What I saw in Kigali

I had met some staff of the African Development Bank on a flight back from Accra sometime last year and one of them suggested that I try and attend their annual meeting coming up in Kigali in May this year. I almost forgot. But thankfully something made it crop back into my mind and bingo! […]

I had met some staff of the African Development Bank on a flight back from Accra sometime last year and one of them suggested that I try and attend their annual meeting coming up in Kigali in May this year. I almost forgot. But thankfully something made it crop back into my mind and bingo! I was booking with the AfDB and looking forward, not only to engaging with the bank and meeting new people, but also, perhaps more importantly, visiting Kigali Rwanda.
In a reversal of fortune, Nigeria, my country, now subtly occupies the position occupied by Rwanda 20 years ago. Like it or not, there is a genocide going on in our land and we better engage with it.  It’s not as if we hadn’t been here before. Between 1967 and 1970 another of such happened in Nigeria, when we tried to keep separatists within the fold by force. This time, it is the digital age and information travels really fast and vividly. And what we have seen are human beings being murdered in cold blood by all sorts of savages, from civilians to military. A video is circulating where about 16 men and boys where lined up, kneeling in the dust, and were being called, one by one, to lay down by an already dug out mass grave. Their throats were then slit methodically, while their hands and feet are held, by soldiers and some civilian accomplices. The bodies were then rolled into the mass grave.
That is Nigeria. In 2014. As this video made the rounds, some Nigerians expressed disgust, and the belief that it was ‘unethical’ to share such videos. To such Nigerians, it wasn’t unethical to slit the throats of people who apparently were cowed by terror. They could even tell that those were BH members just by looking at them.  What was unethical, according to these Nigerians, is that we who are sitting coolly in our comfort zones should see what is being done in our country. There is no difference between these events in the north of Nigeria today, and what transpired under Adolf Hitler, when he made mincemeat of the Jews. Story for another day.

But back to Rwanda
In the meetings I went for, Nigeria was made to take a backseat. For the first three days, until the Nigerian delegates arrived in the persons of the Coordinating Minister, the Minister of Agric, and much earlier, the DG SEC and former president Obasanjo, very little mention was made of Nigeria. And when mentioned, it was usually for negative reasons. Things got to a head when a Ugandan Journalist said emphatically that Nigeria was formed on a foundation of corruption and that if we remove corruption, Nigeria would collapse. A distinguished Nigerian, Dr Nnanna, who currently works for the IMF, called for an open retraction of that statement, which he termed ‘irresponsible’, in the plenary. It was sheer fireworks. Obasanjo’s first session was also very dramatic as President Goodluck Jonathan was taken to the cleaners. The other presidents present on the panel apparently didn’t display much confidence in the way we were managing our terrorism problem. They also didn’t seem to respect or fear Oga Jonathan very much. One of them donated $50,000 to curb our terrorism problem. Madam Okonjo, while acknowledging the donation, made it subtly clear that Nigeria wasn’t really a beggar nation. Or are we? At least not from fellow African countries.

But those were not the real things I saw in Kigali
I saw a Kigali where not a single “Boda-Boda” – or Okada – rider and his passenger was without helmet. As in, you dare not try it. I saw a Rwanda were the police were so disciplined and if you wanted to spend two months in jail, all you had to do was to broach any of them with a bribe. I saw a Rwanda where people carried themselves with dignity, even if they may be poor. I saw a Rwanda where cars hesitate before hooting their horns, and for a whole week I didn’t hear a single siren, not even from an Ambulance. I saw a quiet, sane Kigali, where the mass public transport system are clean, well-maintained Toyota Coaster buses.  I saw a Rwanda that remembered it’s past and has sworn that NEVER AGAIN will the past repeat itself.  I saw Rwanda where young people were now at the drivers’ seats in many respect, and they discharged themselves with utmost dignity.  The hotels were not cheap – perhaps because of the big event in town – but even at the big hotels, food was ridiculously cheap. Imagine eating a full meal at a four star hotel for an equivalent of N1500! In Nigeria they will charge you 6 or 7 times for the same food at the same hotel.
Which reminds me. The hotel I stayed in had no Airconditioning. Or even a fan. There are really no need for them in that part of East Africa. I recall that Nairobi, Kenya was like that when I went there last year. In Nairobi, as in many parts of East Africa, there is a strategic advantage with regards to energy consumption. Like in Europe, they don’t need airconditioning. But unlike Europe, they don’t also need heating. So, no heating, no airconditioning. I could just imagine how far 1,000MW of energy will go for these countries, if deployed mostly to industries. Compared to West African countries at least, this is a great advantage in terms of the savings these East African countries could make.
There was some sort of nite club a few buildings from my hotel. Even when tired from a long day at the seminars, the music from this nite club filters into my room even at 3am at night. And it was every day.  On the fourth day, at around 12.30 midnight, the nite club started to blare Davido’s music, Aye.  You know, that one that goes “she no want Ferrari…” I was also intrigued by the fact that Nigerian movies and music have conquered the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, even if the movies are mostly of low intellectual quality.  I peeped out of my room to find out that the local restaurant opposite the night club was still open.  
Now, it isn’t as if East Africa hasn’t seen their fare share of terrorism or crime. Or that But somehow, that region seem to have surmounted the worst of it.   A local restaurant in Rwanda is open till 3am or 4am. That is job being created as people run shifts. In Uganda and Kenya, all large supermarkets open till day break. Ditto many major fuel stations. Here in Nigeria, we shut down totally by 6pm. It is not rocket science, to determine which economies are poised for the future. Nigerian economic leaders had better found a solution. The world is moving on.  We cannot shut in half of our economy and say our economy is the largest. That is half the employment shut in. Half the GDP. Half the inspiration. Half the hope.