Good morning.

Leaders of the highest institutions of our country,

Distinguished Guests, the newly sworn-in Prime Minister,

Members of Government, and other officials who have just taken their oath before us here today, and all Rwandans following this ceremony; allow me to begin by greeting you and wishing you good health and well-being.

First, I wish to sincerely thank the outgoing Prime Minister, Dr. Ngirente, and to commend him for the good work and the years of dedicated service he has given in this role. We have worked very well together. At times, I would even tease him, starting with his name “Ngirente,” which literally translates ‘what should I do?’, and I would tell him, “be the Prime Minister, handle it that way,” and from there, he would take it on and deliver. I truly thank you for that.

Let me also be clear: for those who have left their positions, those reassigned, or those without a new role at this moment, other opportunities and duties are on the horizon. These responsibilities shift from time to time, but that is not the end of the journey. That is how it should be understood.

There are many Rwandans who want to play different roles in serving their country. And these roles will continue to change over time. Except for me, so far you have refused to let me go. I have even wanted to be replaced myself, but you have refused. My own time will also come eventually.

For those who have just taken the oath today to carry out the responsibilities they have been entrusted with, and for those who have previously been serving and are now awaiting new duties, let me emphasize that these responsibilities are grounded in three things: capacity, knowledge, and willingness. You must have the will to serve, you must know what you are doing, and you must have the ability to do it.

Speaking to those who are newly appointed, some roles are given because others have seen potential in you. That is recognition that comes from outside. But how you carry out those responsibilities, the will you put into it, the mindset you bring that understands that this work is bigger than you, and serves the entire country, that cannot come from those who appointed you, it must come from within you.

How you apply yourself, drawing from what is within you, is entirely your responsibility. People can teach you, remind you, advise you, even insist, but if it does not take root inside you, if the sense of responsibility is not truly yours, the work cannot be done well.

No matter how many times you are reminded, no matter how much pressure is applied, no matter the circumstances, if you cannot draw from your own understanding and will, the work will not succeed.

The reason I say this is because Rwandans look to us and expect a lot. They deserve to have confidence that the challenges they face every day are not theirs to carry alone, and that we are here to help solve them.

Rwanda has its own character. In some ways, we are similar to other countries, especially here in Africa. But in other ways, we are different from other African countries and from others around the world. We have our own history, our own culture, our own identity as our foundation. At the same time, we also share many things with our African brothers and sisters.

When you look at Rwanda, where we have come from, where we are going, and even where we are today; every day we speak about progress and development. You want to develop, yes, but others have advanced. Why have they moved forward while we were left behind? Why did we lag behind? There is a reason, and it lies partly in the ways we are different. If we had not been different in some of these ways, we too might have advanced.

So what is the reason? The reason is our history, and the way we have conducted ourselves. There are things I will not go into now to avoid misunderstandings; but these are things we must correct, without fail. Even among us here today, and others elsewhere, there are those who may ask themselves: “But how do we correct this?”

There are those who have given up, who have resigned themselves to the belief that Rwandans and Africans are meant to remain poor, divided, and waiting for someone else to come and save us.

When I speak of people coming to save us, I am not referring to those you pray to every day, expecting them to save you, those who lead all of us. You find people sitting there, waiting for people like them to come and save them, that is what I mean, and that is the first problem.

That saviour mentality, the idea that we will be saved by people sitting with us here, our guests, those whom we call “partners,” is the very first thing we must remove from our minds. As we sit here, as we live in our country, we must begin with ourselves, and do what we are capable of. We must do what we can, as best as we can. And we must do it knowing clearly where we come from, where we are, and where we want to go.

As for those others who help us, their help only matters if they find you already on the move, headed in the direction you want to go. But they will not carry you and place you where you want to be. In fact, if you didn’t know, they do not want to. It is in their interest for you to remain exactly where you are.

As for us, Rwandans and Africans, we sit back, relax, and wait for someone to come and rescue us. And haven’t you noticed that even those we read about in the Bible, and others we expect to save us, look very different from us? Did you not know that? You have visions but you do not see.

As you sit here, entrusted with these responsibilities; if you take them on and perform poorly, if you take them on with complaints, asking “Why was I given this? Why wasn’t I given that?” and those outside asking “Why was this person chosen and not me?” all of that must be done with one reminder in mind: You are nothing if all of us do change the mentality that fails to grasp the responsibilies before us, and the value and worth we should give ourselves, before expecting anyone else to give it to us.

But there are also those who are not bothered by being nothing. And that is where the problem begins. There are those for whom being nothing, always begging, always being beaten down every day for not acting the way someone else wanted – it does not bother them. Because they are the same people I spoke about earlier who have given up.

They abandon what they ought to be, and wait for whatever others decide to give them. That is not right. It was not acceptable 100 years ago, it is not acceptable today, and it will not be acceptable 100 years from now. It can never be.

And even when someone speaks about it this way, the sad part is that on both sides, for both ourselves who are in this position and those who deal with us in that way, there is a need for change. Both must be corrected. We are all the same. But what happens? It goes in in one ear and gets out in the other, and things continue just as they have been for all the years that have passed.

I will keep repeating this, and we must all keep repeating it. I am telling this to you, the leaders here, who have taken on the responsibility to lead. If you do not understand this, then I will tell you plainly: we are in a bus, without even knowing where it is going. We are in a bus with a driver steering it so that it does not crash, but the passengers in the bus have no idea where they are headed. That is what happens when leaders do not understand these things.

