President Kagame is 50

President Paul Kagame two days ago proudly clocked 50, years he has mostly spent making good history. As Jeanette Kagame, the President’s wife of 18 years helped him cut the birthday cake, the kind of smile on his face told a story of a statesman contented with his life achievements so far. Kagame’s history is laced with a mixture of toughness and tenderness, fighting wars and making peace. He has mastered to perfection the art of when to do what, to behave how, in order to achieve his and the nation’s goals. He leads Rwandans in both efforts to secure their country on one hand and to economically and socially develop it on the other. He solicits for development aid from the so rich, but knows how much of it to spare for noble causes or share with the poorer of Africa. That is why for the development of the game of football in the region, he commits US $ 60,000 annually to CECAFA clubs champions tournament. It is also the reason his government was able to find money to handsomely contribute toward the building of a modern laboratory for his former secondary, Ntare School, in Uganda. The list of such and nobler initiatives is long. But the latest, while not necessarily the biggest, deserves special mention. The President’s donation the other day of Frw15m (US $ 27,000) to his childhood academic institution, Rwengoro Primary School of Kamwenge District, western Uganda, was a perfectly timed, tremendous choice. Contributing financially toward the reconstruction of the school he went to and left more than 30 years ago as a child to refugee parents says something big. It must be that no matter how high he rises; never will Kagame lose touch with the realities and needs of the ordinary. And it is the ordinary that make the bulk of the Rwandan citizenry. Something that makes him the perfect president of this and the next generation. Ends

National

President Kagame is 50