the account started to follow several tweeters. By press time, the President was following 36 Twitter accounts, while he was being followed by 701,520 tweeps, having gained a staggering 1,320 new followers in just hours – from mid-day to 10p.m yesterday. His first two ‘follows’ shows that indeed family comes first, both literally and figuratively; his children Ivan and Ange are the first accounts he’s followed. The next three are unsurprising but interesting: Imbuto Foundation, the charity organisation founded and headed by the First Lady, Jeannette Kagame; as well as his East African counterparts President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya. He also follows President Macky Sall of Senegal, several high-profile friends of Rwanda around the world, among others. As the number of Twitter accounts President Kagame follows continues to grow, it will probably give us insight into what catches the presidential eye. Just taking a glance at the accounts Kagame follows gives us a glimpse into his personal interests. His interests obviously lie in the fields of economics, finance, philanthropy, health, ICT and diplomacy. Kagame has previously said that even as he was not directly following account feeds he was able to follow what’s happening on the social networking site thanks to his follower base. An aide said the President manages his own Twitter account.

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President Kagame follows tweeters for the first time