Godfrey Mwakikagile was born in the town of Kigoma in western Tanganyika - what is now mainland Tanzania - on Tuesday (6 AM), 4 October 1949. He was baptised Godfrey on Christmas day, 25 December 1949, as a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) among whose supporters was Scottish explorer and missionary doctor, David Livingstone, of the London Missionary Society.1
Dr. Livingstone campaigned against slavery and the slave trade but also helped pave the way for the colonisation of Africa.2
In his book, The Mind of Africa, renowned Ghanaian philosopher Dr. Willie Abraham described colonialism, as an imperial phenomenon, in terms of its hostile nature. As he put it:
"Colonialism is aggression." - (Willie E. Abraham, The Mind of Africa, London: Weidenfeld, 1962, p. 152).
Colonialism robbed the people of their natural right to live in a state of independence which is itself a state of nature even in political and social organisations formed by the people themselves, not just in a state of nature before the formation of social and political states and institutions which only validated and legitimised the natural state of independence of individuals and communities. Man is born free. Freedom is a natural right which is restored after independence is regained; it is never gained for the first time. It existed before colonisation. And it is never given. Never. Colonial rulers were forced to relinquish power.
Missionaries from Europe were some of the earliest trail blazers of the colonial enterprise in Africa and played a role in robbing Africans of their natural right to live free and even to own land in some cases. As Jomo Kenyatta said:
"The white man came and asked us to shut our eyes and pray. When we opened our eyes it was too late - our land was gone." (Jomo Kenyatta, quoted by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa in The Sixties, New Africa Press, 2014, p. 130; G. Mwakikagile, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, 2009, p. 51; G. Mwakikagile, Africa 1960 - 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, 2009 p. 134; G. Mwakikagile, Africa and the West, 2000, p. 5. This witticism is attributed to Jomo Kenyatta by various sources including Kenyan Professor Ali Mazrui in his book, Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978, p. 108, among other works).
Christianity was incompatible with colonialism. Yet it was used to facilitate imperial conquest of Africa, consolidate colonial rule, and even pacify African nationalists when they were fighting for independence. Some of the most prominent African nationalists were Christian. As Professor Ali Mazrui stated in his book, Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa:
"The process of pacific socialization was in part based on western Christianity as transmitted in the black world. Kenneth Kaunda, Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King were all products of a devout upbringing in Christian terms. Even Nkrumah had many of his earlier sensibilities fundamentally affected by the impact of Catholicism....
Just as Saint Augustine had once allied Christianity with the concept of Pax Romana, so Christianity later came to be linked to the whole vision of Pax Britannica. In Africa Christianity came to be associated particularly with colonization. In one of his early speeches of the 1940s, Jomo Kenyatta is said to have compressed into a witticism a feeling of disaffection shared by many other nationalists: 'The white man came and asked us to shut our eyes and pray. When we opened our eyes it was too late - our land was gone.' Much later Albert Luthuli, himself a devout Christian, came to feel keenly the handicap which his religion was experiencing in the age of nationalism in Africa. Luthuli lamented: 'The average African says the white man is the cause of all his troubles. He does not discriminate between white men and see that some come here for material gain and others come with the message of God'....
The message of Jesus had been used to encourage submission from the natives. The message had not been presented as a call for 'non-violent resistance' but at best for 'non-violence.' Christianity could even be interpreted to mean 'non-resistance' - a coming to terms with those in authority, whoever they might be. 'My kingdom is not of this earth' - this declaration came to imply what E.H. Carr called 'a boycott of politics.'" - (Ali A. Mazrui, Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978, pp. 108, 109).
Kenyatta's witty remark - on how European conquerors used the Bible to blindfold Africans and swindle them out of their land - articulated in nationalistic terms, captured the essence of the collective sentiment of many Africans across the continent, as Godfrey Mwakikagile has demonstrated in his book, Africa and the West, among other works.
Kenyatta even questioned the fairness of Christian symbolism, black versus white, as taught by European conquerors, in which all the forces of evil were black and whiteness represented righteousness. He gave it a literal interpretation in racial terms and demanded a reversal of the two symbols:
"Kenyatta has felt that the entire interpretation of the Bible as propagated by Europeans was calculated to vindicate the superiority of whiteness over blackness. The forces of evil were 'black,' the angels 'white.' In January 1962 Kenyatta called for a reinterpretation of Christianity and for a reversal of symbolism as between those two colours. See The Guardian (Manchester), 30 January 1962." - (Ali A. Mazrui, Towards a Pax Africana: A Study of Ideology and Ambition, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967, p. 276).
It is a subject Godfrey Mwakikagile has also addressed in his book, Africa and the West, among other works. He contends that colonisation of Africa "was an invasion"; so was penetration of the continent by foreigners spreading bad influence and polluting African minds as a form of cultural imperialism which sometimes led to the destruction of Africa's cultural and spiritual well-being.
He further asserts that even after the end of colonial rule, Africans have not recovered from the devastating impact of colonialism including physical and psychological wounds inflicted on them by their European conquerors who turned them into beasts of burden and objects of ridicule and contempt. Conquest of the mind was the worst form of colonisation, stripping Africans of their dignity and humanity and turning their conquerors into role models, looking up to them as the best specimen of mankind and fountain of wisdom, instead of seeing them as predators of body and soul; in spite of some of the mutual benefits derived from the interaction between Africa and Europe in an asymmetrical relationship - coloniser versus colonised - tipping scales in favour of the conqueror. - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and the West, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2000, pp. 4 - 6).
According to his autobiography, Godfrey Mwakikagile was born at Kilimani Hospital and lived with his parents in one of the government houses for government employees in Mwanga, on a street with the same name, in the town of Kigoma when his father worked as a medical assistant at the same hospital. He later moved to Ujiji with his parents where his sister Maria was born at a Roman Catholic hospital on Sunday, 1 April 1951. The rest of his siblings were also born in different parts of the country: Morogoro, Mbeya, and Tukuyu.
He was named Godfrey by his aunt, Isabella, one of his father's younger sisters, and lived in different parts of Tanganyika - Western Province, Coast Province, Southern Highlands Province, and Southern Province - in his early years.
He was, according to his birth certificate, baptised by Reverend Frank McGorlick (from Victoria, Australia), a Scottish minister of the Church Missionary Society in Kigoma his parents belonged to. But he was brought up as a member of the Moravian Church at Kyimbila, three miles south of the town of Tukuyu, in Rungwe District in what was then the Southern Highlands Province in colonial Tanganyika, as he has stated in his books, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties and My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings.
The church was built by the Germans in 1912, as mentioned below, and was ministered by them, although according to some reports, it was built in 1907.
But there are historical records showing that 1907 was an important year in the history of Moravians at Kyimbila. That was the year when a missionary was sent to work there. It does not necessarily mean the church also was built in the same year simply because a missionary was assigned to the area. According to a historical work, The Moravian Church in Tanzania Southern Province: A Short History:
"Kyimbila Station: This station is just seven kilometres from Lutengano. The distance from Kyimbila to Rungwe is about 20 kilometres....The decision was reached to send a missionary in 1907, who was to perform all pastoral duties (at Kyimbila)." - (Angetile Yesaya Musomba, The Moravian Church in Tanzania Southern Province: A Short History, Nairobi, Kenya: Institut Francais de recherche en Afrique (IFRA), 2005, p. 36).
Historical works also show the role the Germans played in establishing Kyimbila not only as a mission but as a plantation:
"There were some attempts to establish rubber plantations in the southern highlands region. The missionaries of the Hermhuter Mission at Kyimbila in Langenburg District successfully established a plantation of Landolphia stolzii busse. In 1907 they had planted four hectares with 4,000 vine plants and 2,000 support trees." - (African Economic History, African Studies Center, Boston University, 1993, p. 126).
The church at Kyimbila was built in an area where the Germans also established a tea estate in 1904 which did not become fully operational on commercial basis until 1926.
The first Moravian Church in Rungwe District was established near Mount Rungwe in 1891. According to the history of Moravian missions:
"The Berlin Missionary Society was already at work in German East Africa; with that Society the Moravian Church did not want to compete and, therefore, to prevent friction or overlapping,...the two Societies, working side by side, will found stations north of Lake Nyassa....
In 1891 the campaign began. For twenty-three years the chief leader and superintendent of the work in German Nyassaland was Theodore Meyer, son of Henry Meyer, the pioneer in Hlubiland. One of his colleagues was a Swiss, Theophilus Richard, and these two, pushing north from Lake Nyassa, discovered, at the foot of Mt. Rungwe, a spur of the Livingstone Hills, a splendid sight for the first station. The date was August 21st.
The two men had never beheld a more gorgeous scene. On the north-west rose Mt. Rungwe; on the west lay a dense forest; on the south-east lay the teeming dales of Kondeland; and gazing southwards towards Lake Nyassa....
Rungwe seemed an ideal site for a mission-station. The land was high, the water pure, and the air clear and bracing." - (Joseph E. Hutton, "A History of Moravian Missions," Internet Archive).
The founding of the Moravian Church near Mount Rungwe was followed by the establishment of two missions at Lutengano and Ipyana in 1894.
Lutengano Moravian Church is four miles southwest of Kyimbila. Godfrey Mwakikagile had a second baptism at age 14 at Lutengano Moravian Church under Reverend Mwatonoka in June 1964 when he was on holidays for one month from boarding school at Mpuguso Middle School. He was in Standard Eight and in his last year at Mpuguso.
Other mission stations were established by the Moravians in Rungwe District and beyond in about fifteen years, some of them in neighbouring Mbeya District:
"In 1903 they opened a Training College for Evangelists, and in 1910 they opened a Normal School, and thus Rungwe (mission near at the foot of Rungwe Mountain) became the centre of widespread evangelistic and educational activity.
For twenty years the Brethren were engaged, not merely in building a model Christian village at Rungwe, but in attempting to christianize the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In this work they employed twenty missionaries, fifty-three native helpers, thirty-seven native evangelists, and twenty-seven volunteer assistants. And in each of the five districts mentioned, strong stations, surrounded by many preaching places, were founded.
In Kondeland, besides Rungwe, they founded Rutenganiot (1894), Ipiana (1894), Mueia (1907), and Kyimbila (1912); in Bundah, Isoko (1900); in Nyika, Mbozi (1900); in Usafwa, Utengulet (1895); and in Mawanda, Ileya (1906).
