GPS is a new technology. Just over two decades ago ships navigated on the high seas using stars. My father was a Navigant. He’d been regional best in maths and physics, so Mobutu paid his astronomy and maritime Science. Predictably, Mobutu’s fleet had gone bankrupt by the time he graduated, he spent his young adulthood aboard Belgian supertankers navigating away across the Atlantic. I hardly ever saw him, and although he hasn’t come clean, I’m sure I have half-cast brothers and sisters spread on the four corners of the globe.
When we returned to Rwanda his carrier didn’t seem to impress anyone. Between canoeing up and downstream Nyabarongo river and sailing a fishing boat across Lake Kivu, there wasn’t much my father could do. He was about my age now when he took evening classes in law and today, he is a children’s lawyer in the UN contemplating retirement. He isn’t proud or disappointed; that’s just the cards life dealt him!
This week I was admitted into the ALU MBA program. Until two months or so ago, I was preoccupied with a PhD in Political Science. I never thought I would ever do an MBA. This decision is a critical shift in my carrier. Fifteen years later, I reckon I’ve done my bit on agitating Kigali, and time may have come to offer something new.
I am thrilled to start the MBA in July, if my father could reinvent himself, so too can I; it is called ‘strategic obsolescence’. The Che Guevara beret is available for any young person who needs it. This outfit you see here: it is my new outfit. It is the outfit I was wearing when I found out that my blog wasn’t needed anymore; It is the outfit I am wearing to attend a dinner at a five star hotel, learn and pitch business ideas; Both things I wouldn’t usually do.
From now on, please talk to me about business: STRICTLY BUSINESS. As a human rights lawyer I was privileged to contribute to policies that would change lives of thousands of Rwandans. My goal now, is to start a business that will employ as many people.
As I wrote in my application, every bit of education I get, I’ll never keep to my self – it must benefit my country, my continent or it would be a waste of time.
So to the public servants and elites of all kinds who felt offended by my blog, it was nothing personal; I was just a trained human rights lawyer, trying to demand the best from his government and elite. The reason I used witty language against you, is because I knew that ‘undressing the king empowers the subjects’ (demystifying elites keeps them to the ground to serve the people). Had I been overly ambitious, I would have said things differently, I wasn’t. Now I have no demands, I have no views; all that’s coming are business ideas!
In all his astronomic and navigation studies, only one thing still serve my father today; the only lesson I basically learned from him. Here it goes: ‘It is good to know where you are coming from or where you are going, but it is most important to know where you are located at present’ – he should know: He was the human GPS on his ship in high, troubled seas…
