Nineteen African heads of state were present at the ceremony which took place in front of a packed crowd in the national stadium in Kigali, entertained by a military parade and drummers.
The 59-year-old Kagame, who was re-elected with nearly 99% of the vote, took a swipe at critics who regularly highlight repression and the lack of freedoms in the tiny east African nation.
“Every African country has to contend with efforts to force us to live on someone else’s terms,” he said. “They demand we replace systems that are working well for us with dogmas in which their own people are rapidly losing faith.”
“Every attempt that was made from within and especially from outside to denigrate the process and glorify the old politics of division, only made Rwandans more defiant and more determined to express ourselves through the vote,” Kagame said.
“Our experience is that we will be vilified anyway no matter what. So we might as well do what we know is right for our people,” he said.
Later Kagame led the crowd in singing There is no fight that scares me, a gospel song turned into a political chant.
Among those attending the ceremony was Sudanese President Omar El Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide crimes committed against humanity.
Rwanda is however not a signatory to the ICC and is not obliged to enforce Bashir’s arrest.
Notable absentees included Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who have endured a frosty relationship with Kagame – who appeared to reach out to his adversaries both at home and abroad.
“Today, Rwanda defines no one as an enemy, whether domestic or foreign. Every Rwandan has a country and with every other country, we seek partnership and co-operation,” Kagame said.
Kagame won the August 4 election with 98.79% of votes against two little-known candidates.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement yesterday that the victory followed a campaign in which Rwandans were forced to donate money to the ruling party and blocked from attending opposition rallies.
“Kagame’s landslide win came as no surprise in a context in which Rwandans who have dared raise their voices or challenge the status quo have been arrested, forcibly disappeared, or killed, independent media have been muzzled, and intimidation has silenced groups working on civil rights or free speech,” said Ida Sawyer, HRW’s Central Africa director.
One voter, from Rutsiro in western Rwanda, told HRW that he had been forced to vote in front of an election official.
“It was easy to see who I was voting for on the ballot, so it was impossible for me to vote for anyone besides Kagame,” he was quoted as saying.
After the election, the US said it was “disturbed by irregularities” observed during voting.
Kagame has ruled Rwanda with an iron fist since 2000 and will now be president until 2024, at which time he could seek two additional five-year terms.
He was not meant to stand again but Rwanda’s constitution was changed in 2015 to allow him extend his rule over the country of 12mn people.
The 59-year-old former guerrilla leader has won praise from the international community for presiding over a peaceful transition from the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
Since then, Rwanda has worked hard to encourage international investment and crack down on corruption.
Foreign direct investment rose to $323mn in 2015, up from $40mn in 2005, according to the World Bank.
