President Kagame’s advice to African youth a rare gem

It is not just policies and the government that make things happen. This was the important aide-mémoire for African youth from President Paul Kagame who called on the former to play their role, to determine what they want to be and where they wanted to be.  President Kagame is one of the African leaders who often shows concern about the development of African youth.

During his many interviews and speeches, generally, President Kagame has always articulated his concerns over the continent’s youth and his appeal for a mindset change as a pre-requisite for sustainable development has been just as consistent. 

In Rwanda, the President who has earned a name as the friend of the youth - “Mzee Kijana” - has promoted the youth both at policy level and directly involving them in leadership at the highest level.

This has unquestionably contributed to Rwanda’s development and to the consolidation and sustainability of the gains so far achieved. It has also given us hope for the future because the leaders of the future are fully upraised on statecraft.

At policy level, a lot has been done. Access to finance has been made easy for the youth to fund their innovative ventures which has already started transforming lives in the form of different products that have changed lives of Rwandans in many ways.

Human capital development has been advanced through scholarships to Rwandan youths. Professional training has been availed to equip them with knowledge to develop their potentials. 

However, despite all that has been done by the country’s leadership, President Kagame stressed the need for the youth to note that it is not just policies and the government that make things happen. He challenged them to rise to the occasion and leverage these incentives to champion positive change.

Do not sit and wait for things to happen

An important counsel to the African youth is to note that development is not an overnight happening not even a gift that is served on a silver platter. It is a process that requires hard work and being deliberate in using acquired knowledge and experience to transform communities. 

For decades, African youth have been confronted with serious mindset and ideological problems that inhibited the continent’s development agenda. These problems have been translated into laziness and short-termism. The lack of forethought in the African youth continues to affect them considerably and by extension their respective countries.

In the same vein, laziness and short-termism have become a default excuse that they always use when trying to justify their strange behavior and lack of social responsibility and failure to perform their civic duties. 

For years, the African youth have been exporting their intellect just as well as their energy to some developed countries where they migrate, their excuse being that they cannot afford to get the basic needs in their countries. 

But here is the funniest part. If this excuse has prevailed for decades, it means generations of leaders have passed yet the same problems persisted. This suggests one thing - that as a youth, even when they ascended to power, they did not work to resolve the problems that face their African contemporaries or simply they did not turn around the situation by addressing the very problems that account for the unexploited potential in the African youth. 

It also means that in most cases, African youth, despite blaming their governments for not doing what is necessary to exploit their full potential, they themselves did not develop the needed ideology that would see them bringing about change whenever they had the opportunity to do so. 

In most cases, the youth has been characterized by developing some malicious attitude to Africa’s development. The youth have always considered themselves as being at the receiving end, never do they want to graduate and move to the side of those who contribute towards national development. 

In his recent interview with the New African Magazine, President Kagame called on the youth to embrace mind-set change or cultural shift through education and exposure. He reminded the youth that it was important to connect Africa to the world but keeping Africa as it is supposed to be. 

What can be picked from the President’s counsel is that in as much as Africa needs to be connected to the world for our continental development through global partnership, Africans should always aim at preserving their identity. 

To achieve this, one needs to be proud of the African identity, develop objective confidence in who we are and aim at positioning ourselves in the world order of affairs as proud and able Africans.

Our youth should detach itself from the misguided mentality that our future and well-being depend on the West and what others want us to be. The constant reminder from President Kagame is that now, more than ever before, we need to understand that Africa needs to scale up its development and move forward. 

He reminded the youth that having dreams and some great aspirations is not enough for Africa’s development. It is never enough for any country’s development. The missing link is pairing our dreams and aspirations with bold actions. It is the only sure deal. Perhaps the only possible transaction to sustainable development.

President Kagame’s continuous advice to African youth is a rare gem that needs to be carried religiously by the youth in all they do. And just as he did put it, to be able to make it happen, African youth need to take the following piece of advice as their all time aide-memoire. 

Young Africans need to grow up with the mentality that they can be as good as anyone and that they can do all they want in the world. They must see the world as Africans and act like Africans, the right way. They should see opportunities where others can only see problems.