President Paul Kagame has found his rhythm—and Africa is paying attention.
Let’s explore his journey, and you will figure out what I mean his rhythm: the tempo.
Before stepping confidently into global affairs, he did something many leaders still grapple with: he fixed his own house.
Call his approach what you want—dictatorial, authoritarian, surgical. But for Rwandans, it has worked.
He rolled up his sleeves and began with the basics.
He forced jiggers out of people’s feet and rolled out universal healthcare. He banned grass-thatched huts and built decent homes. For malnourished families, he gave cows—not just for milk, but for manure, status, and better harvests.
Security followed. He shut the door on threats.
Today, there’s hardly room for an aggressor—inside or outside. Rwanda became safe. So safe, in fact, that Kagame started exporting security as a service. He had figured something out—and others wanted a piece of it.
Once you’ve built all that—health, order, security, and pride—you don’t just hand it to an obscure figure in the name of democracy. You don’t pass your life’s work to obscure and toxic characters like Victoire Ingabire, just to earn applause from abroad. What you do is stay, keep working, and ask your people the only question that matters: are you tired of me yet?
So far, the answer is clear: not yet.
Yes, he irritates us now and then. Some of his policies sting at first. But Rwandans have learned that in the long run, the harvest is often greater than the pain. He plays the long game.
Businesses are thriving in Rwanda. It’s a safer and conducive environment. Just play by the rules and you will make a fortune.
Of course, Rwanda is not a utopia, oh no, not heaven, far from that. It’s a nation building itself. And the journey is long and excruciatingly hard.
Poverty still bites. Unemployment still nags. Not everyone can afford internet, even though 95% of the country is covered.
Some officials are corrupt. Others abuse power. Even some of Kagame’s handlers are brutal. Abusive. I know, because I’ve faced them. I have been banned from State House events and press conferences.
My publication has lost business—first from government, then from some in the private sector—because of their relationships and pressure networks.
They punish criticism quietly, without announcements. They are cunning and brutal. It’s not just me. Even among themselves, ironically, they fight dirty, using state-linked influence to crush one another.
They won’t always come for you with noise—but they will come for you with silence. Like it happens elsewhere, not only in Rwanda, they can use every tool at their disposal to erase you, quietly.
And that’s where one begins to wonder: with Kagame’s pace, clarity, and leadership, if fully harnessed, Rwanda could be even farther ahead.
Some officials spend more time plotting what to eat than what to fix. Others get trapped in cheap power battles, in some cases acting out of habits that feel more primitive than progressive.
Don’t get me wrong—we’re not short of noble people. This country has its fair share of good men and women. Just as in any society, we also have our lunatics in business, law-abiding citizens alongside the crude and careless. We are, in every sense, a normal society—with all its contradictions.
It’s not uncommon to find a mayor whose team is locked in arguments over who has a big nose or who comes from where—rather than fixing roads, restoring water pipes, or organizing waste collection.
That mismatch between vision at the top and games at the bottom is one of our biggest brakes.
Oh boy, if Kagame finds out—pray for them. You’ll hear they were either fired or imprisoned. He doesn’t sweep dirt under the carpet. The law may still be a work in progress, but it breathes. It moves. It strikes when needed.
Back to the main point, once he stabilized the nation, Kagame turned outward. Slowly, strategically. He made friends, signed treaties, forged trade agreements, and built alliances.
He traveled everywhere, not to pose for photos, but to build meaningful ties. And as Rwanda’s diplomatic footprint grew, so did its reliability. The country became one you could count on.
Then came his rhythm. His Tempo.
If you understand music, then you know that tempo isn’t just about how fast or slow you go—it’s about knowing when to accelerate, when to hold back, and when to let silence do the talking.
Kagame discovered his BPM—his internal beat. He knows when to push hard, when to ease off, and when to send the entire system into overdrive.
He built the 100-million-dollar Kigali Arena in just 90 days. Before that, ahead of the African Union Summit, he overhauled the city’s road network and completed the Convention Centre. Kigali was under immense pressure. Later, he would invite all African leaders to sign the historic African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), remember? The pride that followed will echo for generations.
It’s this kind of precision that makes his leadership feel choreographed, almost engineered. The pressure is immense, yes. But the output? Unforgettable.
Yet Kagame himself is a curious contradiction. Despite his achievements, he detests praise.
Compliments make him visibly uncomfortable. Even when the admiration is sincere, he shifts, tightens, shrinks. Humility drives his psychology.
He works hard, speaks less, and prefers results to applause. He is not interested in being a celebrity. He is interested in finishing what he started.
What’s remarkable is that more people know Kagame than they know Rwanda. His personal brand—Brand PK—has become so strong, it now rivals the very nation he leads. He’s more recognized globally than his own political party, the RPF. And that’s because his leadership has been consistent, visible, and clear.
With that visibility comes moral authority. Other African leaders listen to him. Some consult him. Others quietly copy him. Because here is a man who built from scratch: an economy, a professional army, and a new national identity.
He turned a broken society into one that now contributes to global peacekeeping. He forged cohesion from the ashes of conflict. From people welding machetes to people exchanging wedding rings.
So yes, he has wisdom to share. But here’s the catch—he is a man known to be brutally honest.
Kagame doesn’t do diplomatic theater. He doesn’t kiss in public and curse in private. When he speaks, it’s raw. Unfiltered. And for many African leaders, that’s a nightmare. Because Kagame says what others won’t.
When he grabs a microphone, two things happen: you hear truth, and somebody’s ego gets bruised. Sometimes both.
Take the recent peace talks between Rwanda and the DRC. After too many failed rounds, Kagame broke the illusion. He said what others whispered: Tshisekedi is not a man you can trust. Just two months later, he was vindicated. The masks fell.
President Felix Tshisekedi has been playing dirty. Shifting goalposts, and deploying his cronies in western capitals to sign fake peace treaties during the day and massacring his people during the night.
Then came the real bombshell.
Kagame confessed—publicly—that former President Joseph Kabila had handed over power to Tshisekedi even after losing the election in the presence of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Uhuru Kenyatta, and Cyril Ramaphosa.
That kind of truth shakes palaces. It sends shockwaves. Because when Kagame talks like that, leaders start checking their own memories: “was I in that room? What did I say? Could he quote me too?”
As one elder told me recently: a man who tells the truth is dangerous—but at least you know what to expect.
That’s Kagame.
When he speaks, time freezes. You come back to your senses only after he’s done. He doesn’t just talk—he hypnotizes.
Even when it stings, he eventually finds a way to mend things. He knows when to compromise. He believes in take what you want if you can give me what I want. It’s not greed. It’s fair play.
And to be clear—this is not a comparison with other leaders. Many African presidents have done incredible work and transformed their countries.
There is a generation of leaders on this continent doing the hard work of reform, resilience, and restoration. Africa is not stagnant—it is changing for the better. This is simply a look into one unique leader of our generation.
It took him years to understand the world’s cruel undercurrent—that interests drive everything. Not justice. Not truth. But when he finally figured that out, he didn’t lose himself. He recalibrated. And he kept his tempo: discipline, integrity, humility.
His leadership may not be soft. But even his harshest critics admit: he gets things done. And for Africa’s leaders, it’s a rhythm that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
That’s why Kagame’s tempo is not just political—it’s hypnotic.
The Author is the Chief Editor and publisher of Taarifa Rwanda.