On April 4, 2018, The Rwandan Senate which is usually docile, dropped a bombshell. In the event of climate change-related failures such as famine, there would be no food to feed the people of Rwanda.
The Rwandan Senate has discovered that Rwanda’s national grain strategic reserve which is supposed to store 200,000 tonnes of grains is empty. Presently, there isn’t enough grains to feed the country for at least three consecutive months. This is a conventional minimum requirement.
As The New Times, reported, the senators declared that ”most of the national granaries are empty.” The Senators discovered this after a countrywide tour by the members of the standing committee on economic development and finance.
Interestingly, Kagame’s Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente had a day earlier boasted about the regime’s commitment to increasing Rwanda’s agriculture production. According to the Prime Minister, the regime’s strategies of transforming agriculture include:
“strengthening agricultural research; skills development; land use consolidation and land husbandry; intensifying the usage of improved seeds and fertilizers for CIP and export crops; strengthening extension services; irrigation and mechanization; genetic improvement, animal health and feeds; postharvest management, market linkages and agro processing; financing; private sector engagement and food prices regulations.”
Well and good. But how do you achieve these objectives if the country cannot survive a famine?
While Kagame engages in delusional grandeur of building the African Union, he is naked at home
Kagame recalls The Emperor’s New Clothes by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about a delusional emperor who cared about little else except wearing fancy clothes. The vain ruler hired weavers who promised him they will make him the best clothes ever. The weavers were con-men who convinced the emperor they were going to use a fine fabric invisible to anyone who was ”either unfit or is hopelessly stupid”. But the con-men did not in fact make the clothing – they pretended they did. The con-men then pretended to dress the ruler. Of course, no one — not even the emperor could see the alleged “clothes.”
Everyone kept on pretending that they could see the clothes because no one wanted to appear unfit or stupid. Everyone, including the emperor uncomfortably went along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit or stupid. Then, a child in the crowd, too young to understand what was going shouted out that the emperor was naked.
And so it is with Kagame. He boasts that he is achieving spectacular results across the continent. Everyone keeps admiring his ”achievements.” But he cannot feed his own country because he is obsessed with fancy buildings and palm-tree lined roads in the capital city of Kigali. The question is — who is the innocent child that will inform Kagame that he is naked?
By David Himbara