In addition, however, to these head stations, the Brethren had also thirty-five out-stations and one thousand and eighty-one preaching places. The number of converts rose to 1,955; the number of schools was 144; and the number of scholars attending them, 4,949....
The missionaries..., in some cases,...introduced entirely new forms of industry. At Rungwe there was a carpenters' shop and wood-working establishment; there sixteen large saws could be seen working at once; and the natives learned to manufacture beams, joists, boards, doors, cupboards and chairs, and other articles of domestic furniture. At Utengule there was a large boot factory. At Kyimbila there was a rubber plantation.
Some of the missionaries introduced Muscat donkeys, said to be able, unlike horses, to resist the attacks of the tsetse fly; others planted rice in the lowlands and potatoes in the hilly districts; others introduced sheep and a new and hardier breed of cattle; others cultivated coffee and tea; and others, with varying success, introduced strawberries, gooseberries, plums, peaches, apricots, oranges, lemons, grapes, and other fruits previously unknown to the natives....
Formerly the natives had few implements; now they became experts in the use of hoes, knives and axes. At the head stations the Church as such generally owned a large tract of land...and the natives preferred to live near a station...partly because they felt sure that their children would be well educated." - (Ibid.).
About a quarter of mile north of Kyimbila Moravian Church, which was in the midst of a large tea estate, was Kyimbila Primary School.
The pastor of Kyimbila Moravian Church was Godfrey Mwakikagile's great uncle (grand uncle), Asegelile Mwankemwa, who was the younger brother of his maternal grandmother Tungapesyaga (Tunga) Mapunga Mwankemwa. Mapunga (Mwamapunga) was their mother and Godfrey Mwakikagile's great-grandmother. They were the only siblings who grew into adulthood; the third-born, a boy, died in childhood.3 Asegelile Mwankemwa was the first African pastor of Kyimbila Moravian Church.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's mother, Syabumi Mwambapa (her maiden name), was brought up by her uncle Asegelile Mwankemwa and by her mother Tungapesyaga. She lived with her uncle after her parents died. She was almost 14 years old when her mother died.
Her mother went to live with her brother Asegelile Mwankemwa after her husband Mwambapa, Godfrey Mwakikagile's maternal grandfather, died - and was buried - in Mpumbuli village, Kyimbila, in 1929, about two miles west of Mwankemwa's residence. But he had roots in Mwakaleli, immediate biological ties with the Mwambapas and the Mwasomolas there, lineal descendants of the same family. For example, his elder brother (Godfrey Mwakikagile's grand uncle) used the name Mwasomola. Yet he was also Mwambapa as Mwambapa's biological son. The Mwasomolas were Mwambapas and Mwambapas, Mwasomolas. Godfrey Mwakikagile's great-grandfather was also Mwambapa.
There was a Mwambapa who was born in 1773. He was featured in Science News, The Geological Survey Department of Tanganyika and Tanganyika Notes and Records as a witness to a volcano which erupted from Mount Kyejo northwest of Nselya (Selya) in the eastern part of Rungwe District when he was about 25 years old:
"An approximate dating of the flow was made possible by the fact that Andulile Kajigili had sufficient record of his ancestry, and of the tradition embodied in his account, for it to be asserted that the original narrator was one Mwambapa, that the flow took place when he was a young man of about 25, and that this must have been about a.d. 1800. As Mr Harkin points out, Mwambapa's account 'might well apply to a present-day eruption.'" - (Science News, Issues 4- - 34, Penguin Books, 1956, p. 121).
A report in Memoir - Geological Survey Department of Tanganyika stated:
"Andulile Kajigili kept some record of his ancestry, and by tracing back with him it was possible to construct a family tree with approximate dates as follows: - Mwambapa Born 1773 Died 1853. Kajigili Born 1841 Died 1919....The eruption took place when Mwambapa was a young man of about 25 years and can therefore be dated as approximately 1800 A.D. (vii) Volcanological History. - The volcanological history of Kiejo...." - (Memoir - Geological Survey Department of Tanganyika, Issue 3, 1960, p. 19; Albert Mathieson Quennell, Tanganyika Notes and Records - Issues 35 - 50, 1955, p. 20).
Tungapesyaga and Asegelile Mwankemwa also had roots in Mwakaleli. They moved to Kyimbila from their home in Mwakaleli.
Syabumi's mother Tungapesyaga died in 1943 and was buried on her brother's family compound in Katusyo about five miles southeast of Tukuyu.
That is also where Syabumi was born, on 8 November 1929, in the same year her father died. Her mother was pregnant with her when she went to live with her brother Asegelile Mwankemwa.
Syabumi, the last-born in her family, was brought up on the same compound together with her first cousins, the children of Asegelile Mwankemwa, and with her brothers and sisters. One of Syabumi's cousins, Lugano Mwankemwa who was born on 25 November 1933, married a childhood friend of her husband. Their husbands came from the same area the two cousins came from.
In the 1940s, Syabumi and her cousins attended Kyimbila Girls' School headed by the British feminist educator Mary Hancock. Hancock was also a friend of Julius Nyerere and his family since the 1950s before Nyerere became prime minister and later president of Tanganyika:
"Maureen Cowan and Mary Hancock have told me about Tabora Girls' School, of which both have been headmistresses. Miss Hancock is a devoted friend of the Nyerere family; while Julius and Maria Nyerere were struggling with financial difficulties, two of their children lived with her." - (Judith Listowel, The Making of Tanganyika, London: Chatto & Windus, 1965, p. 428).
And as William Edgett Smith stated in his book, We Must Run While Others Walk: A Portrait of Africa's Julius Nyerere:
"Miss Mary Hancock, a peppery little Englishwoman who had come to Tanganyika in 1940 'to help the black people, as we called them then,' has recalled, 'Oh, that man, how he thinks! The civil servants in Musoma couldn't see why I remained his friend after he declared for Uhuru. We civil servants had to be careful, you know --- we couldn't attend political meetings. I would say, 'He's my friend. If you can't differentiate, I can. Well! You should have seen the civil servants change when it became clear that he was winning.'" - (William Edgett Smith, We Must Run While Others Walk: A Portrait of Africa's Julius Nyerere, New York: Random House, 1972, p. 84; W. E. Smith, Nyerere of Tanzania, Faraday Close, Worthing, UK: Littlehampton Book Services, 1973, p. 65; The New Yorker, Volume 47, Issues 27 - 35, 1971, p. 84).
Mary Hancock was the district education officer (DEO) of Musoma in the 1950s when she first met Nyerere and his family. Musoma was Nyerere's home district. - (Pat Holden, Women Administrative Officers in Colonial Africa 1944 - 1960, Oxford Development Records Project, 1985, p. 194).
She later, in the late fifties, became a provincial education officer (PEO) for the Lake Province and was based in Mwanza, the provincial capital.
Mary Hancock played a major role in the education of girls in colonial Tanganyika and after independence.
She was born in 1910 in England and went to Tanganyika in 1940 to work as a volunteer teacher under the colonial government. She became headmistress of Tabora Girls' School in the Western Province. She also taught at Kyimbila Girls' School three miles south of the town of Tukuyu in Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands Province in the 1940s and founded Loleza Girls' School in the town of Mbeya in the same province during the same period. She was also the founder of Kyimbila Girls' School.
Loleza Girls' School had its origin at Kyimbila. As Osija Mwambungu stated in his book, Veneer of Love, about one of the students at Kyimbila Girls School:
“I met Esinati for the first time in 1946 at Kyimbila Girls School before it moved to Mbeya as Loleza Girls School. She acted a leading part in a play called 'Snow White,' when we were practising Christmas plays and carols. She later qualified as a State Registered Nurse in England, at Barnet.” – (Osija Mwambungu, Veneer of Love, Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau, 1975, p. 74).
Mary Hancock became a citizen of Tanzania and a senior education inspector. She was elected member of parliament in 1970. Fondly known as Mama Hancock, she died in October 1977:
"In 1970, she was nominated to Parliament by the women's organisation, Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT) and elected by the National Assembly (Parliament). Mama Hancock was a much loved and respected figure. A requiem mass was celebrated by the Cardinal Archbishop in Dar es Salaam Cathedral on 28th October." - ("Obituary: Mary Hancock," Tanzanian Affairs, August 1977 - January 1978).
Godfrey Mwakikagile remembered his mother Syabumi talking about Mary Hancock - as a devoted teacher and very strict disciplinarian - during her days as a student at Kyimbila Girls' School in the same area where her uncle Asegelile Mwankemwa served as pastor of the Moravian Church.
It was one of the few, very few, girls' schools in the whole country. Machame in the region of Mount Kilimanjaro was also one of them:
"Both Kyimbila and Machame Government girls' schools have had girls in Standard IX this year and about twelve girls are, in spite of difficulties, continuing to Standard X in 1950. Kyimbila School has become in many ways a centre of social life for the District....
At Kyimbila, the Government girls' school in the Southern Highlands Province, a successful performance was given of the Merchant of Venice adapted to the circumstances of a production in Swahili." - (Tanganyika Department of Education, Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Education Department 1944, Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, pp. 22, 18).
In the 1950s, Godfrey Mwakikagile also went to school at Kyimbila, a primary school for boys and girls. One of his teachers there, Eslie Mwakyambiki, was later elected member of parliament representing Rungwe District. He was also appointed by President Nyerere to serve in the cabinet as deputy minister of defence and national service.
There was also a land dispute between Kyimbila Tea Estate and the congregation of Kyimbila Moravian Church which had a sad ending:
"In 1951, the African congregation of Kyimbila Mission turned to the UN, desperate for help. They felt betrayed by their own missionaries who had apparently sold the church lands to a tea estate without informing the congregation. They were told that all the buildings would have to be torn down within a year. The mission owned the land freehold, and it had the legal title to sell it." - (Ullrich Lohrmann, Voices from Tanganyika: Great Britain, the United Nations and the Decolonization of a Trust Territory, 1946 - 1961, Munster, Germany: LIT Verlag, 2008, p. 311).
