If only Rwanda had horses for her wishes

Every person has a wish, but many times those wishes are only empty shells that amount to nothing. Nations too can have these empty shells. I wish I could predict otherwise for Rwanda. I wish things had turned out different in my own country, Uganda. If our wishes had become horses, maybe then I would say that Rwanda is now headed for a better tomorrow. But thirty one years later and all we still have with us are our wishes.

Leadership, any leadership, anchors itself on integrity. A big part of what makes up one’s integrity is their ability to stand by what [they said] they believe in, no matter what. Integrity is what anchors a leader firmly so they can serve effectively, delivering on their mandate while fighting back any of the never ending pressures that always come any leader’s way. Take away integrity and you have no leader. Even a leader of a gang of thieves must demonstrate integrity by remaining true to the gang’s mission. If his integrity (as the gang leader) is compromised by good morals, that leader will no longer be fit to lead that gang and if the gang wants to remain true to its cause and mission, it must find a new leader. Or better, the now compromised leader steps down and allows another person who will advance the gang’s mission to take over.

Integrity is about being truthful. A leader must be truthful first to himself, and then to those he leads or wants to lead. Truthfulness to self and to the led cannot be separated. Any separation is hypocrisy.

It is not leadership that gives one a vision. One first gets a vision and then leads himself and others to that vision. Therefore, if a leader’s vision changes as he leads, then that leader lacks integrity. That leader has been compromised by leadership.

One of the signs that a leader’s vision has changed is a change in vision achievement timelines. If a president is appointed/elected to office because he said he has something to offer a nation in two presidential terms, he should govern for those two terms and step down. Of course in his term of office he will not accomplish all or he may accomplish more than he promised and that’s alright. It is alright because we are human and many times we do make miscalculations. It is alright because it reveals something about the leader—how clearly he had perceived his vision for leadership. It is okay because someone else, someone the leader has groomed, can always take up the vision and bring it to fruition.

When a leader has failed to deliver on his promises or there’s a feeling—in him or among the population—that he can still continue delivering more of what he’s already delivered, and then nation’s constitution is altered to accommodate the leader for more time, that’s a recipe for disaster for any nation.

Of course the constitution and the way governments in Rwanda and Uganda are structured is largely foreign. This wasn’t our ancestral way of governance and currently neither is it for a number of other nations—some of which are prospering. But if a nation, if a people, agree to a certain form of governance, then they must be true to it. Else they must quickly adopt a new acceptable form of governance that they’ll be true to.

Good or bad leadership, especially under the democratic system of governance, is not dependant on longevity of reign but on integrity—being truthful. If a president sees no problem with a constitution before they become president, sees no problem with the constitution while they are president, but then suddenly sees a big problem with the clauses that limit their terms of office or the age they can be president when their term of office is about to expire or age has caught up with them, then that’s being untruthful. It is lack of integrity. The lapse in integrity in the leader’s character is greater if the leader pushing for the constitution amendment actively participated in having it set up the way it is in the first place.

So what if a president has a constitution amended to selfishly favour him? How does that affect a nation?

Last year I enrolled for a 40 weeks’ godly character building course called Build Up at my church.  During the 40 weeks we studied 40 principles on self-government, management, productivity and leadership. From that course I learnt that we all can make choices, but none of us—great or small, rich or poor, sick or healthy, righteous or wicked—can determine the consequences of those choices. Our power, all of us, ends at making a choice.

Consequence One: The Team Factor

“No man is an island,” so the saying goes, and leaders are no exception. Leaders need people to work with. People who will believe in their [first] vision and commit to working alongside the leader to bring the vision to life.

When a president amends a nation’s constitution to accommodate his selfish interests, three things happen within his team.

First, the people who are not ready to be comprised by and with the leader will break camp with the leader. These are people who were totally committed to the leader’s vision as he sold it to them in the beginning. These are usually very courageous people. 

Secondly, some people—usually the majority—will stay with the leader. Among those that stay are people with no convictions but lots of needs of their own. People with no convictions of their own may seem like a great addition to a team because they bring minimal opposition to what’s happening (and every team surely needs such). But these people always require a lot more pushing through micro-management just to keep them on the same pace with the rest of the team. With the people who strongly believed in the leader’s vision gone, the leader, if he wants to keep delivering on his mandate, must extend his micro-management to cover more people beyond his core leadership team. This of course is straining on the leader and only the birth pains of the leader’s problems. Problems will stem from both the dynamics of micro-management and how different people respond to it and also the fact that the leader is only able to effectively manage a limited number of people because he is only human.

Thirdly, of course the leader must get (and usually does, easily) new people to replace those that broke camp with him. This is the ferocious group. These are people who have been only watching from a distance for years praying and hoping that they too can get the positions those who formed the president’s core group held. Now is their chance. These people come supercharged and determined to impress the president at all costs. Whatever he says, they’ll do. 

So, after a constitution amendment a nation will have the following to lead it to the future: A president without integrity and a team of individuals working with the president only to impress him—a president who has chosen a new path and a new philosophy for his nation: the president and his interests come before the nation.

The president, to his delight, will meet minimal resistance to his post constitution amendment rule because of three reasons:

1. Those with the ability to question his motives in line with what is best for the nation—his original vision—are gone.
2. The president will be working with a team that’s out to impress him. Anything he suggests will most likely pass.
3. What was above him, that which defined his limitations—the constitution, is now below him.

Consequence Two: Disorder and Evil

In the Bible, the writer of James tells us in verse 16 of chapter 3 that, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every evil practice.” A nation that has a president who not only harbours but also fronts his selfish ambitions cannot escape disorder and every evil practice. Such a leader will bring a nation, any nation, to ruin. 

We attract what we are. A leader who promotes his selfish interests using public resources will end up surrounded by a team whose individual’s hard work is motivated by a desire to fulfil selfish interests using government resources. Sadly this many times is unknown to the leader because everyone around him acts like they are serving only his interests. 

I once watched a documentary about the life of a certain African president. At the height of his self-serving resign, he would simply instruct the prime minister by word of mouth to get him money from the bank. If the president instructed the prime minister to get him say one million, the prime minister would instruct the bank governor to get him 2 million for the president. In turn, the governor would withdraw 3 million. Nonetheless, the president got only the one million he had requested for. 

All human beings are selfish by nature. But under good leadership and with God’s help and wisdom, people can be brought to a point where they look beyond their needs and see those of others. This, even though only achievable with God’s help and wisdom, always requires a lot from the leader: uncompromising integrity.

People’s selfishness is like a river and leaders the dams that hold this selfishness back keeping it from destroying society. A lapse in integrity of a leader is like a crack on the dam. A president who develops cracks in his integrity leaks. Slowly but surely, evil and disorder will find their way through him and in no time characterise whichever nation he leads. This, like all consequences, is inevitable.

Rwanda, here’s to consequences!