Kigali, 23 August 2012
President Kagame today received the 2011 and 2012 CECAFA Kagame Champions, Yanga Africans Sports Club of Tanzania, who are on tour in the country for a week. The players are accompanied by a delegation comprising the entire executive committee of the club, who included Mama Fatma Karume, former First Lady of Zanzibar. The club presented the President Kagame with the Kagame Cup Champions trophy they won in Dar Es Salaam late last month, and a Yanga Africans Jersey with his names.
While interacting with the Yanga Sports Club delegation, President Kagame commended the club for their hard work and commitment which he said enabled them to be champions for two years running:
“It’s of special significance that you thought of coming to Rwanda to show us the trophy you won even though you were under no obligation to do so. We took the decision to support CECAFA with prize money not because we are the richest of nations. We did this as a symbol of unity and made sure that this gesture will continue even when I am not President. We want this support to continue even if the tournament is named after someone else.”
Responding to Mama Fatma Karume’s request that he should reveal to his East African counterparts the secret he used to transform Rwanda into a clean and orderly nation in such a short time, President Kagame said the secret likes in the fact that Rwanda sunk so deep down that the only further they could go was not down any more, but upwards again.
“What we went through has made us want to be better people every passing day. We are open to sharing our experiences with our brothers because we believe that we are all related in many ways and what Mama Karume said about her mother in-law telling her she was of Rwandan origin is evidence of this. Our forefathers wanted us from the beginning to be one and one way of fostering our oneness is through sports.”
Yusuf Manji, the Yanga Sports Club Chairman thanked President Kagame for supporting sports in the region and announced that the club management was donating 20.000 USD to the Kagame Cup sponsorship envelope in his recognition.