By: Dr David Himbara
General Paul Kagame does not live in Rwanda. He is an absentee dictator who runs Rwanda from foreign capitals. Kagame has held only 7 cabinet meetings versus 42 foreign trips in 2019. This is insane. The closest to Kagame’s lifestyle is Cameroon president Paul Biya who runs his country from a Geneva hotel. Kagame is in fact worse than Biya. The latter at least stays in one place – Switzerland. Kagame is all over the world from Cape Town to Bonn, from Tokyo to Seattle, and all in between.
Here are the 7 times Kagame convened cabinet meetings with his ministers in 2019:
1. October 10, 2019
2. July 29, 2019
3. June 24, 2019
4. June 7, 2019
5. April 24, 2019
6. April 3, 2019
7. January 28, 2019
But see how many foreign trips Kagame has made so far in the past 10 months – 42 trips outside Rwanda.
Here are Kagame’s foreign trips so far in 2019:
1. Abidjan, Ivory Coast, October 14, 2019
2. Marrakech, Morocco, October 12, 2019
3. Bonn, Germany, October 4, 2019
4. Seattle, USA, October 2, 2019
5. New York, USA, September 22–26, 2019
6. Nairobi, Kenya, September 18, 2019
7. Brazzaville, Congo, September 10, 2019
8. Yokohama, Japan, August 28, 2019
9. Biarritz, France, August 25, 2019
10. Luanda, Angola, August 21, 2019
11. Windhoek, Namibia, August 19, 2019
12. Lusaka, Zambia, August 11, 2019
13. London, UK, July 23, 2019
14. Luanda, Angola, July 12, 2019
15. Niamey, Niger, July 7, 2019
16. Gaborone, Botswana June 27, 2019
17. Antananarivo, Madagascar, June 26, 2019
18. Bruxelles, Belgium, June 17, 2019
19. Abuja, Nigeria, June 11, 2019
20. Libreville, Gabon, June 10, 2019
21. Kinshasa, DR Congo, May 31, 2019
22. Pretoria, South Africa, May 25, 2019
23. Paris, France, May 17, 2019
24. Los Angeles, USA, April 30, 2019
25. San Francisco, USA, April 28, 2019
26. Cairo, Egypt, April 23, 2019
27. Saddleback, USA, April 14, 2019
28. New York, USA, April 11, 2019
29. Dakar, Senegal, April 2, 2019
30. Luanda, Angola, March 30, 2019
31. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, March 7, 2019
32. Cape Town, South Africa, March 5, 2019
33. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, March 1, 2019
34. Charlotte, USA, February 28, 2019
35. Munich, Germany, February 15, 2019
36. Abu Dhabi, February 13, 2019
37. Dubai, February 12, 2019
38. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 9, 2019
39. Arusha, Tanzania, February 1, 2019
40. Davos, Switzerland, January 24, 2019
41. Addis Ababa, January 17, 2019
42. Tokyo, Japan, January 7, 2019
Stay tuned – 2019 is not yet over.