The Kigali lesson Nairobi ignores

I visited Kigali last week after a four-year hiatus. Even then, Rwandan citizens didn’t queue at an immigration line at the arrivals hall at the airport. Absolutely never. Rwandan citizens breezed through e-gates: automated unmanned gates where you scan your passport on a machine and sail on to a peaceful arrivals terminal. They still do that today.

No ignominious fighting with Westerners standing unashamedly in the “Kenyans Only” queue after you arrive from their country that treated you like unwanted vermin at their Western immigration hall. (And the worst part is that the Kenyan immigration officer will still go ahead and serve them without batting an eyelid. It happens more often than I care to say.)