Here goes another nostalgic musing of days gone by, when intense intellectual exchanges would take place long-distance across the African continent without losing their immediacy and urgency.
At times these were traded in soft and gentle blows like rose petals lovingly blown this and that way, mostly in good part.
Once, for instance, Wole Soyinka declared that “a tiger does not proclaim his tigritude; he pounces (on his prey)”. Wole was then referring to the philosophy of Negritude, which had come into vogue through contributions by such luminaries as Leopold Sedar Senghor, Aime Cesare, and Okot p’ Bitek.
The implied criticism was of people proclaiming themselves as heirs to a certain consciousness of being Negroes, or more politely, African, instead of just going about doing their thing that would set them apart and distinguish them as heirs of “Africanity” with those vaunted qualities of empathy, hospitality and humaneness.
Pouncing big time.
It is about Wole that I am moved this week in this space. Also, it is about a local tiger — rather a tigress — that is not too eager to proclaim her tigritude, but is doing the pouncing big time.
In Tanzania, President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been doing a demolition job on Magufuli’s legacy without proclaiming that she is doing anything other than trying to run the country the way civilised countries are run. And she is winning plaudits for her efforts as more and more people are increasingly exposed to the evils of the Magufuli years.
Most dramatically, recently she opened up spaces for political parties to carry out their political activities openly, something that Magufuli had ostensibly banned without any legal basis.
Ganning political activities
I say, ostensibly because legally no one can ban political activities in this country whose constitution — obsolete as it is in other aspects — allows so categorically.
But that has been our plight — that despite the constitutional and legal provisions in place, a maverick politician managed to rule over this country much as a military dictator does, like, say, what Iddi Amin Dada did in Uganda in the 1970s.
The ban on political activity has been lifted by Samia and, in this sense, there is a return to normalcy. Even the police are apparently learning something new: That there can be opposition rallies without teargas!
And now the bombshell. Recently, Samia shared with us another insight into the nefarious activities of the Magufuli years. The departed president had mobilised a whole battery of unscrupulous lawyers and police officers to impose an extortionary regime on judicial proceedings, in clear violation of what they were taught in police college or law school.
Spurious charges
Between these branches of “law enforcement,” innocent people would be arrested on spurious charges — a darling was “money laundering” — which were deliberately made “un-bailable” just to make sure once one was arrested one had no way of avoiding incarceration.
From there, Magufuli’s legal goons devised something they called — rather disingenuously — plea bargaining, which was really a shakedown programme to extort money from people who were forced to buy their freedom, much like the mafia bosses force the families of their victims to save their loved ones’ lives by coughing up the dough.
People paid, sometimes by selling family silver, just to be free, and maybe find a way of starting life over again.
Lining their pockets
Some of us suspected these crooked individuals engaged in these arrangements were lining their pockets, because we did not see any public good they aimed to advance. Now we know we were right, it was all a scam, if Samia is to be believed, and I see no reason not to believe her.
Simply, the money, and this was in billions upon billions of shillings, cannot be traced in any state coffers where such payments, if legit, should have been deposited. It was spirited away into bank accounts, we are now told by the president, in China!
Now the president has set up a commission to look into this great scam of the Magufuli years and to identify the culprits and set the records straight, with a view, I hope, to punish those involved and make whole those robbed of their money through the spurious “plea bargaining” thievery.
The man put in charge of this enquiry is a respected former Chief Justice and experienced investigator of murky affairs internationally. It is my hope and belief that he will shed as much light as possible on this, but already from where I sit, it has a horrible stink.
Pouncing
The tigress in Dodoma has not been proclaiming her tigritude, but she has surely been pouncing. Some of us would probably have climbed to the rooftops to proclaim, declaim and pontificate. But now we are called upon to encourage her to pounce some more and expose the rot at the core, and continue the demagufulification of Tanzania.
I hate praising politicians, for you never know what they do next but for now at least, going back to Wole, I declare Samia TID — Tigress in Dodoma.
Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]