In September 1957, representatives of the Kyimbila congregation made an impassioned plea to the UN in a desperate attempt to save the land for the church. They sent this petition:
"United Nations Trusteeship Council
Petition from Mr. Jose Mwamaso and others on behalf of the Kyimbila Mission congregation concerning Tanganyika
Note by the Secretariat: This communication was transmitted to the Secretary-General by the United Nations Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in East Africa
The African Moravian Church
P.O. Box 48
Tukuyu
3rd September '57
The U.N.O. Visiting Mission, Tukuyu
Dear Members,
KYIMBILA MISSION LAND
We have the greatest honour to address you on the above issue as we have every confidence in your organisation and have been waiting for so long to air our heart-rending grievances. To start with, we will try to give you a few historical facts about this Mission Land:
In 1901 there arrived at Kyimbila, a German Missionary by the name of the Reverend Crismus. He approached Untwa Swebe for a piece of land of about 2 acres where he was to establish a Church. The Missionary put up a temporary hut in that year and until 1925, he was using only this two-acre plot. The Church-building was built by the labour of the converts communally and each Christian was asked to bring some 200 bricks all the way from Kala – a distance of some 7 miles, carrying the bricks on their heads. In lieu of providing the 200 bricks, they were called upon to contribute a sum of Shs. 4/- which was a very big sum by then. As the Church-building was built of almost entirely local materials, in essence, it therefore didn't cost the Mission anything. Many of the participants in this job are still alive today and can testify these facts.
After the completion of the Church and having had a new Missionary also a German – called Rev. Jansa, he began to extend the size of the plot on the grounds that the Mission wanted tree-plantations. They were assured these trees were entirely their own or rather their Church and the trees were planted free of cost as the Christian members did it themselves without payment. So the whole land, Church and the trees were regarded as theirs in trust for the purpose of furthering the gospel of the Almighty.
During the first World War, the German Missionaries were taken prisoners of war and were replaced by the British Missionaries – namely Rev. Mackenzie and others. After this war the German Missionaries were allowed to return only again to be taken prisoners in 1939. During this time an African had already been ordained a priest by the name of Asegelile Mwankemwa who carried on during the absence of any of the white Missionaries.
In 1940, the D.C. (District Commissioner, British) – Mr. Hill – approached the Christians throughout the District that they should try to fill up vacancies created by the German Missionaries in many areas. The African Assemblies preferred to have any ordained persons from Nyasaland. When the Bishop Rev. Ibsen of Tabora visited this District he recommended that he would arrange to send down a Danish priest who belonged to the same sect. This recommendation was made to the District Commissioner. All this time all property (of the) Church and everything was entirely in the hands of the African priest – Rev. Asegelile Mwankemwa.
In July 1940, Rev. Knudsen was posted at Rungwe and stayed put there up to 1949 when he announced to the congregation of Kyimbila that he had sold up everything – the land, buildings and the unexhausted property thereat, to the Kingange Tea Estate. This action raised a storm of protests and bitterness. It is purely out of kindness of the Tea Estate that they have allowed the Church to remain as an Oasis on their Tea Estate.
Sirs, we consider this treacherous act as a monstrosity. It is a gross betrayal of the spiritual belief we have ever had in the name of God as the land was originally meant as a place of worship. No one was ever consulted as to this transaction of the land including the African Reverend himself (Asegelile Mwankemwa) let alone the appropriate native ruler of the area. The congregation up to this day, doesn't know for how much the land was sold nor has it any idea on what use the money has been put to. The total area sold so far, comprises about 245 hectares amidst a densely populated area surrounded mostly by the Christians and their relatives who put in tremendous efforts in building up this for what it was before the sale.
We now appeal to you, that we must have our land back. We feel the Rev. Knudsen has sold us out of our natural birth-right. We feel the work of the Missionaries is to propagate the word of God of which we all knew it in our own dialect long before the arrival of of the Rev. Crismus, and that is why he was given the parcel of land. We demand the Rev. Knudsen should be called upon to state publicly the deeds of transfer of this land between the native ruler, on one hand, and himself on the other or any Missionary for that matter.
Finally Sirs, we are positively sure, you will be sympathetic with our appeal, for let alone the loss of our land has been wangled, but even the money that was realised has never been used for the purposes of putting school buildings, and new churches. We still go on using our own communal labour and cost. We implore you to use your influence to hand us back our land which is our natural, we repeat, natural heritage.
We are sorry to have taken much of your time but to us it is something that is so touching on our hearts that we could go on and on to implore you that you do something about it and we trust in the name of the Almighty you will do so soon.
We remain Sir,
For and on behalf of the Kyimbila Mission congregation.
Signed:
Jose Mwamaso MWAMASO
Wilson (William) Mwakisyala WILSON (WILLIAM)
Allen Mwandemele MWANDEMELE
Amon Mwansasu AMON MWANSASU
Brown U. Ngwilulupi B. NGWILULUPI
Anyingisye Mwakifwange ANYINGISYE"
Source: United Nations Trusteeship Council – United Nations Digital Library System
Three of the signatories out of six, Brown Ngwilulupi, Wilson (William) Mwakisyala and Allen Mwandemele, were Godfrey Mwakikagile's relatives on his mother's side; one, Anyingisye Mwakifwange, a relative on his father's side. Amon Mwansasu, who was old enough to be Godfrey Mwakikagile's grandfather, was very close to Godfrey's father Elijah Mwakikagile and served as a local magistrate settling minor disputes between individuals at a local court at Ushirika, about two miles south of Godfrey's family's home in Mpumbuli village and one mile northeast of Mpuguso Middle School he attended from 1961 to 1964, Standard Five to Standard Eight.
Unfortunately, the petitioners, hence the congregation of Kyimbila Moravian Church, lost their case. By losing the case, they lost the land where the church was built and other parts which were owned by the church.
The tea estate won the case and the church was demolished in the sixties. The congregation found another site farther north, away from the estate, and rebuilt the church but with a different architectural design.
When the original church building went down, so did its history. People of the younger generation, and those who were born after it was torn down, have no memory of it. It was a historical building and would have served as a reminder of the area's history and the coming of German missionaries to the region had it been left intact. It is as if it had never even existed. After the spot where it stood was taken over by the tea estate, the memory was also erased, except in the minds of those who knew where the church was during the old days when Asegelile Mwankemwa became the first African pastor and continued to serve the congregation in the following years.
The sons of Kyimbila Moravian Church pastor Asegelile Mwankemwa also used another family name, Mwaiseje, as their surname; for example, Itika Mwaiseje, the last-born, about whom Godfrey Mwakikagile has written in some of his writings stating that he was one of the last two relatives to bid him farewell when he left Tanzania for the United States. He took a taxi to the airport to see Mwakikagile less than an hour before the plane left Dar es Salaam and had a farewell drink (Tanzanian beer) with him.
The other one was Godfrey Mwakikagile's first cousin Tunga Mwambapa, daughter of Johan Chonde Mwambapa, who worked at Dar es Salaam's international airport as a ground hostess and later got married to a general in the Tanzanian army whose career had striking parallels with that of her eldest brother who was also in the army. Each ended up being head of Tanzania's leading army officers' training school. Tunga was named after Tungapesyaga, her paternal grandmother, who was Godfrey's maternal grandmother.
Itika Mwaiseje's first cousin Syabumi, Godfrey Mwakikagile's mother, was also brought up by her elder brother Johan Chonde Mwambapa, a teacher, who was almost thirteen years older than she was. He was born in 1917. He was the fourth-born in their family. Syabumi was the youngest - last-born - in their family and lived with her brother Chonde until she got married. She was married on Saturday (10 AM), 7 August 1948. She later followed in her uncle's footsteps (Asegelile Mwankemwa) and became involved in church activities teaching Sunday school.
Syabumi was also a volunteer adult education teacher for some time and taught adults how to read and write. She also taught her son Godfrey at home when he was in primary school, as did his father who also continued to teach him during the first two years of middle school before he left home to go to boarding school when he was 13 years old. He was a very strict disciplinarian and played a critical role in their son's early life and education.
One of her brothers, Amos Mwambapa, a teacher and World War II veteran born in 1914 (he fought in Burma), also became involved in church activities serving as a deacon of the Moravian Church in their area. He was head teacher of Masebe Primary School, near Mpuguso Middle School, for many years. Amos was the third-born in their family.
Another brother, Benjamin Mwambapa born in 1922, pursued a career in law enforcement. He was the fifth-born in their family. He became head of the criminal investigation department (CID) - at the police station - in the ministry of home affairs in the government of newly independent Tanganyika in the early sixties in the town of Tukuyu serving Rungwe District.
When he joined the police force during British colonial rule, Benjamin Mwambapa became a corporal and served as a driver for the head of the intelligence unit, then known as the special branch, in Mwanza, capital of the Lake Province (surrounding Lake Victoria) in northern Tanganyika; a position which facilitated his entry into the investigative field and his career advancement when he later became head of the criminal investigation department for Rungwe District after Tanganyika won independence. He worked in Tukuyu with the district's police chief Robert Kaswende who later became the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) for the whole country appointed by President Nyerere. Kaswende later served as the head of the National Service - it is a part of the Ministry of Defence and National Service - appointed by the president.
Robert Kaswende also knew Godfrey's father Elijah Mwakikagile long before he went to Tukuyu to serve as head of the police department for Rungwe
Peter D.M. Bwimbo, who years later became head of security for President Nyerere and who knew Benjamin Mwambapa as a colleague during their early days in the police force, stated the following in a book he wrote about his career and as head of the president's security unit:
"After being promoted and becoming corporal on 1 January 1953, officers of the Special Branch in Dar es Salaam (the nation's capital) started, without my knowledge, watching me, observing and following me closely when I lived at the police barracks on Kilwa Road, in order to see whether or not my conduct and behaviour as well as my lifestyle would be compatible with someone who would be chosen to work in the Special Branch.
There was a sergeant at the police barracks on Kilwa Road known as Sergeant Pancras, a member of the Luo tribe (ethnic group). He is the one who came to me one day and told me the kind of job he was doing and that he had a message for me from high levels to go and see his boss in order to be interviewed and see if I could be transferred there if I passed the interview. I agreed, arrangements were made, and Sergeant Pancras took me to his boss, a white man, who interviewed me and I passed. Together with other qualifications, he also wanted to know which languages of the tribes in the Lake zone I knew, besides Swahili and English, and I named them.
