Strictly Personal

‘Slow burner’ Tanzania is at it again, but she needs to learn to make more noise, By Charles Onyango-Obbo

Published

3 months ago

July 3, 2024

Tanzania has been up to its tricks again. The Minister of Livestock and Fisheries Abdallah Ulega said Monday that the country’s meat exports have risen dramatically, jumping from 1,774.3 tonnes in 2022 to 14,701.2 tonnes in 2023.

That is a growth of a head-turning 729 per cent, the type that blows socks off. He attributed the growth, not surprisingly, to “the government’s efforts to revitalise the livestock sector,” including a substantial increase in budget allocation for the sector.

That budget allocation, he said, rose from Tsh32.1 billion ($12.2 million) in the 2021/2022 fiscal year to Tsh112 billion ($42.6 million) in the 2023/2024 fiscal year.

You can’t scoff; that is a 249.18 percent increase. It is not often that African governments increase spending at that level in productive sectors. They do so for MPs to buy cars and travel abroad, for State House so the president can feed his patronage machine, or for dubious “classified expenditure,” not livestock or beef.

Of course, the Tanzania government doesn’t own cattle in any significant number, so the beef is ultimately the product of farmers’ enterprise. These farmers have given Tanzania 36.6 million head of cattle, the second-largest cattle population in Africa, after Ethiopia.

This news will be surprising to many people outside Tanzania. Few would associate Tanzania with leadership in anything to do with cattle or beef. We never hear noises and see photographs of long-horned Ankole cattle or read claims about how Tanzanian beef is the meat of the gods. Tanzanians don’t even seem to know how to polish cattle horns, adorn them with beads, or compose cow poetry. Or so it would seem.

But they know their cattle. They just don’t make noise about it. In East Africa, this is known as the “silent Tanzanian approach,” and the country is dabbed the “slow burner”. The only Tanzanian we know in the rest of the world who brags about his wealth and gifts is the phenomenally successful musician and dancer Diamond Platnumz, easily East Africa’s most blinged artiste.

Tanzanian Mohammed Dewji is a dollar billionaire and one of the wealthiest people in Africa. He is the youngest, wealthiest person on the continent. Although he is handsome too, he does not flood the media with stories of his fortunes and expensive lifestyle. In fact, a few years ago, some goons — or even possibly shadowy state operatives — kidnapped him, and days later released him in a maize garden or something like that. Shameless lack of respect for money.

I can count on my hands the countries in this fair world where Dewji would own the president, and the army and police chiefs. And, in many places, he would be the last thing you see before you go to bed and the first thing you see when you wake up.

Tanzania recently launched East Africa’s first electric train running on a standard gauge railway. After a few mentions in the media, that the project is underway.

Elsewhere, it would have been after 10 years of daily bragging, and by the time it comes to reality, it would have been mentioned 10,000 times. The launch event would be loud; with drums, dancers, the police band, and the president would show up to cut the tape with 100 hangers-on in tow. He would declare that the train is part of the country’s unstoppable journey to be one of the world’s top 10 economies in five years.

We leave it to Tanzanians to explain to us what kind of madness this is; being shy to proclaim your small, medium, and big achievements from the top of Mountain Kilimanjaro. They are wasting the highest mountain in Africa, leaving it mostly to foreigners to climb. Kinjikitile “Bokero” Ngwale, that great man who led the Maji Maji Rebellion against colonial rule in German East Africa (present-day Tanzania) must be writhing in his grave.

We are being jocular here. More seriously, slow-burner Tanzania represents a distinct tradition in the East African narrative of development. It shines a light on how local politics and geopolitics shape how people speak about progress.

A part of it goes back to founding Father Julius Nyerere, a modest and studious man who lived an embarrassingly simple life. Nyerere would today be too unglamorous to be a State House gardener in a couple of African presidential palaces. His ways, though, rubbed off strongly on political culture. Some years ago in London, I went to an event where President Ben Mkapa was speaking.

He mingled with the rest of us hoi polloi during the coffee break. I went over to where a couple of people were talking to him, his security standing off in the distance. There he was standing, talking away, with what must have been his favourite beaten briefcase, clasped between his legs.

It would seem that the slow-burner thing is also what happens when a long-ruling party like CCM derives its legitimacy not primarily from providing bread and butter, but more philosophical and intangible goods like “unity,” creating a “tribeless society” and being an African liberation vanguard.

Geopolitics also influences whether one will proclaim from the rooftop or not. Countries which exist in a hostile international environment, where foreign forces assail the state’s or government’s legitimacy and record on the global stage, need a megaphone to shout back their defence, and to display their record on a high billboard.

Tanzania hardly has enemies these days. It doesn’t have to make noise.