We will keep moving, going around and around in that bus, only to end up where we started. People will step off the bus and say: “We are back here again?” After all those hours traveling in the bus, they step outside only to find themselves exactly where the journey began.

That is how it is, whether in Rwanda or across Africa. Our nature, our ways of working, and our mindset; unless we remove from ourselves what must be removed, and change what must be changed, things will remain the same. And there are so many examples that should already be teaching us. They should be stirring something within us; not anger in the wrong sense, but the kind of anger that fuels energy and determination to get us out of that place.

We have so many examples, every single day, day after day. Our own history over these 31 years, where we have come from, and the role of others who were not Rwandans; today, some of those same people come and tell us that the victims are now the perpetrators. These are the very same people who played a role in what happened, who stood by and watched it unfold. And now, they come back with lessons on how we should live our lives.

And they come with lessons, lectures on democracy, not just democracy, but they want liberal democracy. The way I would put it in simple terms is this: they are telling you that, even in all your poverty, even with all that you have been through, you should remain exactly as you are, even if it is killing you. And you should let someone else also live as they please, even if it is killing them, even if it is killing both of you. That is what it means. And they come here to teach us that.

And they come to teach us about human rights. Among all of you here, tell me, who doesn’t know what a human being is? Let us even assume you are slow learners, if they have been teaching you this for nearly 100 years, do they think you still have not grasped it? How can you be taught that same lesson over and over? But who is a human being? Are you not one? Just as much as the one telling you? The one lecturing you is a human being, and so are you.

Unless people think we are dumb just, we have no capacity to think or to act upon what we think and what we must do. The kind of disrespect that people, Rwandans, Africans experience on a daily basis is staggering. But, on the other hand, I don’t entirely blame other people. We have a responsibility; why don’t we just reject it? What do you lack to reject it and raise questions you must raise about yourself, first, but also about others?

I can’t quarrel with you just because you’ve been coming around and giving me lectures, without blaming myself for committedly listening to you and going by what you’re telling me, that I know. And it is as if we are going to do what is right because we have been instructed to do so. You must be having, you Africans, you Rwandans, you must be having problems to accept that for years, and even then, that is reflected on the way you go about your responsibilities including these ones you have just been sworn in for. It’s as if you’re doing it for other people other than yourselves and your people, how?

Well, in the civilised world we find ourselves today, you don’t fight over anything and everything every day. You choose your fights, but you must choose the fights, they are there.  There are the fights you must fight, unless you have no purpose, you have no meaning attached to the responsibilities you have and what you owe yourself. You see this every day. So, in short here is what I’m talking about: the mindset must change. We can’t be the same Rwandans, the same Africans we were 100 years ago, 50 years ago. We can’t.

And what I have tried to do when you look at this cabinet, that’s what I have been trying even in the past cabinets, especially the recent ones; you people, I think am the oldest in cabinet, most of   you have, 30s, 40s, and it is for a purpose. It is for a purpose of saying, you, young people, are you going to grow through this world like some of us the old ones did and didn’t change much that was necessary?  You really can’t find it in yourselves, you, young people? Educated, travelled all over the world, you know your history where you’re coming from, you know all these I am talking about, and you just behave and move forward like nothing happened? Then you start breeding a generation that just complains about things, blaming so and so, blaming this for this, blaming that, no, where are you? Why don’t you deal with the matter that you are complaining about? Especially, when you’re given an opportunity like this?

Why do you want to complain about other people, even those from outside causing problems? No, you should refuse, you should fight back. There is no question, unless, I do not know what medicine you need, other than the life you have lived, the experiences you have had, the losses you have had, what else do you need?

You are young people, educated, carrying a lot of degrees, academic degrees, PhDs, why don’t you get this? But you can’t do it unless you correct that mindset. Even your self-awareness, and appreciating yourself and being aware that you can do something for yourself. And you have the capacity to fight back with ideas, with values; there is everything that you have to put to such a fight. So, what do you need? What injection? What medicine do you want? In the end, you have yourselves to blame, but that is if you are conscious of what you should be blaming yourself for you.  You don’t find being a beggar every day or being dictated to as to what you must do or ought to do every day, you don’t find it wrong?

For the younger ones who are growing up and others; being given good values is one thing, how you use them is another. But values are taught so that they can be built upon and applied for the good of people. And no human has created another. Everything is complementary. It is not just something to be said, it is something we should base our actions on, and then see the results that come from those actions.

Once again, I want to thank the leaders across our different institutions. But I also urge you to examine yourselves; every week, every month, look at what you can change. If you have been performing well, do even better. Go beyond the good you have been doing, because everything is possible. But there must be action.

Where Rwanda has come from, where it is going, as has been said before, and where it is today; we have not reached this point by accident. It is because people have been doing good work. But imagine if all of us were doing these good things, and doing them well, in a way that ensures we are constantly improving, where would we be today? We would be far beyond even where we are now.

But if there are still those who feel that where we are now is enough, that this is our place and this is where we should stop, then the problem still remains.

I cannot emphasize this enough, but what remains is up to you. I have shared my part with you, and I continue to do my best. Now, let us all see together where we can lead our country.

Thank you so much.