President Kagame Pays Tribute to Kosiya Kyamuhangire

President Paul Kagame honoured late Kosiya Kyamuhangire a pioneer of East Africa Revival Movement (EARM).

Kyamuhangire reportedly died of meningitis during an Anglican missionary convention in 1952 at Gahini, Kayonza District in the eastern Province of Rwanda.

President Kagame noted that “Today, on both sides of the border, we are united in honouring him and what he stood for. We, in Rwanda, particularly feel greatly honoured that Gahini, was found fitting to be his final resting place”.

The President and his wife Jeannette Kagame laid a wreath and unveiled a tombstone in honour of the late Kyamuhangire.

“The Christian revival that Kyamuhangire’s contemporaries spread across East Africa was in many ways the first real regional movement and places them among the first true East Africans. Their work personified our current EAC motto: “One people, one destiny” long before the organisation even existed,” the President observed.

“It reminds us that for centuries we lived as one and that the border that divide us is not only artificial and superficial, but with increased integration, should in a sense become irrelevant.

“And as we know, Late Kyamuhangire’s generation were not hostages of this border. They had a vision of the people of Rwanda and Uganda living as a family, feeling genuinely at home on both sides of the border because they sincerely believed that we shared a common destiny,” Kagame explained.

The late Kyamuhangire born 1914 was the father to Uganda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sam Kutesa. Kutesa was only four years when his father passed away.

Kutesa remarked, “The peace and stability that the Rwanda Patriotic Front government has brought to this country is what has enabled us to come and join our brothers and sisters in Rwanda that to honour my father 60 years after his death.”

“It was not possible to do so before the advent of the RPF government in Rwanda. I also want to Thank God for the excellent and brotherly relations that exist between our two countries Uganda and Rwanda,” Kutesa said adding that he his father had commitment and passion for spiritual revival.

Also the wife of Kyamuhangire late Elisabeth Kyozaire, William Nagenda and his wife, Rev. Musajaakawa, Yoweli Rutamwebwa, Abaishemwe, Mishakye Kikundo, Thomas Kabaho, Zabroni Rutafa Elimiya Kagyendagura, and Yeremiya Kagyendagura and others were honoured at the memorial event.

The function was attended by senior Rwandan and Ugandan politicians.