AfricaPress-Tanzania: POLITICS is supposed to be a noble vocation. Those engaged in political activities are supposed to be driven by the patriotic imperative of serving their compatriots.
To drive the point forcefully home, we should rewind our memories to the pre-independence era, the spotlight, naturally focusing on the likes of the late Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who is fondly venerated .
He was one of the then Tanganyikans (and subsequent Tanzanians) who were privileged to acquire advanced academic education at Uganda’s highly famed Makerere University in Uganda and Scotland’s Edinburgh.
Had he been of a person trivial outlook, he would assumed airs, by perceiving himself as a special person and undermine those who hadn’t acquired high academic advancement. On the contrary, though, he remained a humble person.
He could have manipulated his academic credentials to make a fortune, in addition to manipulating his high academic achievements to undermine his several compatriots who hadn’t had a chance to make much headway on the academic front.
He chose, instead, to invest his broadened world outlook to champion the independence cause of his beloved country – the then Tanganyika, which subsequently became part of the broadened Tanzanian nation upon its union with Zanzibar in 1964.
All along, as president and in retirement, he remained an icon who earned global fame as a very prominent statesman, whose death in 1999 triggered tremendous sadness at home and in much of the rest of the world.
He was truly a standard bearer, against whom those aspiring to become leaders in future should be assessed. The current national leader, Dr John Pombe Magufuli, has won much praise, to the extent of being saluted as truly walking in Mwalimu Nyerere’s footsteps.
Come multi-party politics, which is essentially positive as it broadens the space for political competition, there are elements within the system that are woefully off the mark.
They are perceiving the system as a licence for disrespecting the government in power and its leaders. Plus, shamelessly twisting the truth to imply that the government is a non-achiever, even though the glaring evidence points to the contrary.
Wananchi, though, are, by and large, a perceptive mass who can tell which party is serving their collective interests and which touts itself as a champion of promoting democratic ideals, is in reality an outfit for serving the interests of a tiny, dictatorial, self-serving clique.
