By Ken Agala<\/p>\n
In May 2020, Lucien Kabuga, an 86 years old Rwandan fugitive was
\ncaptured in France. Kabuga had been a fugitive for 26 years. He had been
\nsought by Interpol, FBI, the international crimes tribunal, the Rwanda
\ngovernment and an international union of bounty hunters. Two years
\nearlier, the US state department had placed a 5 million dollars reward
\non his head.<\/p>\n
Kabuga is being tried for crimes against humanity because of the role he
\nplayed in the Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n
However, Kabuga might not have lifted a machete or hoe in the horror of
\nRwanda, but as one one of Rwanda\u2019s richest men, Kabuga\u2019s radio station
\nRTLM, led the propaganda that daily fed hate to his fellow ethnic Hutus,
\nacting as a catalyst for the Rwanda Genocide.<\/p>\n
The two major items on the hands of the Interahamwe, the Hutu killer
\nmilitia, was always a small transistor radio and a machete. While the
\nradios guided the killer gangs around the country , identifying Tutsis,
\nover 500,000 machetes imported into the country by Kabuga and a few Hutu
\nelites, chopped down ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus like a bunch of
\ntrees.<\/p>\n
Visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial is such an introspecting
\nexperience which I think every African statesman, politician or aspiring
\nleader should have.<\/p>\n
The Kigali genocide memorial, is actually the burial site of 250,000
\npeople. It was built to honour the dead, preserve the history of the
\ngenocide against the tutsis and is seen as a symbol of \u2018NEVER AGAIN\u2019.<\/p>\n
If you want to imagine 250,000 dead bodies , just imagine seeing 10
\ncorpses lying dead. Then imagine 50,100, then 1000, then 250,000. If you
\nlie them down side by side on a football pitch to fill every space on a
\npitch, you will need the space of 60 football pitches to lay the dead.<\/p>\n
This burial site is just one of the various burial sites in Rwanda that
\nserved as permanent resting places for the remains of the victims of the
\ngenocide.<\/p>\n
When I experienced the Kigali Genocide memorial with a group of friends
\nin 2016, one thing we noticed was that, we couldn\u2019t talk for almost 10
\nminutes when we walked out of the memorial through the exit. The
\nexperience actually leaves you speechless.<\/p>\n
The children\u2019s memorial had intimate details and life size photographs
\nof the deceased children, their names , favourite toys , their schools,
\nthe manner in which they were killed, then some of their dead small
\nskulls lying beside a few of their belongings.<\/p>\n
As you walk through the labyrinth of history with the informative audio
\nand virtual reality gadgets, you will hear the stories , the recorded
\ncries of victims begging not to be killed, tales from survivors, while
\nthe entire maze is filled with relics of the genocide, from one foot
\nshoes of running victims to their cracked skulls at times with the
\nkiller weapons still embedded right through the skull .<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure many\u00a0 people do not know that the Hutus and Tutsi are the same
\npeople. Same culture, same language and same ethnic group. The only
\nthing that separated them was that the Hutus were farmers while the
\nTutsis were cattle herders. This was the major basis which the Belgians
\nused in differentiating them and issuing them with identify cards.<\/p>\n
How come hatred grew so much that they managed to break world record for
\nthe fastest and most effective killing in human history?<\/p>\n
Of all the deaths that occurred during America\u2019s wars from 1990(
\nOperation Desert storm) to 2018( War against ISIS), including all the
\nwars in Iraq, Afghanistan and over 70 countries where the USA fought
\ntheir war on terror, with the most effective military hardware,\u00a0 over a
\n28 year period. Military historians put the total deaths, including
\ncivilian and military casualties to about 500,000.<\/p>\n
The Atomic bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki recorded about
\n200,000 deaths which the entire world still considers as most
\nhorrendous. But ethnic Hutus managed to effectively kill one million of
\ntheir Tutsi brothers and moderate Hutus in less than 100 days.<\/p>\n
The kill rate must have been like 10,000 per day.<\/p>\n
Not with any weapons of mass destruction, no tanks , no air crafts or
\nsub machine hellfire guns, but with machetes, hoes, stone\u2019s and any make
\nshift that can be turned into a killing instrument. This is how powerful
\nhate can be.<\/p>\n
For hundred days, the Hutu propaganda radios kept shouting that the
\ngraves are not full enough, urging on the killings of the Tutsis whom
\nthey referred to as Cockroaches.<\/p>\n
Ironically the Hutus make up about 85% of the country, they had the
\nPresidency and other key offices then, but somehow, they kept believing
\nand spreading stories that these cow herders were going to conquer them.