Many African countries could use such good fortune.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3

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Strictly Personal

Tanzania, we need to talk, By Othman Masoud Othman

Published

23 hours ago

October 4, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The ACT-Wazalendo party has been closely following and monitoring political events in the United Republic of Tanzania which, if not attended to urgently, might lead our country into an abyss.

In the six years of the presidency of John Pombe Magufuli, the country suffered a lot. There were claims of narrowing of the democratic space, the right to assemble and the right to free speech.

After the death of President Magufuli and Samia Suluhu Hassan assumed power, there was a sign of hope. The public optimistically welcomed the 4Rs (Reconciliation, Rebuild, Reforms, Reunite). Several positive measures were taken, including the formation of a special task force, which involved members from political parties, academic institutions, the private sector, and civil society. The team came up with many measures to be undertaken: Reform of political parties and elections laws, and the enacting of a new constitution. The President went further to investigate the problems around the criminal justice system and how to solve them.

It is one year to the next general election expected in October 2025, but there is a lot of pessimism, as not enough measures have been taken as promised. Even though the Elections Act was reviewed and the Electoral Commission renamed the Independent Electoral Commission, there is a lot to be done, including writing a new constitution and implementing the proposed reforms to the criminal justice system.

recently, there have been cases of abductions and disappearances of some activists and politicians. The situation got tense after a leader of Chadema, Ali Mohamed Kibao, was abducted and later found dead. Chadema accused the government security forces of these events and called for independent investigations. President Samia also condemned the abductions and ordered investigations.

Chadema also called for peaceful protests, demanding accountability and the police banned the demonstrations.

These happenings are a sign of uncertainty towards the general election, starting with the civic elections expected next month.

We urge the Chadema to reconsider demonstrations in the country. Human rights abuses are not just morally wrong, they are short-sighted. Human rights are a sound investment. They build resilient and prosperous communities and strong institutions based on the rule of law.

We, as a party, believe that our country has people full of wisdom and religious leaders who can guide our country back to the right track.

We urge all sides of the political divide to cool down. We believe that all players have reasonable demands and the failure to listen to each other has led us where we are as a country.

We urge the government to quickly initiate dialogue involving political leaders, the police, religious leaders and other stakeholders in order to bring sanity back to our country.

Our party leaders are engaging in talks between the government and other political parties to find solutions. We urge all the citizens of Tanzania to be united on this to build a better future. we believe that this is the time to talk.

Othman Masoud Othman is the First Vice President of Zanzibar and National Chairperson, of ACT-Wazalendo.

Strictly Personal

Symptoms of a rotten state are all around us, By Tee Ngugi

Published

1 week ago

September 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In 2015, an MP was shot in Nairobi in the wee hours of the night. As investigators scrambled to find the killers, members of the Parliamentary Committee on Security, which had approved a multimillion-shilling project to install security cameras in Nairobi, were asked whether the cameras worked.

It was hoped that a camera nearby would have captured the shooting. Their answer summarises what ails Kenya. They said they didn’t know. That admission was staggering.

But what went beyond staggering and entered the realm of absurdity, was that the committee members, including the chairman, continued to serve in the committee.

Let’s pause here for a moment. You commit millions of shillings to a project, and you don’t even bother to check whether it functions as per the terms of reference.

Surely, if the security cameras had been installed in the members’ private homes, they would have checked and rechecked their functionality every day.

First, because they would want the best possible security for themselves and their families. Second, because the money spent on the installation would be theirs. But they couldn’t care less whether the cameras installed in Nairobi worked or not.

What did they care about public safety and public money?

This attitude of officials neglecting their duties and continuing to hold on to their positions is at the heart of what ails Kenya. We are confronted by the deadly symptoms of this illness daily.

Illegal dams will burst their walls and kill tens of people, yet the officials who approved their construction and the minister under whose docket regulation of dams falls, keep their jobs.

Shoddily constructed buildings will collapse and kill tens of people, yet inspectorate and regulatory officials in the relevant ministry will continue drawing exorbitant salaries.

Of course, the minister and his officials will leave a lavish lunch or dinner at a luxurious hotel, rush to the accident site and offer tired platitudes, and prayers for the victims, before waddling to their petrol guzzlers to be ferried back to their hotels to finish their feast.

That will be the end of that matter until the next building claims other lives.

Every year, thousands of people die in car accidents because of poor roads, defective vehicles and police failure to enforce traffic rules.

In March this year, we lost 11 university students in a road accident. Neither the transport officials nor the minister in charge resigned.

The other week, 21 pupils of Hillside Endarasha Academy died in a dormitory inferno. Officials from the ministry’s inspectorate division have not resigned. The minister continues to enjoy largesse at the expense of the taxpayer.

These are just a few examples of neglect and impunity. The Gen- Z revolution called for the complete overhaul of the Kenyan state.

The overhaul cannot be done by the corrupt Kanu oligarchy that has ruled Kenya since 1963. We need new leadership to avert total state failure.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator