Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) – Tanzanians were on public holiday Tuesday to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the passing of the East African nation’s founding father, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.
Since 1999 when Nyerere died aged 77 at Saint Thomas Hospital in London, the government added October 14, to its list of public holidays to honour the statesman whose ideas and values have become a legacy that many Tanzanians cherish to date.
According to The Citizen daily, the values Nyerere stood for “live on, at least among the patriotic and conscientious among us who aren’t swayed by greed, corruption and lust for power.”
In its editorial Tuesday, the paper said: “No one would say Mwalimu was an angel. He was very much human like the rest of us. He had his omissions and commissions that could have hurt some in his capacity as a leader or simply, as an individual.”
“However, when measured by his stand, his visionary leadership and expression of his people’s aspirations, his role in the liberation of Africa, his pluses far exceed his minuses. He will for ever be remembered for his country’s industrial development drive. He wanted to lead a country that consumed what it produced.”
Popularly known by Tanzanians as Nyerere Day, the commemoration has since 2000 been marked with the climax of a nationwide Uhuru (Independence) Torch race that covers every district on Tanzania Mainland and in the offshore Zanzibar Islands.
This year’s race started on May 2, and President Jakaya Kikwete received the Torch at a mass rally held in the municipal stadium of Tabora in central western Tanzania.
Tanzania’s Uhuru Torch was first lit at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on 9 Dec. 1961 to mark the country’s independence from colonial rule.
In 1964, Nyerere introduced the annual race in which a group of selected youths carry the torch around the country as a national symbol that shines the country and beyond its borders to bring hope where there is despair, love instead of enmity and human respect where there is contempt.
Reflecting on Nyerere’s leadership with nostalgia, The Citizen said Tanzania as a country that once stood as a model of unity and tolerance is now threatened by religious divisions, tribalism and political opportunism.
By the time Nyerere left office in 1985, the daily recalled that there were hundreds of industries countrywide. But today, it lamented: “What a pity these [industries] were sold for a song to the so-called investors in the privatisation frenzy of the 1990s.”
The paper painted a gloomy picture of what Nyerere dreamt of Tanzania as an export oriented economy that created jobs for its young people.
“Today, who doesn’t get disappointed while looking back at what were once public enterprises? A country that was at one time producing its own wheelbarrows, bicycles, farming implements, textiles—you name it— is now gross importer of everything!”
“A nation that was renowned for its product of legal experts, historians and political scientists is now burdened with hundreds of thousands of graduates who are ill-equipped to compete at both the local and the international labour market,” the paper observed.
On the political side, The Citizen pointed out that within the party he founded, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), leadership is available to the highest bidders – those with the financial clout to woo and feed voters.
“The crooked are renaming corruption to give it an adorable face while using political positions to amass wealth,” the paper charged.
Another private daily, The Guardian, reported that political analysts and members of the public consider Nyerere as the future of Tanzania and not the past, and that people should not celebrate his legacy without implementing his principles.
Prof Issa Shivji said Tanzanians must revisit fundamentals that Mwalimu stood for, especially in laying out a long-term vision for the country and its position in the continent.
“Like Mwalimu, the vision should consider the most underserved communities and the poor majority… this is what Mwalimu would have wanted,” Shivji said.
According to Dr. Benson Bana, a political analyst at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania still needs Mwalimu’s ideas and the nation shouldn’t perceive his thoughts as outdated.
He warned that nepotism, ethnicity and tribalism are against nationality and solidarity principles which were pioneered by the founding Father of the Nation.
Meanwhile, President Kikwete told the rally at Tabora that the outstanding legacy Nyerere bequeathed to his people is the country known as United Republic of Tanzania.
He urged his compatriots to promote and defend national unity, to work hard for their own development and fight all ills that can weaken the nation.
“This is not the day to mourn the passing of Nyerere but to celebrate the life of the beloved founder of this nation. He did a lot of good for our country and for Africa. We must cherish his deeds,” Kikwete said.
