Pierre Nkurunziza had only a few weeks to go as president of Burundi, before handing over power to his recently elected successor, Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Coming to power in 2005 after a bitter civil war that raged from 1993 in which it is estimated up to 300,000 people were killed, Nkurunziza had his work cut out for him.
But, as post-conflict Uganda and Rwanda show, there is also great opportunity in the rubble of war, because it provides imaginative leaders a lot of opportunity to build new things.
Nkurunziza did calm Burundi, treading the delicate balance between Hutu and Tutsi factions on which a peace settlement had been built, but he soon slipped, with Burundi becoming the most corrupt country in East Africa.
Yet, in the end, Nkurunziza became the first guerrilla leader president, who threw in the towel after 15 years, and didn’t fight to serve out a presidency for life.
