Rwanda

“Yes I answer questions from followers....!” Rwandan president Paul Kagame is the second most conversational world leader on Twitter. 93% of all his tweets are @replies to his followers and anyone who wants to discuss African issues with him. He tweets personally from his BlackBerry and sometimes loses his temper when he feels the discussion is futile and a waste of time. In May 2010 he got into a very public Twitter spat with UK journalist Ian Birrell who had called him “despotic and deluded”. “You have no basis for your comments and you don’t know what you are talking about.” Kagame shot back. He consistently thanks his followers for their comments and praise, which has become the most prominent word in his Twitter stream. Paul Kagame is a shining example of the best use of Twitter to connect directly with his audience, however there is one major drawback: @PaulKagame doesn’t follow any other Twitter user, not even the 13 presidents and prime minister that follow him.

@Urugwirovillage is the institutional Twitter account of the Rwandan presidency, named after the village where the official residence is located. The account is largely dedicated to the daily activities of President Paul Kagame who is mentioned in a quarter of all their tweets. The account is dedicated to live tweeting quotes from his speeches and press conferences. The account is conversational with 29% of tweet being @replies including 560 @replies when quoting president Kagame, a common mistake since those tweets will only be seen by Twitter users who follow both @UrugwiroVillage and @PaulKagame. The account started to tweet in Kinyarwanda, the local language during a presidential rally in front of 25,000 people in Muramba, Ngororero District, Rwanda’s Western Province in February 2012.

The Rwandan government’s Twitter account is characterized by an over use of hashtags. Almost every tweet contains a hashtag with #rwanda being used in a third of all its tweets. Over 14% of its tweets are retweets, mainly tweets from the presidential administration @UrugwiroVillage which has been retweeted 296 times. The Rwandan government is connected on Twitter with neighbouring Burundi (@BurundiGov) but has so far shown the cold shoulder to Mali (@Presidencemali) and Egypt (@egyptgovportal) who are following the government in Kigali.