In summary: No body is immune to media constructive criticisms especially in inyenyerinews room.

Inyenyerinews works under free minds

Last year was an annis horribilis a horrible year for peace and security in East Africa generally but a terrible situation for many opposition groups in my country the a thousand hills.

Scanning the horizons, it’s likely that removing Kagame and his RPF from power will not` guarantee many Rwandan’s thirsty for change for the freedoms that have been denied to them by all the post independent Republics including the RPF.

Paul Kagame main threat to media and human life in general

Will 2015 going to be better?  Dialogue and tolerance are in the thralls of threat of arrogance, accusations, counter accusations, and unstable democratic institutions within the opposition establishment, leading to confrontations along lines of superiority, seniority where some in the opposition think they are immune from accountability

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will” Frederick Douglass

The duty of any a Citizen in any a democratic society is to hold leadership accountable and no one is beyond critique. Failure to critique leadership is far more than a lively fun opinion on a social platform. We can ill afford nostalgia, hero worship, cultism and media charisma power cover our ability to review all leaders in all their capacities. Without a sharp critical assessment of leadership and the duties of leadership, we will select entertainers, sweet faced teddy bears, orators, cool cats, as opposed to good visionaries. What’s wrong for a leader of any political party being questioned difficult questions?

Since 1986, we have seen Africa going under numerous changes of leadership where some are called visionary, new breed, strong men and other names that praised them at the time, but they have not lived to their expectations. They have instead become worse than those they replaced. Why should the Inyenyeri news be crucified for questioning the integrity of some opposition leaders as it does to the current leadership in Kigali?

Maj Robert Higiro who attacked the inyenyerinews leader personally for the papers role in questioning one of the opposition leaders unnecessary comments lately

If some opposition members think that they will be spared from scrutiny and public accountability they should not seek leadership because the expectations of the Rwandans are high and are under the constant follow up by some Rwandans who will selflessly put to task those who want to take public responsibility and serve Rwandans.

Make no mistake, those in opposition should know that the very reasons they are demanding the RPF and Kagame to pack up their bags and leave the Urugwiro Village (State House) are the same touch questions that the eyes of the blind or the voice of the voice less are asking the same people who have positioned themselves on the frontline of leadership of Rwanda.

If good leadership quality is fundamentally determined by one’s ability to deliver good speech rather than good example, we are sure to find ourselves in the hands of the sophist, hypocrites and traitors. If good rhetoric is the only gift a leader can give, no matter how sincere, then know that no nation’s engine runs on rhetoric.

“No one should think that what is happening today is a mere change of guard: it is a fundamental change in the politics of our country. In Africa, we have seen so many changes that change, as such, is nothing short of mere turmoil. We have had one group getting rid of another one, only for it to turn out to be worse than the group it displaced. Please do not count us in that group of people.” – President Museveni 1986.

How should one label a news editor that is finished because he has written a story he doesn’t like? Or very critical of him? Is there a difference between the Kigali regime that the same opposition is accusing of suffocating the media, killing and incarcerating journalists? Some opposition seem unable to see that by doing exactly what they  are accusing the current regime in Kigali are just serving the interests of the same regime they are trying to dislodge.

The problem with some opposition is that the same people criticized are usually close ‘comrades’ of each other. The failure to reprimand them is very worrying. When a newspaper writes something that is critical to any leader, that leader should learn the culture of responding with the pen and the paper but not insults and abuses. Attacking the media or individual journalists because of a story critical of a certain opposition leader will lead to more questions than answers on the real change the opposition wants in a country that has suffered for many decades.

 

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.