As the new Mayor of Kigali was being sworn in over the weekend, the whole leadership of Bugesera District was heading for the exit door. They were yet another lot of leaders who had resigned “for personal reasons”. That has been the trend, many leaders suddenly caught up in “personal reasons” to hand in their resignations. There is no way the leaders suddenly develop a sense self-assessment and find themselves wanting and decide to throw in the towel. They should stop fooling themselves and the public. Many have committed unpardonable sins and are forced by their Advisory Committees to make an honourable exit, away from the prying eyes of the public. Many slink away with their secrets. But isn’t the public entitled to know the wrongs their leaders committed? For some leaders, the truth only comes out when they are dragged before the judiciary. Some have been in dubious transactions or involved in questionable public tenders. Those are leaders that need to be exposed, not protected under the “personal reasons” tag. It is doing a disservice to the people when the wrongs of the people they elected into office are covered in anonymity. Such leaders should be named and shamed. Only a handful of mayors and their deputies have completed their terms, an indication that there is something wrong which by now the Local Government should have found a solution to, otherwise the rate by which local leaders abandon their posts should be sounding alarm bells.
