Africa-Press – Uganda. Thursday morning was a sad day for every pan-Africanist and believer in the East African cause, for we lost one of Africa’s gallants sons, president J. Pombe Magufuli. Nicknamed ‘the bulldozer’, president Magufuli was a man of action and candidness.
In his quest to uproot unqualified, corrupt, or lazy civil servants, Magufuli famously said, “The way to treat a boil is to squeeze it out, and I have made it my responsibility to do that. I know squeezing out a boil hurts, but unfortunately, there are no two ways about it.” That was the candid side of it.
The action aspect was him sacking about 10,000 civil servants for having fake education certificates. As far as he was concerned, they were robbers just like other common criminals. This writer couldn’t agree more.
Perhaps, his most admirable attribute was the courage to think independently and forge his own path. In the end, it turned out to be both a gift and a curse.
When Covid-19 struck, Magufuli understood that Covid-19 was just another cause of death among many. Its importance had to be contextualised, for threats to life come in many other non-Covid-related forms. In Africa, most of those threats are economic-capacity related.
Given our humble economies, we can’t afford to invest a lot to save a few lives. So before copy and pasting solutions from abroad, we must consider our local context. On that, we agreed.
Where we disagreed was his total disregard of the science. Giving the condition a low threat level was understandable, especially when it became clear that Covid-19 primarily impacted the elderly yet sub-Saharan Africa mostly has young populations.
However, to completely deny the presence of Covid-19 was disastrous for the at-risk populations, such as people aged 50 years or more, a category he incidentally belonged to.
A more appropriate approach would have been to keep the economy open as he did while maintaining protective measures for older people and those with co-morbidities.
However, his independent thinking and willingness to act on his convictions, which had served him so well, ultimately became his undoing.
The sad bit is he was just 61 years old and had a lot more to offer. But as one of the good books tells us, “We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.”
The fact that we are mostly an oral-tradition society means that such great men rarely leave behind written works to help preserve their consciousness for future generations. As a result, we tend to move in circles, generation after generation, each generation’s wealth of wisdom is lost with every physical death.
This then creates the false but widely believed assumption that these lands are devoid of wise men and women. So, may the death of this gallant son of Africa inspire the remaining patriots to richly document their perspectives and insights on Africa’s struggle, sooner rather than later. They owe it to posterity.
Of course, many postpone this duty to future generations due to their busy schedules. Fortunately, they do not have to write these works independently.
They can collaborate with writers just as Rtd Col Kizza Besigye did with Daniel Kalinaki. Better yet, they can collaborate with documentarians to cater to those who prefer not to read.
To rais John Pompe Magufuli, asante sana. May your soul rest in eternal peace.
Mr Kibudde is a socio-political [email protected] Twitter: @kkaboggoza