\nThe fear was so morbid that every Tutsi, including a woman or child was
\nseen as an enemy and potential conquerer.<\/p>\n
You might have read several literature about the Rwanda 1990 genocide,
\nbut a visit to the\u00a0 Kigali memorial will knock you off your feet and
\nteach you that long time hatred and propaganda can turn humans into
\nlittle bits of satan the devil. It will immediately bring you out of any
\nethnicity and usher you\u00a0 into the race of humanity.<\/p>\n
The beauty of the Rwandan story is that the civil war victors, Tutsi
\nrebels that ended the war, did not gloat or carry out reprisal killings
\n, but they had a visionary leadership who stepped in to unify the
\ncountry despite the fact that they suffered the genocide.<\/p>\n
Asked if she was Hutu or Tutsi, a Rwandese friends eyes popped open with
\nshock and her voice became low as if afraid . \u201cWe are all Rwandans, we
\ndon\u2019t have Hutu or Tutsi. We don\u2019t talk about it and we don\u2019t know it\u201d
\nshe said making sure that nobody else heard her.<\/p>\n
Rising out of that ashes of death and hate, Rwanda today is the pride of
\nAfrica .<\/p>\n
Crime rate is almost zero and the city is the cleanest in africa. While
\nother african countries are still varying files in government offices,
\nRwanda is using drones to deliver medicine to rural areas.<\/p>\n
While neighboring Congo and Burundi are still ruled by who owns more
\nAK47s, Rwandese are coming out monthly alongside their President,
\nlegislatures and all government officials to do Umuganda, a community
\nworks exercise where everyone is entitled to physically work for their
\nenvironment.<\/p>\n
While African giants like Nigeria is still struggling with generators ,
\nRwanda is extracting Methane Gas under water from Lake Kivu and turning
\nit into Electricity.<\/p>\n
While we are still carrying dusty files in our civil service and bribing
\npublic servants , Rwanda has implemented full technology where you can
\ngo online and do every public service needed, leading the Smart Africa
\nalliance and of course this has led them to the top, in ease of doing
\nbusiness in Africa.<\/p>\n
But ironically, we have a similar history with Rwanda, with the result
\nlooking like the opposite.<\/p>\n
In the early hours of\u00a0 15th January 1966, a young Kaduna born Major of
\nIgbo parenthood, led some officers to kill over 20 people which included
\nthe then Prime Minister of Nigeria in an attempted coup.<\/p>\n
The events of this action led to a vicious pogrom against many innocent
\nIgbos whose crime was that they were from the same ethnicity as the
\nparents of the coup leader.<\/p>\n
The pogroms and resultant rebellion by south east leaders led to a
\nvicious 30 month unnecessary and vicious civil war which killed millions
\nof Nigeria and destroyed lots of properties.<\/p>\n
Looking back now, one can just imagine how irresponsible and immature
\nthe leaders of that era were, not to have prevented that war. They were
\nlike little kids with expensive toys. That was how leadership was to
\nthem.<\/p>\n
But in both scenarios , profiling played a dangerous role, and it\u2019s
\nunfortunate that while Rwanda has risen from the ashes of that stupidity
\nto say never again ,Nigeria is still dancing around the precipice of an
\nethnic instigated insurrection.<\/p>\n
Nigerians are still pigeon holed according to their ethnicity or the god
\nthey worship. We are still hearing irresponsible infantile statements
\nlike \u2018all igbo should leave the north and all Fulani should leave the
\nwest\u2019.<\/p>\n
Ethnic and Religious profiling is still on the rise, and it\u2019s
\nunfortunate to hear leading religious leaders like Sheik Gumi come out
\nto class muslim soldiers as non criminals while the non muslims are
\nresponsible for what he calls \u2018criminality \u2018 against bandits.( I still
\ndon\u2019t understand how a soldier commits a crime against a bandit )<\/p>\n
Nigeria is not only in dire need of the leadership to provide critical
\ninfrastructure, but a leadership that will belong to everyone and belong
\nto no one. A leadership whose body language and actions will be free of
\nnepotism and division. A leadership that will diffuse the gunpowder
\nwhich the country is sitting upon.<\/p>\n
( Ken Agala )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Ken Agala In May 2020, Lucien Kabuga, an 86 years old Rwandan fugitive was captured in France. Kabuga had been a fugitive for 26 years. He had been sought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n