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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Makwaia Wa Kuhenga
2 June 2011
opinion
The above heading may sound a little alarmist. But given the indecision of the powers that be at the helm of Tanzanias ruling party and their failure to take prompt action on powerful moneyed individuals within its ranks who, in the words of the party chairman, have put it public disrepute, could as well lead to the making of warlords here, Somalia style.
There is a real prospect the country may be plunged into instability. This hypothesis may sound far fetched. But the neo-liberal setting of this country today where, unlike before, money speaks, what is not possible? The problem with most of us is that we are naïve. We take the stability of this country for granted!
Founder President, Dr Julius Nyerere, once warned that Tanzanians should not deceive themselves. They are as fragile as any other country in the developing world as fragile as Somalia. Whoever thought that Somalia could disintegrate in the way it has when its people belonged to one ethnic group, one religion spoke one language?
The admonition of the founding father of this nation was that Tanzanians should seriously tend their land in the same manner a serious farmer tends on his farm or garden. He has to water it in the absence of rains and remove the weeds if he wants to be sure of any harvest.
Unlike before, Tanzania today is run without a national ideology. Whereas before people were mobilised under the Socialist ideology, money appears to be this countrys ideology today!
The ruling party of the old good days had a modus operandi and a code of ethics that were strictly adhered to.
In those days, being moneyed was an immediate disqualification for anyone vying for a leadership position in the party or government the same way it is inconceivable for a Pope to marry!
But today, everything in the ruling party is up for on sale including party membership cards! Someone aspiring for a political office simply tells his supporters not to worry because he would buy them party membership cards to be produced on demand in the primaries!
You see; if this is the situation, how did the Central Committee of this party, CCM, move to serve notice to a number of individuals in its rank and file who are already warmed up high above in the top echelons of the party and believed to be filthily rich that they should voluntarily purge themselves in three months time? Is that going to happen?
What will, for instance, prevent an alleged culprits from drawing one million US dollars from his/her overseas account and throw the money around to grease the hands of all members of the partys National Executive Committee to turn the tide against the chairman himself?
We all have been reading all sorts of stories in the tabloids, written in such a manner which illustrates that the alleged lootocracy club has not been up to their mischief alone!
One does need to be an accomplished political scientist or astrologer to foretell what could befall this country sooner rather than later!
If recent history is anything to go by in the lifespan of this party, quite difficult and dramatic decisions had taken course when it came to threats, for instance, to do with national unity or wrecking the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
This same party obliged a leader, quite a strong one for that matter, to relinquish his position when it became obvious to then that he was bent on wrecking the Union.
A livid Mwalimu Nyerere, then Chairman of the ruling party, told one prominent national leader: I cannot work with you You have to go! That was it! He was obliged to sign the resignation letter.
The plane was there, a presidential one of course, and flew the man, not to Zanzibar, but to Kigambonis Mji Mwema in Dar es Salaam! He is still cooling his heels up until now! Tanzania survived and we just marked 47 years of the Union last week!
But what is happening to the alleged spoilers of the good rapport [haiba] of the ruling party? They are expected to relinquish membership of the party on their own volition! The question is: Since when have doctors anywhere ever postponed an operation considered mandatory for the life of a given patient?
To come back to my earlier point: Tanzanian leaders should never deceive themselves of the prevailing peace and stability because ours is as fragile as any other country in Africa.
We could also easily have warlords here, untouchables in their own ways, and drag this country to grief. Surely, such scenario does not, and cannot augur well for the continued peace and stability of this country, does it?
Makwaia wa Kuhenga is a senior Tanzanian Journalist and author.
