Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong has revealed his most admired leader on the African continent.
“Rwanda,” he responded when asked who was his favourite African president outside Ghana, adding that Ghanaians should expect the discipline style of leadership President Paul Kagame was dispensing in the tiny East African country.
“That is the kind of leadership Ghanaians should expect. The Kagame leadership. Discipline,” he stressed.
Reminded about the sometimes brutal consequence of dissent in Rwanda, Agyapong responded: “Well, too bad. If this is what it will take to change Ghanaians.”
Pushed about the poor human rights record of Kagame, Agyapong mounted another defense: “The same person who says he abuses human rights, immediately he leaves the scene then he is proud to say that he is from Rwanda…”
Agyapong is a presidential hopeful for the upcoming presidential primaries for the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He was speaking a wide-ranging interview on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana programme on January 31.
Paul Kagame has been president of Rwanda since 2000, serving his constitutional term before changing the rules via a controversial referendum to allow him run for a third term in 2017. His current term expires in 2024.
Rwanda has routinely been hailed as a model country that rose from the ashes of the 1994 genocide to rebuild what was a fractured society.
Critics have identified the progress and development as a façade to hide the brutal clampdown on dissent be it by political opponents, human rights activists and journalists.
