When I read this story in the Rwandan mouth piece the New Times of 19th June 2012, I couldn’t hold my tears on how these alumni of Oxford- Cambridge arrived on this decision.

Obviously many foreigners including my brothers from Nigeria are misled by what they hear from the Kigali leaders and their proxies all over the world. Indeed, many people have not taken trouble to look for independent information on the problems the Rwandan Society is facing.

Similarly, there is always a difference between learning and education, we might conceive as education as something an individual receives from outside, whereas learning is inner directed and can describe a much wider range of personal circumstances.

This distinction resonates with the overall remit of the ‘wider benefits of learning’ on the behavior of other human beings which is dedicated to understanding the relationship between education and other social outcomes like health, crime and family formation.  This involves studying the major birth cohort studies for previously unseen correlations.

The problem with learning is that it becomes hard to see where learning ends and culture begin?  When do communication skills become street manners?  Once learning is indistinguishable from life the danger is that it can easily take on a moralistic tone about whom or who hasn’t learned their lesson.  Education, on the other hand, is more likely to be seen as a right for every individual. Therefore if you consider the political history of Nigeria, tribal and religious establishment of the Nigerian communities, there is little my learned colleagues from Oxford-Cambridge can learn from Rwanda and the leadership of President Paul Kagame.

I will argue that, the leadership skills of Kagame cannot be applied in Nigeria because the style and form are parallel. President Kagame has either killed or forced to submission all his political opponents which Nigerian cannot stomach for even one day. The last person to have the Kagame style was President Gen. Sanni Abacha who also used a hammer to kill a fly.

Again Nigeria  is more democratic than Rwanda, they choose all the  leaders of their  own choice, Rwandan democracy is  a mockery   and as I have mentioned above, they do not need the skills of President Kagame , all they need is to go back in their archives  and read about Gen. Sani Abacha.

Gen. Abacha’s government violated human rights  the same way  Kagame does to his opponents especially  by using his courts  in the same way Gen Abacha hanged   Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by the Oputa Commission (only one of several executions of Ogoni activists opposed to the exploitation of Nigerian resources by the multinational petroleum company, Royal Dutch Shell Group); Abiola and Olusegun Obasanjo were jailed for treason, and Wole Soyinka charged in absentia with treason.Unlike Gen.Abacha , President Kagame has managed to suffocate and suppress  internal opposition and  to certain extend the external pro-democracy activists  are powerless to make a significant change to Kagame’s behavior.

President Kagame  has  banned  political  parties that  have  different policy with his party (RPF) as a result  political activates in general  are  not popular in Rwanda , the Press  is controlled by the State and a significant fraction of the military is purged.  Like Gen Abacha, Gen. Kagame is surrounded by a significant number of armed men loyal to him.Indeed, Gen Abacha sent Nigerian troops to Liberia and Sierra Leone to restore democracy to those countries while denying it at home. In the same way Gen. Kagame has sent troops in various counties in Africa and beyond.

Despite Gen Abacha being repeatedly condemned by the US State Department, he did have a few ties to American politics. In 1997, Senator James Inhofe (R–Oklahoma) travelled to Nigeria to meet with Abacha as a representative of “The Family“, a group of evangelical Christian politicians and civic leaders.  Gen. Abacha and The Family had a business and political relationship from that point until his death.  Similarly, Gen. Kagame is a darling of the American evangelicals, business communities and prominent politicians like Pastor Rick Warren, Clinton Family. Indeed, the State Department will hardly condemn the actions of President Kagame not only against his own people but also his neighbors.  Therefore if my Nigerian brothers are looking for the good skills of President Kagame, I advise them to go back home and read about Gen Sani Abacha because Kagame is Gen San Abacha of Rwanda

Jaqueline Umurungi

Brussels.