I agreed to be transferred to Mwanza starting 1 April 1953. The head of the barracks, Officer Commanding Barracks, on Kilwa Road, Dar es Salaam, was Mr. Pamment who was eventually transferred to Sarawak (in Malaysia).
I left Dar es Salaam on a train, third class, and arrived in Mwanza where I found the head of our department, John Press. I joined my colleagues, Sergeant Said Nassoro, Henry, Corporal Lucas Ogutu, Corporal Livingstone Wainaina and Inspector of Police Thomas Ogoya, Livingstone Lubega and others. All those officers were glad to welcome me when I arrived wth my wife Christina Magali binti (daughter of) Makongoro.
When Mr. Press was transferred, Mr. E.N.G.N. Brend came (Bwana Mtemba - Mr. Pipe), a name we gave him, without him knowing that, because he smoked a pipe. His driver for a long time during those days was Corporal Benjamini Mwambapa. Their personal secretaries were Miss Pat Quinlan, Miss S.E. Bailey, Miss Foggo and Miss B. Ross. They worked in Mwanza at different times.
My kind of transfer from the uniformed branch (of police officers wearing uniform) to the Special Branch was the procedure that was followed during colonial rule because the uniformed branch had many people and that was where every policeman was given basic training after being investigated and recruited. Those who were transferred from there were provided with other kinds of training depending on the kind of work that was done where they were being transferred. But all of us were in the same police force under the Commissioner of Police before this title was changed and came to be known as Inspector General of Police (IGP) a few years after independence.
After the Special Branch was abolished in 1963, it was replaced by the Department of National Security. The change was made to enable the Department to be free to employ its officers from other places (instead of being exclusively dependent on the police department). But in spite of that, the employment procedure, investigating prospective employees, remained the same at a high level of scrutiny to avoid employing people who were not suitable to work in this highly sensitive department.
I remember the first director of National Service (Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa - JKT - established in July 1963), David S. Nkulila, came from the police force before JKT merged with the people's army of Tanzania (Tanzania People's Defence Forces -TPDF - Jeshi la Wananchi wa Tanzania - JWT). Even the first director of TAKUKURU - (Taasisi ya Kuzuia na Kupambana na Rushwa - TAKUKURU - Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau - PCCB, formerly Anti-Corruption unit), Geoffrey Sawaya, came from the police force." - (Peter D. M. Bwimbo, Mlinzi Mkuu wa Mwalimu Nyerere: Wasifu wa Mlinzi wa Kwanza wa Mwalimu Nyerere (1960 - 1973), Swahili Edition, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd., 2015, pp. 16 - 17. Translated from Swahili to English by Godfrey Mwakikagile in G. Mwakikagile, The African Liberation Struggle: Reflections, New Africa Press, 2018, pp. 21 - 23).
Peter Bwimbo was the longest-serving head of security for President Nyerere. He wrote a book which is one of the most important works on the history of Tanganyika (later Tanzania) during the last decade of British colonial rule and the early years of independence:
"On 20th January 1964, at the Colito Army Barracks just outside Dar es Salaam, 15 officers of the Tanganyika Army that was inherited from the colonial state led a mutiny against the independent Tanganyika government.
One group went to the State House with the intention of forcing President Nyerere to accept their demands. What would have happened if they had succeeded in entering the State House and if President Nyerere had refused to accept their demands, as he most likely would have done? Anything could have happened and in the worst case scenario Tanzania's history and indeed the history of the whole of Africa would have been seriously affected.
This book is about the courage and quick thinking of Peter Bwambo, the then head of the Presidential Protection Unit and Nyerere's Chief Bodyguard who, alone, planned and executed an ingenious and successful evacuation of President Nyerere and Vice President Rashid Kawawa, whisking them away from the State House before the mutineers got there.
By a clever ruse he convinced the ferry operators on duty before dawn to ferry them across the Kigamboni Creek. From there they walked several miles to a hiding place in a house that was offered by an ordinary citizen and where they stayed until the situation was normalised several days later." - (Book Preview, "Peter DM Bwimbo: Mlinzi Mkuu wa Mwalimu Nyerere," African Books Collective, Oxford, United Kingdom, http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/peter-dm-bwimbo-mlinzi-mkuu-wa-mwalimu-nyerere).
Benjamin Mwambapa's career spanned two critical periods in the history of Tanganyika, later Tanzania, from the colonial era to independence and symbolised the transition and the changes the majority of the employees in the first government of independent Tanganyika went through during those years.
Syabumi Mwambapa had another elder brother, Andengenye Mwambapa - the second-born in their family - of Bujela about three miles south of Katusyo in Rungwe District, an active member of the Moravian Church who also became an elder of the church and whose son, Brown Mwambapa, also known as Brown Mwasomola, born in 1947, became a Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) pastor in Tanzania. And her daughter Maria Kasuka Mwakikagile, Godfrey Mwakikagile's sister, got married to a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, Anyitike Mwaipopo.
Syabumi also had two elder sisters, Mbage Mwambapa (Mwakanema, married name) and Nyambilila Mwambapa (Mwankusye, married name). Mbage was the first-born in their family; Nyambilila, the sixth.
Born in 1925 and the immediate elder sibling of Syabumi, Nyambilila also became an active member of the Moravian Church in her area of Kasanga, about two miles west of the town of Tukuyu, and got involved in church activities in varying degrees.
One of Nyambilila's children was Tunsume (Suma) Sakajinga, also known as Suma Mwankusye, a retired employee of the Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) who was brutally murdered by her houseboy in Dar es Salaam on 12 January 2019; a case which got a lot of media attention in Tanzania and beyond because of the brutal nature of the crime. A pair of scissors was found pushed deep into her neck. Only its handles could been seen. She was 59 years old and had only one child, Martha Mashimba, a resident of Finland who returned to Tanzania for her mother's funeral. According to a report by Gadiosa Lamtey in one of the Tanzanian newspapers, The Citizen, Dar es Salaam, 15 January 2019:
"On Saturday (12 January), Ms Sakajinga's body was found covered with a mat after being stabbed in the throat with a pair of scissors. The body was inside her semi-finished house at Mgeni Nani Street, Kijichi Ward, Temeke, in Dar es Salaam and police is already holding the deceased's male house help....
According to neighbours, the late Sakajinga was regularly giving money to the suspect, Gideon Elias (21), during her days as an employee of TPA. But the latter would allegedly spend the cash on alcohol and gambling.
The neighbours said Ms Sakajinga used to complain that she was losing money in questionable circumstances inside her house.
Her former colleagues at TPA said the late Sakajinga retired December 31, and they believe the suspect might have thought her boss had received retirement benefits....
A neighbour, Thomas Ndimbo, said...'We opened the door and found the body in the kitchen, in a rolled-up mat and blood was everywhere. We didn't do anything until the police arrived,' he said.
Another neighbour, Pili Ruanda, said, 'After the police arrived and removed the mat, we saw a pair of scissors that the killer used to stab her in the throat and a piece of wood lying on the floor which we believe the accused used to hit her on the head,' she said.
Later one of the police discovered where the suspect was hiding. After we saw him, the suspect started to plead, 'Don't kill me please'....
A family member, Mr Kissa Mwankusye, who is a brother of Ms Sakajinga said yesterday that her sister is survived by a daughter who lives in Finland....According to him, her sister's body will be laid to rest today or tomorrow at Tukuyu, Kasanga village, in Rungwe District, Mbeya Region." - (Gadiosa Lamtey, "Neighbours: How ex-TPA Worker Met Her Death," The Citizen, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 15 January 2019; "Word of Advice for Youth at Slain TPA Staff Funeral," allAfrica, allafrica.com, 16 January 2019).
In June 2023, the killer was sentenced to seven years in prison. He had, by then, served three years since his arrest. He remained in prison to serve the remaining four.
The sentence drew criticism from many people. They said it was not long enough and not fair to the family of the victim. There were those who wanted the death penalty for the killer.
The prosecutor said the killer was sentence to seven years' imprisonment because he did not intend to kill his victim, in spite of the fact that a pair of scissors, used by the killer, was found pushed deep into his victim's neck. Only its handles could been seen.
Family members and their supporters said there was nothing they could do to get the killer sentenced to a longer prison term or get the death penalty. He got away with murder.
One of the cousins of the Mwambapas, Mbutolwe, a daughter of their maternal uncle Asegelile Mwankemwa, who was the second from the last-born and was the immediate younger sister of Lugano, also became deeply involved in church activities as a missionary worker and an itinerant preacher spreading the Gospel.
Their brother Johan Chonde Mwambapa, simply known as Chonde or Chonde Mwambapa, was also the father of Brigadier-General Rhodfrey Owen Mwambapa - baptised as Owen - who was the head of the Tanzania Military Academy, an army officers' training school (of the Tanzania People's Defence Forces - TPDF) at Monduli in Arusha Region in the northeastern part of the country, whose alumni include army officers from South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Seychelles, Rwanda, Lesotho and other countries. It is one of the leading military academies on the continent. Born in 1945, Owen Mwambapa graduated as a lieutenant from Sandhurst, a royal military academy in the United Kingdom, in the sixties.
He had a younger brother, Christopher Mwambapa, who also joined the Tanzania People's Defence Forces and retired as a lieutenant colonel.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's younger brother, Lawrence Anyambilile Mwakikagile who was born in the town of Morogoro in September 1952 (the same year in which their first cousin Christopher Mwambapa was also born), was a lieutenant in the the Tanzania People's Defence Forces and participated in the Uganda-Tanzania War, also known as the Kagera War, which started on 30 October 1978 and ended on 11 April 1979. He retired with the rank of captain in 1996. And their younger sister, Gwangu Kasuka Mwakikagile who was born in Mbeya in July 1954 (the same year in which their first cousin Tunga Mwambapa was also born), was married to a sea captain, John Mwakibete. She was named Gwangu by their granduncle Asegelile Mwankemwa.
The patriarch of the family, Asegelile Mwankemwa, died in September 1983.
Godfrey's father, Elijah Mwakikagile, attended Malangali Secondary School, one of the top schools in colonial Tanganyika. His classmates at Malangali, where he was head prefect, included Jeremiah Kasambala who became a cabinet member under President Julius Nyerere after Tanganyika won independence from Britain, and John Mwakangale who, during the struggle for independence in the 1950s, became one of the leaders of the independence movement in Tanganyika. Mwakangale and Mwakikagile knew each other since childhood when they were classmates from Tukuyu Primary School to Malangali Secondary School. They came from the same area, five miles apart, near the town of Tukuyu, the capital of Rungwe District.
