Simone Gbagbo former Ivory Coast first lady was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday in relation to violence that killed over 3,000 people in 2010 when she advised her husband to reject the elections results.

Simone Gbagbo in power and after power

The 65-year-old wife of former President Laurent Gbagbo was found guilty of undermining state security, disturbing public order and organising armed gangs in the aftermath of the country’s election five years ago. Janet Kagame like Simone Gbagbo has in fact surpassed the number of people killed in Rwanda compared to those in the Ivory Coast.  The real power of life and death is vested in the Rwandan First Lady who commands vicious gangs like killing squad of Jack Nziza and other invisible killing forces that report directly to her.

Janet Kagame

 

 

Simone Gbagbo is widely believed  to have strongly advised her husband  that Ivory Coast was given to them by God as such they cannot leave without  God telling them what do. Indeed, on orders of Simone, the former Ivory Coast President Laurent refused to concede defeat to Alassane Ouattara leading to post-election violence that claimed the lives of over 3,000 people. The Gbagbo pair were eventually arrested in 2011 after troops stormed a bunker in the city of Abidjan.

State lawyer Soungalo Coulibaly said, “We have shown that impunity cannot continue in Ivory Coast”. Janet Kagame is slowly but surely positioning herself as a queen following the autocratic policies of her y husband, she is now pursuing a policy of isolationism to those suspected to be influential or just potentially capable. The likes of Janet Rwigyema, Col. Rose Kabuye, and the late Alosyia Inyumba just to mention a few. The Rwandan First Lady has politically or physically eliminated those capable of challenging her authority, replacing with them the less influential or those she thinks are harmless to her political ambitions.

The policies of  Janet and her Husband  are not very far to those of the former First Family  of Ivory Coast that is paying the price now in courts of law both locally and internationally , in fact many Rwandans generally condemn  their policies and characterize them as a tyrant  regime at best and insane at worst.

Apart from their brutal regime that assassinates innocent people for only having different political opoinion,  Kagame family is considered the  best Shopper, a reflection of their extravagant spending in designer shops around the world despite the fact that many Rwandan children cannot  afford simple basics or University upkeep has been withdrawn by their regime. Janet Kagame has stepped on the political podium  in her costly life style,  its likely in the worst scenarios  she might succeed the increasingly doddery husband despot who has ruled  now Rwanda so disastrously for more than Two decades.

Many Rwandans believe she wants the top job, which would make her the first female dictator in modern history. Most of her fellow citizens see this as a chilling prospect that threatens to plunge their beautiful but tormented country into fresh despair. Janet Kagame is, quite simply, loathed. ‘She is an avaricious monster with a vindictive nature, who makes Imelda Marcos look mild by comparison,’ one close observer Said.

‘Every time she speaks she creates lots of new enemies, just hitting out regardless of the consequences,’ said another well-connected figure in the capital Kigali. ‘I find her very cruel and spiteful, like her husband.’

Janet Kagame has been behind all the vicious humiliations of the former RPF women leaders, in fact you can’t now find any founder of the RPF female leader who is still serving in the RPF government.  Many if not all have been replaced by young or new faces in power struggle effort of Janet to consolidate her authority. Indeed, she has acquired enough power to be able to browbeat Rwanda generals into her clique of eliminating those suspected of challenging her authority.

If Janet Kagame has eyes could see or ears could hear, we need to tell her that, from the streets of Bucharest to the slums of Manila, people power invariably wins out in the end. This is exactly the power that won Simone Gbagbo and brought down their brutal regime, the memories of this first family of Ivory Coast are still fresh in the minds of many African people, but our own history is only 21 years old, and is not on the Side of Kagame’s Family.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels