Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hailed President Uhuru Kenyatta's student mentorship programme
.
The PM visited the students where he fielded questions on leadership and his views being one of Africa’s youngest leaders.
The Ethiopian leader, who was on a state visit to Kenya, and his host Uhuru dropped in at the students' residence without prior notice.
Uhuru and Abiy had finished a bilateral meeting before they budged into the building hosting the Pupils Reward Scheme (PURES) beneficiaries.
The two leaders fielded questions on leadership from the 54 students who are form ones from various national schools within the country.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister and President Kenyatta called on the youth to be patriotic and work hard to rise to leadership positions in future.
PM Abiy said the mentorship programme is a noble idea that deserves to be emulated by other African leaders.
"What my brother is doing here is amazing. I like this initiative. Nobody is doing it in Africa, you guys are lucky," the visiting leader said.
Asked about challenges he is facing as one of the youngest leaders in Africa, the Ethiopian Prime Minister said, both the current and past leaders have to work together to achieve the desired development for their respective nations.
"To build a house, if someone builds a foundation, the next person must add another block so as to see the house finished. So in Africa, we have to connect both yesterday,
today and
tomorrow
so as to realise this vision," Abiy said.
He
commended Uhuru for coming up with the PURES programme saying it would go along way to develop leaders who would mature and continue with the good work of building a strong nation.
The PM observed that Africa has faced a myriad of challenges due to lack of mentoring leaders who would continue with the vision the founding fathers had.
"If existing leaders are giving help to the next generation, an emerging Africa will continue. The problem we have in Africa is all existing leaders do not appreciate those who are exiting, that means history, and they also don’t want to invest on emerging generation like you," he said.
He said current leaders need to invest in mentorship programmes which would be used to raise competent leaders to carry on with the vision of integrating Africa.
"Our dear brother is doing an amazing job. He is investing in you. I hope we will have many leaders out of this group and through practising, learning about
tomorrow
and visioning about
tomorrow’s
generation. Also thinking about
yesterday
and what our fathers did through this process, Africa will realize the great vision through integration and grow like other continents," Abiy told the students.
Asked what else he would do apart from being the Prime Minister, Abiy said he would be a university lecturer where he would impart knowledge to the youth.
Uhuru, for his part, challenged the students to work hard and achieve the best in whatever field they might be involved in, saying that is part of nation building.
"Whatever you
do, do your best. Whatever you become,
make the best out of it. Be it you want to become President, Prime Minister, engineer or teacher, just be the best," he said.
Uhuru and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta launched the PURES programme, which is under the presidency, in early 2015.
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