Mwakangale also served in the cabinet as minister of labour under Nyerere in the early part of independence before Kasambala joined the cabinet serving as minister of trade and cooperatives and later as minister of industries, minerals and energy.
Elijah Mwakikagile's maternal uncle, Eliakim Simon Mwaibanje who was the younger brother of his mother Rahel (Africanised as Laheli) Kasuka Mwaibanje, paid for his education from primary school to secondary school.
The first name of Rahel (Laheli) Kasuka Mwaibanje was Basasyene before she was baptised as a member of the Moravian Church at Kyimbila and changed it to Rahel.
The parents of Rahel (Laheli) Kasuka and Eliakim Simeon Mwaibanje were Kasofu Mwamwaja and Mary Iseke (Mwaiseke). They had other children all of whom, together with Rahel (Laheli) and Eliakim, were born in Mpata village in Busokelo in the ward of Kabula in Selya in the eastern part of Rungwe District.
Another maternal uncle of Elijah Mwakikagile, Jotham Mwaibanje, was the father of Oscar Mwamwaja, one of Tanzania's first commercial airline pilots. Oscar was surnamed after his grandfather Kasofu Mwamwaja whose other children with Mary Iseke were Kilabo Ndaga, Amos, Jane, and Anyegile. Kasofu Mwamwaja and Mary Iseke (Mwaiseke), both of whom had roots in Masoko in the heartland of Rungwe District, were Godfrey Mwakikagile's great-grandparents.
The name Kasuka – in Laheli Kasuka Mwaibanje – came from her paternal grandmother Kasuka, or Mwakasuka, who was Kasofu Mwamwaja's mother, Godfrey Mwakikagile's great-great-grandmother and Oscar Mwamwaja's great-grandmother. For the people in their ethnic group, the prefix Mwa- is dropped when surnames are used for girls.
Oscar Mwamwaja was the co-pilot of an Air Tanzania plane, a Boeing 737, that was hijacked on 26 February 1982 and forced to fly from Mwanza, Tanzania, to London Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom. The aircraft was on a domestic flight.
The pilot was Deo Mazula, elder brother of George Mazula who, together with his brother, was also among the first commercial airline pilots in Tanzania. George was also a classmate of Godfrey Mwakikagile at Tambaza High School in Dar es Salaam. Another classmate was Mohamed Chande Othman, also known as Othman Chande, who became chief justice of Tanzania appointed by President Jakaya Kikwete.
The hijacked plane had 99 passengers. The pilot and co-pilot were assisted by a crew of three. After stopping in Dar es Salaam, Captain Deo Mazula was forced to fly the plane to Nairobi in Kenya, Jedda in Saudi Arabia, Athens in Greece, and finally the United Kingdom where he landed at Stansted about 30 miles northeast of London.
A British defence ministry spokesman said "there are contingency plans involving military units" at Stansted. The hijackers threatened to blow up the plane if security forces attempted to storm in.
The police refrained from storming the plane fearing they would endanger the passengers. But anti-terrorist units were already in position ready for an assault on February 27th, one day after the plane was hijacked in Tanzania and flown to the UK.
The hijackers said they wanted to see Britain's foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, and Tanzania'a high commissioner (ambassador) to Britain, Amon Nsekela (Anthony Nyaki, high commissioner 1981 - 1989, Nsekela, 1974 - 1981).
Carrington was then on an official visit to Kenya.
They also demanded to speak to Oscar Kambona, Tanzania's former minister of foreign affairs who had fallen out with President Nyerere and who was then living in exile in London.
A crackled radio message from the pilot, Deo Mazula, to the controllers at Stansted international airport that was later broadcast on BBC, said:
"We have a request. Would like the following persons to meet the aircraft on arrival: The Tanzanian high commissioner in London and the British foreign minister and Mr. Oscar Kambona." - ("Hijacked Jetliner Arrives in Britain," The New York Times, 28 February 1982).
But negotiators ended the ordeal before Kambona arrived on the scene. His younger brother Mattiya, also living in exile in London and who was a fierce opponent of Nyerere like his brother, said in a radio interview that he did not believe his elder brother would meet the hijackers.
The hijackers, all in their early twenties, wanted President Nyerere to resign. They claimed to be members of a movement which their leader alternatively described as the "Tanzania Youth Democratic Movement" and the "Tanzania Youth Revolutionary Movement." There was no such movement or political organisation in or outside Tanzania demanding change in the country. Their level of education was low, between primary school and secondary school, from standard 7 to standard 12.
The hijacking ended when the hijackers surrendered on February 28th. There were five hijackers, all related through birth and marriage. There were two pairs of brothers and one a brother-in-law. His sisters were married to the eldest brother in each pair:
"A 48-hour hijacking drama that began in East Africa ended tonight...with the surrender of...(the) young terrorists and the release of more than 90 hostages....
Security sources here said that explosives were found wired to the aircraft doors and placed in a toilet. The hijackers had threatened to blow up the plane, a Boeing 737, at 10:30 Saturday night. 'Please Bring 100 Coffins.'
'We are going to blow the plane,' one terrorist said in talks with airport officials. ''We are going to die now. Please bring 100 coffins at once.'
The only known casualty was the co-pilot, who was injured when he was...shot...in the waist just before the plane arrived in Athens. The hijackers, who were taken into custody this evening, were armed with knives, pistols, submachine guns and grenades. However, some of the arms were said to have been made of wood or plastic.
According to the police, the terrorists were seeking the overthrow of the President of Tanzania, Julius K. Nyerere. They were identified as members of a left-wing group that describes Mr. Nyerere as a traitor who has suborned Marxist ideology.
The drama was brought to an end by the intervention of Oscar Kambona....Once Mr. Kambona arrived at Stansted, which is in the county of Essex, about midway between London and Cambridge, the terrorists began to release the hostages. Later on Saturday night they freed a pregnant mother and her 5-year-old son. At noon today (Sunday, 28 February) four women, a man and a baby girl were freed.
Then at 2:30 P.M., seven men and three women were set free. The injured co-pilot was released at 3:15 P.M. and 41 passengers were allowed to leave at 4. P.M. About an hour later the rest of the hostages walked down the ramp and the hijackers surrendered.
Robert Bunyard, the Chief Constable of Essex, said all of the hijackers were in their early 20's. 'The people are all safe,' he said." - (R.W. Apple, Jr., reporting from Bishop's Stortford, England, 28 February 1982, Special to The New York Times, "4 Tanzanian Hijackers Surrender; 90 Hostages Are Freed in Britain," published in The New York Times, 1 March 1982. See also "A Hijacking of a Tanzanian Aircraft," Tanzanian Affairs, 1 July 1982; "Former Hijacker Arrested," Tanzanian Affairs, 1 January 1991).
The co-pilot, Oscar Mwamwaja, was shot by the leader of the hijackers. He underwent an operation at a hospital in the UK to remove a bullet from his body and returned to Tanzania.
Years later, one of the hijackers was arrested when he returned to Tanzania after serving eight years in prison in the United Kingdom:
"Musa Membar, who took a free ride to Britain aboard an Air Tanzania Boeing 737 which he hijacked with four other youths in 1982, was arrested on September 14th 1990 when he crossed the Kenya-Tanzania border. He had been jailed in Britain for eight years. After his release he became a founder member of the Tanzania Youth Democratic Movement under the umbrella of a Tanzanian opposition front headed by Oscar Kambona, former Foreign Minister who has been in exile in Britain since 1967.
Speaking in a BBC interview the other day, Mr Kambona denied any prior knowledge of Member’s departure from London. 'He did not bid any of us farewell' he said.
In a letter from the Ukonga maximum security prison, where he is being held, Member said 'I returned to Tanzania … to lead a peaceful campaign for multi-party democracy....' (Business Times, 19 October 1990)." - "Former Hijacker Arrested," Tanzanian Affairs, 1 January 1991).
Oscar Mwamwaja, who was Elijah Mwakikagile's first cousin, later became a commercial pilot training instructor at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology in Zaria, northern Nigeria.
A former American Peace Corps teacher, Leonard Levitt - author of An African Season, the first book ever written by a Peace Corps - who taught Oscar Mwamwaja and Godfrey Mwakikagile at Mpuguso Middle School (1963 - 1964) wrote about his former students and his experiences in Tanzania in his article, "Tanzania: A Dream Deferred," published in The New York Times Magazine on 14 November 1982.
Other alumni of Mpuguso Middle School - in the late 1950s - include Brigadier-General Owen Rhodfrey Mwambapa, Godfrey's first cousin; and David Mwakyusa, President Nyerere's last personal physician who was with the Tanzanian leader until his last days when he died at a hospital in London, United Kingdom, in October 1999. Mwakyusa was also elected member of parliament representing Rungwe West and served as minister of health and welfare development under President Jakaya Kikwete during the same period.
The headmaster of Mpuguso Middle School in 1961, the year Godfrey Mwakikagile first went there and enrolled in Standard Five, Moses Mwakibete who was his math teacher and who also came from Kyimbila, years later became the registrar of the High Court of Tanzania. He was appointed judge of the high court by President Nyerere in 1973.
Geoffrey Sawaya, director of Tanzania's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) who presented evidence against the coup plotters in the 1970 treason trial at the High Court of Tanzania in nation's capital Dar es Salaam also was once headmaster of Mpuguso Middle School before he was later appointed CID director by President Nyerere. As Leonard Levitt stated in his article about Mpuguso, one of the leading schools in what was then the Southern Highlands Province (later divided into Mbeya and Iringa Regions), and about Tanzania in general:
"I first arrived in Tanzania in 1963, as a teacher in the Peace Corps, in the heady days just after independence from Britain. The school I was assigned to was in the southern highlands, in blue mountains shadowed by clouds and mist. It was a setting as pristine as the ideals that had brought me there.
The school was named Mpuguso....an upper primary school - that is, it included grades 5 to 8, and the students' ages ranged from 10 to 20; proper birth records had not been kept. The school consisted of a complex of brick buildings: classrooms, dormitories, a dining hall and teachers' houses. Below the dining hall lay a large soccer field....
