Evode Uwizeyimana the Vice Chairman of Rwanda Law Reform Commission has said that the Rwandan Constitution should not have the Presidential Limits because the Rwandan people know very well their leader (Kagame).

 

Evode Uwizeyimana

Apparently the RPF and its sympathizers have been going around preaching the gospel of changing the Rwanda Constitution so that President Kagame could stand again after his constitutional mandate expires in 2017.

Evode Uwizeyimana has been termed as a “political prostitute” who stood up against the brutal government of RPF, he once described RPF as an armed gang whose leader President Kagame will never leave power peacefully because according to Evode , Kagame is a war criminal who has no choice but face criminal court or hang himself.

Mr. Evode Wizeyimana after his frustrations with RPF government defected to the opposition during the 2003 Presidential elections in which he supported Mr. Twagiramungu Faustin , he, later went to Canada where he again  joined the Opposition and was very critical to the RPF government again.

In a surprising U-Turn Mr. Evode return to Rwanda, however, we have learnt that he signed a secret agreement with former Gender Minister late Inyumba Alosyia and James Musoni the current Minister of Infrastructure. The Inyenyeri news will later disclose the terms of this agreement.

Before he joined the RPF he was accused by the RDI Rwanda Rwiza political party of Mr. Twagiramungu of being behind an alleged conspiracy by leaking secrets of the Party to the RPF government. Large numbers of Rwandan people don’t believe what Evode Uwizeyimana is saying; neither do they believe that the RPF government or President Kagame, they just live in a state of fear and intimidation. They no longer believe the government because they have come to understand that the government does not always tell the truth.

The Rwanda official deception over everything has caused a major erosion of confidence of the Rwandan people in their government. The Third Term Project  of the RPF government through its proxies like the Minister of Security Mr. Fasil Harelimana or Evode Uwizeyimana demonstrate how easy it is for government officials to use their official offices  to keep from public view policies, decisions, and actions that are precisely the opposite of what the public is told. In other words, through official secrecy, we now have a system of institutionalized lying.

The Rwanda Civil Societies and the press’s failure to question government information more vigorously, the willingness to accept official “handouts” as fact, the tendency toward passive consumption and reporting –  termed as “the press box mentality” – has made it that much easier for government to mislead the public.

The Rwandan system should be based not only upon formal checks and balances among the three branches of government, it should depend also, and perhaps more importantly, on a delicate balance of confidence between the people and the government. The honest and genuine consent of the governed is basic to Rwandan democracy. If the governed are misled, if they are not told the truth, or if through official secrecy and deception they lack information on which to base intelligent decisions, the system may go on – but not as a democracy.

If politics is the pursuit and exercise of power over other human beings, truth is always likely to take a secondary role to that primary objective. It can be argued,(too,)that lying and secrecy are basic to any government; that it is only human nature for political leaders to tend to conceal the truth, hide their mistakes or wrongdoing, and mislead the public. That easy rationale is not acceptable, however, in a democracy, which depends upon an informed public.

Indeed, President Paul Kagame once said he will have failed if there was no successor to him, come 2017. Why should Evode whom we all know that he doesn’t like the RPF and President Kagame is fronted to campaign for the Third Term of our beloved President.

We have many Professors in our country who are described by President Kagame as ignorant, these are the same people who come with an argument that Rwanda without Kagame will cease to exist. I will argue that the same reasons that they forward for calling for Third Term, I use them to reject their maneuver, if he has done a good job with all institutions in place, I don’t think anyone will come to undermine them. However, the problem or the challenge is that very few Rwandans would dare to lead Rwanda where president Kagame is referee.  Not because they are not capable but they have a wrong precedent for Pasteur Bizimungu or Col. Alex Kanyarengwe.

Furthermore, President Paul Kagame never enjoyed the opportunity of being a ‘normal citizen’. He was a refugee, then a young rebel under Yoweri Museveni, then a rebel leader who stopped genocide in Rwanda. Why can’t Rwandans allow their beloved leader to rest and live a private life so that he can go out with his family unnoticed.

When Pope Francis was asked whether he loves being a Pope, he said,

“The only thing I would like is to go out one day, without being recognized, and go to a pizzeria for a pizza. … In Buenos Aires, I was a rover. I moved between parishes and certainly this habit has changed. … It has been hard work to change. But you get used to it. You find a way to get around: on the phone, or in other ways.” If Rwandans love President Kagame the way South Africans loved MADIBA, they should not only allow President Kagame to retire but also privacy with his family.  Although President Kagame is still strong, he has not enjoyed the Private Citizen life; Rwandans can still get other services from him without being pushed to violate the basic principles that made him to go the Bush. He should rather tell Rwandans Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

Jacqueline Umurungi