My students, nearly all of them boys, were as bright and hard working as any I'd ever known...The boarders... studied in their classrooms until midnight....
Uhuru had been won by the young and charismatic President Julius K. Nyerere, who so eloquently urged a new and better life for Tanzania and for Africa. The son of an illiterate tribal chief from a village not unlike Mpuguso, Nyerere had been a teacher himself -hence his Swahili title of Mwalimu. Educated in Britain, he had translated Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into Swahili. More important, Nyerere had persuaded the British to quit Tanzania without firing a shot. Among Western liberals and intellectuals, he came to be regarded as a kind of African philosopher-king. He was perceived as a selfless leader, a man who disdained violence; a nonracist who offered Tanzanian citizenship to any European or Asian who wished to remain; a benevolent socialist who wished to rid Tanzania, indeed all Africa, of its triple plagues - ignorance, poverty and disease....
In September 1981, 18 years after I first arrived in Tanzania, I returned to find my students, and from them, perhaps, to learn something of what had happened to the country. They were all as delighted to see me as I was to see them, and to my surprise they remembered even the most obscure details about our time together - words I'd spoken, lessons I'd taught, books I'd given them.
On the surface many members of this first generation of uhuru's beneficiaries appeared to have prospered. Of the 10 I saw, half had studied abroad; nearly all held Government jobs....
I am staying at the Kilimanjaro Hotel, which is said to be the best hotel in Dar es Salaam....In the lobby of the Kilimanjaro I meet one of my former students, whom I will refer to here as Rashid. I remember him as a small, light-complexioned boy, younger than the others. Now, though he is still short, his color has darkened and he has gained weight, giving him the portly appearance of prosperity.
'So, Mr. Levitt. How are you?' he says to me, standing in the lobby. He is wearing slacks and an open-neck sport shirt, the dress of the urban Tanzanian. He smiles. 'How are things?'
This colloquialism reminds me of the fine linguist Rashid was. Remarkably, at Mpuguso, he learned to speak English with barely an accent.
'Do you remember the book you gave me, Mr. Levitt, when you left Mpuguso?' he says. 'Inside you wrote, 'To Rashid, you have been a pleasure to teach. I am sure one day you will study in the United States.' Well, Mr. Levitt, I have not yet been to the United States, but I have studied in Europe'....
There are two ways to travel overland to Mpuguso. A new tarmac road built by the Americans runs from Dar southwest to Mbeya, the regional capital of the southern highlands; from Mbeya, another new tarmac road, built by the Germans, runs south past Mpuguso, 50 miles away, and continues down to the Malawi border....
There is also the Tazara Railway, built by the Chinese, which runs from Dar to Mbeya, and then southwest into Zambia....We arrive in Mbeya, about 50 miles from Mpuguso, early the next morning.
I remember it as having been a lovely place set in the mountains, with purple jacaranda trees and Asian dukas lining its two main streets. In its center was the British settlers' Mbeya Club, with a bar, squash court and nine-hole golf course with 'greens' of black tar, and which only the year before uhuru began accepting African and Asian members....
The Mbeya Hotel also remains, a relic of the colonial past where visiting Tanzanian dignitaries from Dar es Salaam are now put up and where, at night, at the bar, the elite of Mbeya's officials congregate....
I introduce myself to the young African at the front desk, but I am unprepared for his reply. 'Are you the Mr. Levitt from Mpuguso school?' he asks. He introduces himself as Azim A. Mwinyimvua, though he prefers to be called Bwana Simba, or, in English, Mr. Lion. Bwana Simba remembers me, he says, because as a schoolboy he visited Mpuguso for a track meet and attended the Friday night debates when I was debate master....Bwana Simba, it turns out, is the manager of the Mbeya Hotel....
In Mbeya I find one of my students, whom I will refer to as Henry, and who is now a teacher. Like Rashid, he was one of my brightest and most hard-working pupils. He was gifted in all subjects....
Mpuguso has also changed. It is no longer an upper primary school; instead, refresher courses for school teachers are now given there. One of Tanzania's proudest boasts is that it has provided free primary education for all school-age children. In each village I pass on the way to Mpuguso, a primary school stands by the side of the road....
At Mpuguso, I walk along dirt paths I remember, past rows of brick houses where we teachers lived, past my own brick house, where two African women sit in the doorway. A new row of classrooms has been built alongside our old ones....
Back in Dar es Salaam I meet with my student George. He is a communications officer for the meteorological department at the airport....He'd been an excellent student, with a gift for mathematics....He'd wanted to become an engineer. I expected much from him....
Of all my former students, the most successful turns out to be Oscar Mwamwaja, who has become a pilot for Air Tanzania. It is a prestigious job, for there are few qualified African pilots. Of the 40-odd pilots at Air Tanzania, half are foreigners.
We meet on a Saturday evening in the lounge of Dar es Salaam's Kilimanjaro Hotel. Little Oscar - who was smaller than the other boys - is now tall and thin, a few inches taller than I. He is wearing his navy-blue Air Tanzania uniform and he walks with jaunty confidence, in the manner of pilots everywhere.
'I was in the States, you know,' he says. 'I trained for two years in Texas. I've also been to Europe and to India, where I trained to fly the 737's.' Watching him so poised, listening to him speak so casually of being a pilot, it is difficult to remember Oscar had once been a 'day boy' at Mpuguso school, living in a mud hut outside Tukuyu, walking six miles each day to and from school.
'Life is not good here in Tanzania now, Mr. Levitt,' he says, leaning toward me and lowering his voice. 'Our salaries have been cut. The best pilots are leaving the country'....
Although I was not to see Oscar again, I was to hear of him. Last February, after I'd left Tanzania, an Air Tanzania 737 on a domestic flight was hijacked by three men and forced to fly to London. There, the hijackers surrendered, released their passengers and read a proclamation demanding the resignation of President Nyerere.
A few weeks later, I received a letter from Rashid in Dar es Salaam. 'You will get a shock to learn that the Air Tanzania plane which was hijacked to London was being manned by Oscar Mwamwaja as copilot,' he wrote.
Then last month, I received a letter from Oscar himself. He was in Nigeria. 'This surely will be a surprise for you,' he began, 'especially to hear from me being in Nigeria. ... Maybe you know I was involved in the hijacking which happened in Tanzania in February. That was a terrible experience.' He went on to say he had been shot in the back, but no major organs had been touched and in London the bullet had been removed. He said he had resigned from Air Tanzania and left the country 'for my peace of mind.'
He told me he was now working as a flying instructor in Nigeria, and that he hoped to go to the United States. He asked me to write him a recommendation to a university in California. He gave no indication that he had any intention of ever returning to Tanzania.
Even Oscar, the most successful of the young Africans I had known, no longer saw a future for himself in Tanzania. 'At the moment, I don't miss home much,' he wrote. 'I have a lot to do here and life isn't that difficult.'" - (Leonard Levitt, "Tanzania: A Dream Deferred," The New York Times Magazine, 14 November 1982).
Besides Oscar Mwamwaja, another first cousin of Elijah Mwakikagile was Absalom Mwaibanje. He was the son of Eliakim Simeon Mwaibanje and attended Malangali Secondary School after Elijah did.
He was among the first civil servants in the government of newly independent Tanganyika from a school which - together with Tabora Boys, Pugu, Minaki, Old Tanga Secondary School, Old Moshi and a few others - produced a large number of people who went on to fill government positions, especially in the civil service, in the early years of independence when the country did not have many educated people. Secondary school graduates formed the backbone of the civil service in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, during the post-colonial era. Among the alumni of Malangali - of other schools as well - were some of the people who played a major role in the struggle for independence in Tanganyika and in the new nation after it emerged from colonial rule.
Another alumnus of Malangali Secondary School was Amon Nsekela from Lupepo in Rungwe District. His contemporaries at Malangali included Elijah Mwakikagile, Brown Ngwilulupi, Jeremiah Kasambala and John Mwakangale. He also went to Tabora Boys.
Amon Nsekela later became a prominent figure in the government under President Nyerere. He served as permanent secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs soon after independence and held the same position in three other ministries at different times including the ministry of finance.
He was also the first chairman and director of the country's largest bank, the National Bank of Commerce, appointed by President Nyerere. He assumed the post in 1967 only a few years after independence and served in that capacity for many years. He was also the first chairman of the Council of the University of Dar es Salaam and later served as high commissioner (ambassador) to Britain. He held many other high-level positions in Tanzania through the years from the 1960s to the 1990s. A college, Dr. Amon J. Nsekela Bankers' Academy in the town of Iringa in the Southern Highlands, was named after him.
Another classmate of Elijah Mwakikagile from Tukuyu Primary School to Malangali Secondary School was W.B.K. Mwanjisi who later became a doctor trained at Makerere University College in Uganda. He was one of the early nationalists who gained national prominence in the political arena during the struggle for independence and held leadership positions at the national level in some organisations which fought for the rights of Africans and served as president of the national organisation of African government employees. He was one of the most prominent members of TANU, the party that led the nationalist campaign, from the Southern Highlands Province. In 1954, he left government service and returned to Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands to work at a hospital in the town of Tukuyu, his home area.
During the struggle for independence, there were some Africans, including prominent ones, who compromised their "nationalist credentials" when they joined the United Tanganyika Party (UTP) of the British settlers who claimed Tanganyika was not ready for independence. But history was not on their side.
Before being actively involved in politics, one of Elijah Mwakikagile's classmates at Malangali Secondary School, Jeremiah Kasambala, was the head of the Rungwe Cooperative Union in Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands Province, a position which thrust him into national prominence because of the major role cooperative unions - of farmers - across the country played in the struggle for independence. He was elected member of parliament representing Rungwe District and was appointed by President Nyerere as minister of trade and cooperatives, a portfolio that reflected his background as a leader of the cooperative union in Rungwe, one of the largest farmers' unions in Tanganyika. He also served as minister of industries, minerals and energy among other posts.
Besides being one of the leading figures in the independence struggle in Tanganyika, another Malangali alumnus, John Mwakangale, was also one of the leaders of the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) founded in the port town of Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria, Tanganyika, in September 1958 under the leadership of Julius Nyerere.
PAFMECA mobilised forces and coordinated the struggle for independence in Tanganyika, Kenya, Zanzibar, Uganda, Nyasaland (renamed Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and Southern Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe). It was renamed the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECSA) after it was expanded to include the countries of southern Africa: apartheid South Africa, Bechuanaland (now Botswana), South West Africa (renamed Namibia), Basutoland (renamed Lesotho), and Swaziland. John Mwakangale remained a prominent leader in the larger freedom movement which also played a major role in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963. The OAU was renamed the African Union (AU) in July 2002.
In 1958, John Mwakangale was one of the few African leaders who were elected to the Legislative Council (LEGCO), a colonial parliament of Tanganyika dominated by the British colonial rulers led by the British governor.
Members of LEGCO were elected on a tripartite system representing three racial categories: European, mostly British settlers; Asian, mostly Tanganyikans of Indian and Pakistani origin, a category which also included Arabs in terms of racial separation; and African - blacks who constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of Tanganyika but whose numerical preponderance did not overshadow racial minorities. Collectively, non-blacks were a significant minority.
Africans in Tanganyika – as in other British colonies including neighbouring Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland – were also subjected to indignities of colour bar similar to those under apartheid in South Africa, although not as rigid, yet equally humiliating. There were signs designating racial categories. Lavatories were labelled "Europeans," "Asians" and "Africans." Some hotels and bars were labelled "Europeans." Facilities for Africans were the worst. There were separate schools for Europeans, Asians and Africans.
The school Godfrey Mwakikagile attended in Dar es Salaam, Tambaza High School, was predominantly Asian. It was in an upper middle-class area of Upanga, designated - like the city centre - as a residential area for Asians. The head of the school during that period, Bori Lira, was the school's first African headmaster.
The students at the school were mostly Tanzanians of Indian and Pakistani origin even ten years after independence. It was once known as H.H. The Aga Khan High School, almost exclusively for Asian students, and changed its name to Tambaza after independence when the government decided to integrate all schools including Christian schools to enable Muslims and other non-Christians to enroll as students. Integration was mandatory.
Godfrey Mwakikagile was among the first African students to integrate the former H.H. The Aga Khan High School. And the hostel where some students stayed, known as H.H. The Aga Khan Hostel only a few yards from the school, was also overwhelmingly Asian. Mwakikagile was one of the few African students who stayed there.
It was a socially and racially stratified society. As Trevor Grundy, a British journalist who worked in Tanzania at the same newspaper where Godfrey Mwakikagile also worked as a news reporter during the same period, stated:
"I worked in Dar es Salaam (1968 - 1972) for one of the English papers....
Between 1933 and World War II there was next to no development in Tanganyika. Hitler wanted his colonies back and the various British politicians thought it a good idea to return them - an act of appeasement to the German leader. So why spend money on something you're sooner or later give away?
After 1918, Tanganyika became a mandated territory under the League of Nations.
In African eyes, the British were no more popular than the Germans. The British turned Tanganyika into an undeclared apartheid state that was socially divided between divided Africans, Europeans and Asians....
(It was) British-style apartheid - their secret was never to give racial segregation a name." - (Trevor Grundy, "Julius Nyerere Reconsidered," 4 May 2015, africaunauthorised.com).
It is an observation made by a number of researchers including an American professor, Sarah L. Smiley. As she stated in her paper, "The City of Three Colors: Segregation in Colonial Dar es Salaam, 1891 - 1961":
"My Dar es Salaam was one with little interaction between races and one where residents have strong ideas about where people belong. As a white American living in the traditionally Asian City Center, I was told by many people that I was out of place. The Dar es Salaam I experienced was Mji wa Rangi Tatu - the city of three colors.
To me these three colors are distinct, both in color and in geography, and represent three races in the city: whites, Asians, and Africans. That these colors are separate is a direct legacy of seventy years of segregation, first implemented by the German colonial government and later continued by the British colonial government.
Yet these three colors were never equal in terms of population; Dar es Salaam is, and always was, a majority African city. The city's African population was 90 percent in 1894 and 63 percent in 1957. During that same period, the city's European population was never more than four percent.
To call colonial Dar es Salaam a racially segregated city is not groundbreaking, since many scholars of the city have already done so. De Blij commented on the de jure racial segregation of Dar es Salaam among European, Asian and Arab, and African areas, and Leslie surveyed the city's many suburbs designed exclusively for the African population. Anthony and Mascarenhas both suggested that race served as the primary factor in Dar es Salaam's segregation, above class, ethnicity, religion, or occupation....
Building ordinances were subtle backdoor policies to segregate the city without an explicit focus on race. They divided Dar es Salaam into zones based solely on the types of buildings allowed in each zone. Zone 1 was for buildings of a European type, Zone 2 was for residential or commercial buildings, and Zone 3 was for native style buildings. These zones were distinct entities but had an important spatial component. Zone 1 occupied the city's premium land along the coast and was situated as far as possible from Zone 3 while Zone 2 served as a buffer between these areas.
Although these ordinances applied only to physical structures, they ultimately dictated the racial composition of these areas. in fact these areas acquired colloquial Swahili names; Zone 1 became known as Uzunguni (the place of Europeans), Zone 2 as Uhindini (the place of Indians), and Zone 3 as Uswahilini (the place of Africans)....
The British government maintained and strengthened racial segregation in Dar es Salaam in the absence of any official policy of segregation. This segregation did more than dictate the residential patterns of urban residents; the city was the site of social segregation as the government privileged the minority European population at the expense of the majority African population....
The end result of over one hundred years of racial segregation is Mji wa Rangi Tatu, a city with little interaction between races but clear notions about spatial belonging." - (Sarah L. Smiley, "The City of Three Colors: Segregation in Colonial Dar es Salaam, 1891 - 1961," Historical Geography , Volume 37, 2009, pp. 178 - 179, 180).
The hierarchy of residential areas coincided with racial identity and served political purposes as well. The colonial rulers used Tanganyikans of Asian origin as a shock absorber - a buffer between Africans and Europeans to shield themselves from Africans. Some of the anger, caused by racial injustice, which should have been directed at the British colonial rulers was instead directed against Tanganyikan Asians. It was, nonetheless, a well-structured racial hierarchy to the detriment of Africans more than anybody else.
Smiley went on to state:
"German rule in German East Africa officially began in 1887, and the government enacted some early forms of segregation before implementing its first building ordinance in 1891. During those four years the government seized eastern portions of the city from Africans and expelled them farther west....After 1912 the German government began to purchase land for a dedicaated African settlement, suggesting that it envisioned more strict segregation for the future....
The era of German colonial rule was interrupted by, and ultimately ended by, World War I. At the conclusion of the war, the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of its colonial possessions. The League of Nations Covenant mandated Tanganyika, formerly German East Africa, to Great Britain....The Mandate explicitly prohibited segregation and the unequal treatment of races....
Not only did the British government maintain and eventually expand the segregation implemented by the German administration, it repeatedly prioritized the needs of the European minority at the expense of the African majority....in fact a 1932 economic report suggested that too much money was spent on the European administration in a place where the needs of Africans were to come first....
Inequalities were especially evident in education. Before the end of World War II, Great Britain increased spending on education in Tanganyika Territory without providing education for Africans, an omission considered 'one of the least fortunate chapters in the history of the country under mandate.' After the war Britain began to spend more on African education, but spending levels remained disparate. A 1955 grant supposedly allotted funding equally between European, Asian, and African education. The vast population differences - 21,000 Europeans, 80,000 Asians, and 8 million Africans - meant that African education received much less per person. These examples on education spending clearly show that the League of Nations did not prevent racial segregation or discrimination in Tanganyika in spite of the larger goal of the Mandate." - (Ibid., pp. 180, 181, 183).
This deliberate policy of systematic exclusion, segregation and discrimination which had its origin in the colonial administrations of both the German and British rulers of Tanganyika had a lasting impact that endures today decades after the country won independence. As Smiley points out concerning segregation in Dar es Salaam along racial lines, a policy that was implemented in other urban areas of colonial Tanganyika only in varying degrees but with the same objective in mind, to keep races apart, with whites having the most privileged status, it was impossible to separate residential designation from racial identity. Residential areas in Zone 1, of prime land, were designated "European," even if not explicitly so in semantic terms; Zone 3, "African."
The policy also led to racial friction and antagonism between Africans and Asians in Zone 3 which was referred to - and designated - as the "African area" but was also open to non-Africans since the British colonial rulers claimed the designation had nothing to do with race - the area had simply evolved into being "African" in terms of residence but was never officially intended to be so:
"It is impossible for these (residential) zones to be simultaneously racially homogeneous and not about race at all....
One effect...was the intrusion of Asians into Zone 3; since the change permitted any type of construction in this area, some Asians took advantage of cheaper housing costs and increased business opportunities in this area. After World War II, the Tanganyika African Government Servants Association complained that Asians occupied all of the well-ventilated and hygienic homes in Kariakoo and were therefore contributing to the housing shortage and poor housing conditions of most of the city's African residents....The government was unwilling to stop this movement of Asians...since there was 'no policy of segregation of race'....
(Yet) conditions in Zone 3 remained poor (for racial reasons since the area still was mostly African in spite of the presence of some Asians - this comment added, not by Smiley). Zone 3 remained the only portion of the city that permitted construction of African style homes, and the government seriously underfunded this zone throughout colonial rule....
The government recognized that an official policy of racial segregation would violate the League of Nations Mandate but it clearly expressed interest in implementing such a policy and discovered ways to circumvent the Mandate. The desire to segregate Dar es Salaam was not expressed only by low-level officials. Even the governor of Tanganyika Territory, Horace Byatt, found segregation appealing:
'So far as segregation is concerned it is pretty clear to me that in this Territory we cannot adopt the principle of racial segregation as such, for that would lead us into a position...where we should be in conflict with the terms of the Treaty and the Mandate. There is a universal agreement as to the wisdom and necessity of segregation....We can, I believe, ensure proper segregation in actual practice by means of Building and Township Regulations. For example, though an Asiatic may buy a plot in the European residential quarter, we can require him to build on it a house of a type which would not suit his methods of life in that we should prohibit the existence of the Asiatic conception of a latrine....'
Certainly, as this quotation suggests, racial difference was a primary factor in why the British government segregated Dar es Salaam. Effectively the government achieved its goal by basing its building ordinance on racist assumptions. It assumed that only a European would want a flush toilet and that Africans were incapable of maintaining any structure other than a hut. Although these sanitation preferences could be linked to class, the government used racial categories when discussing these issues, suggesting its interests were in racial segregation rather than economic segregation." - (Ibid., pp. 183, 184).
Also, it was Africans who constituted the backbone of the economy. Yet they got virtually nothing in return. They paid the largest amount in taxes but saw nothing in terms of provision of services in their areas. In the 1940s, there wasn't even a water-borne sewage system in the African residential area of Dar es Salaam. Yet in 1942, more than 72 per cent of the city's residents were African. Residential segregation also reinforced social segregation. The British implemented this informal policy far more than the Germans did for historical reasons; they ruled Tanganyika longer than the Germans did and therefore had far more time and resources at their disposal to enforce it. As Smiley stated:
"The British administration had nearly forty years to strengthen and expand the segregation begun by the Germans. It did so through deliberate actions that kept Europeans, Asians and and Africans physically and socially separate; by differentiating among the three zones in terms of housing and amenities, the government ensured that Dar es Salaam remained a city of three colors....In the absence of an official racial segregation policy, the British government was extremely successful in dividing Dar es Salaam (along racial lines)....
This trend of providing few benefits to Africans continued throughout British rule. In 1953 (eight years before independence) the majority of Africans in the Magomeni area did not have a bathroom or latrine. More so, this area had over 10,000 residents and only one public water point....(And) it was normal...for the city's Asians and Africans to live without electricity....The Colonial Development and Welfare Act did bring improved infrastructure to the city but unfortunately not all residents benefited equally from this policy. Europeans still received the best treatment while Africans often lived without basic amenities. Even when African areas did receive services, their scope and quality were often inferior to services in Zone 1 (for Europeans)....
On my trip to Rangi Tatu (also an African market area) I saw firsthand the racial divisions in Dar es salaam. I met one man who complained that many white researchers have passed through Mbagala asking residents about the quality of their lives, but many years later they are still without water and electricity. Why then should he talk to me? What would I do to benefit him? His response was not totally unexpected. He lives in one of Dar es Salaam's poorest neighborhoods, in an area that has been discriminated against since colonial rule.
Even with policies to increase development for Africans, Zone 3 areas still bear the ill-effects of too many years of neglect. After more than forty years of independence in Dar es Salaam, the legacies of colonial racial segregation and inequality are still very much evident....
The three zone urban plan implemented first by the German government and later expanded by the British government created stark divisions within the city.
What is especially interesting about these divisions is that they occurred without any direct policy of racial segregation. The colonial governments succeeded in segregating Dar es Salaam in the absence of an official state-sanctioned policy and without ever directly addressing the issue of race....The British adopted a seemingly innocuous building ordinance in the hope of securing the 'same advantages' as racial segregation....
The German and British uses of building ordinances certainly created a city of three colors. These three colors were not equal, with Africans comprising the overwhelming majority of Dar es Salaam's population. In spite of this dominance, the British government still privileged the European minority giving them premium residential plots, better amenities, and more funding....The British government was alarmed when native style huts encroached on Oyster Bay's European suburb but acted quickly to maintain the area's unofficial racial segregation....
In 1952 officials refused to let Europeans live in homes without electricity (which was normal for Africans)....
In light of these inequalities, it is no wonder that Dar es Salaam became such a divided city....To call Dar es Salaam Mji wa Rangi Tatu (the city of three colours) is not a compliment on the city's diversity or cosmopolitanism; it is a recognition of its history of racial segregation and discrimination." - (Ibid., pp. 186, 190, 191, 192, 193).
Almost 60 years after independence, Dar es Salaam essentially remains a racially segregated city. This segregation spans the cultural and socio-economic spectrum with little prospect for fundamental change.
Godfrey Mwakikagile experienced that when he worked as a news reporter and lived in Dar es Salaam in the black areas of Tandika, Temeke and Ilala, products of decades of racial segregation and reflective of the systematic racialism instituted by the colonial rulers and fortified by other non-blacks - Tanzanians of Asian origin and Arabs - who didn't want to integrate with blacks. That is one of the most prominent features of the city's identity even if some of the city's residents don't acknowledge colour consciousness as a fact of life. It is ruthlessly public in residential patterns in spite of the racial integration that has taken place in some areas through the years in the post-colonial era.
Godfrey Mwakikagile lived under this system of racial segregation and discrimination when he was growing up in Tanganyika in the fifties and sixties and wrote about it in his books, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, My Life as an African, Africa and the West and other works including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman. For example, he vividly remembers the public toilet he and other Africans had to use at the bus station in the town of Mbeya in the Southern Highlands Province where he came from. It was labelled "Africans" and was filthy. The label on the toilet was still there even after independence, a chilling reminder of an inglorious past.
He remembers using the toilet during holidays when he was a student, going to and from Songea Secondary School, a boarding school in southern Tanzania - formerly the Southern Province - he attended from 1965 to 1968. He slept at the bus station, on the floor, with the other students as well as other passengers, all black. There were no chairs or benches.
The bus station in Mbeya, the capital of the Southern Highlands Province, was also the only one in town in those days. The buses were owned by the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation (EAR&H) serving the three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika (later Tanzania) founded by the British colonial rulers.
There was also, in the town of Mbeya, the Mbeya Club and Mbeya Hotel exclusively for whites before independence; Mbeya School for white children, mostly of British settlers; and a residential area for whites, again mostly British.
Godfrey Mwakikagile also spent a part of his childhood in Mbeya from 1953 - 1955. He and his family moved from Kigoma to Morogoro in 1952, and from Morogoro to Mbeya in 1953.
The years Godfrey Mwakikagile spent under segregation when he was growing up in different parts of Tanganyika shaped his thinking and perspective on race relations and on the impact of colonial rule on the colonised when he became a writer of non-fiction books about colonial and post-colonial Africa.
There was also racial discrimination in employment during colonial rule when Godfrey Mwakikagile was growing up in the fifties. His father was a victim of such discrimination when he worked for the colonial government and other British employers, as he has stated in his autobiographical writings.
The struggle for independence in Tanganyika in the 1950s, Mwakikagile's formative years, was partly fuelled by such racial injustices which, years later, became the focus of some of his writings.
He has written about that in his book Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties and other works including Life under British Colonial Rule: Recollections of an African in which he describes some incidents of racial injustice. One such incident involved his father when a white supervisor where he worked told him he could not have lunch in the office they shared or even put it on the table. But the supervisor could eat there.
Another one had to do with Godfrey Mwakikagile himself when, as a six-year-old walking to school with other boys, he was severely wounded after being chased and bitten by a dog owned by a white couple who lived in a house the children went by everyday, on a public road, on their way to and from school. Decades later, after 20017, he stated in his autobiopgraphical writings that he still had a highly visible scar on his right knee where he was bitten by the dog. It was a large dog and it could have killed him.
The couple had two dogs, including a German shepherd, which used to chase the boys. They knew the children went by their house and saw them on their way to and from school everyday but did not tie the dogs or keep them on leashes.
The house was on a tea plantation at Kyimbila, the children passed through, and the husband was the manager of Kyimbila Tea Estate.
That was in 1956 when Godfrey Mwakikagile was in Standard One in primary school in Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands Province, as he stated in his books Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, My Life as an African, Life under British Colonial Rule and Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman.
After being bitten by the dog, he stated in his autobiographical writings that he went on to school where he attended class without getting any help – there was no medical assistance at the primary school, not even a First Aid kit – until he returned home in the evening. He continued to go to school in the following days. And nothing could be done to the dog owners during those days. It was colonial rule, blacks did not have the same rights whites had and "knew their place" in terms of social status as colonial subjects not as equal citizens in a racially divided society which was vertically structured not only to keep whites on top of other races, especially blacks, but also virtually above the law.
Godfrey Mwakikagile also stated in his autobiographical works that when he was bitten by the dog, the attack was seared in his memory but as a six-year-old he did not see it in terms of racism until he became a teenager. Years later, he stated in some of his writings that had the children been white, the white couple would probably not have allowed the dogs to roam freely knowing they could attack them.
The colonial rulers and many white settlers had total disregard for the well-being of Africans as Godfrey Mwakikagile himself experienced when he was growing up in colonial Tanganyika and almost lost his life when he was attacked by a dog owned by a white couple who did not care about the safety of African children, or any other blacks, passing by their house even though they walked on a public road. As he stated in his work, Life under British Colonial Rule:
"There is no question that justice was colour-conscious during colonial rule. That was one of the tragedies of being colonised; our status defined by the colour of our skin.
Colour is immaterial but it carries a lot of weight." - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Life under British Colonial Rule, New Africa Press, 2018, p. 108; G. Mwakikagile, Black Conservatives in the United States, 2006, p. 96).
Such disregard for the well-being and safety of Africans was a continental phenomenon even if the parallels were not exact; it was the same experience and humiliation, nonetheless, be it in Tanganyika, Kenya, Guinea or Mali. As Mwakikagile stated in his book Africa and The West:
“In all the African colonies, exploitation went hand in hand with degradation and brutality. In the Congo under the Belgian King Leopold II, Belgians chopped off the hands and arms of Africans who did not collect enough rubber from the forest. In Tanganyika, when it was German East Africa, Germans introduced forced labor and corporal punishment, virtually enslaving Africans, a practice which triggered the Maji Maji war of resistance from 1905 – 07 and covered almost half of the country. The uprising almost ended German rule which was saved only after reinforcements were rushed from Germany.
The French in West Africa also introduced forced labor. Some of the leaders of independent Africa toiled in those labor camps. Madeira Keita, a native of Mali who was active in the politics of Guinea before it won independence in 1958 and collaborated closely with Sekou Toure in founding the Democratic Party of Guinea, was one of them. In April 1959, he became Interior Minister of Mali, and in August 1960, he also became Minister of National Defense, holding two ministerial posts under President Modibo Keita. He related his experience as a conscripted laborer:
'Before 1945, there was a colonial regime with government by decree, the regime of the indignat. The indignat form of government permitted the colonial administration to put Africans in prison without any trial. Sometimes you were put in prison for two weeks because you did not greet the administrator or the commander. You were happy enough if they did not throw stones at you or send you to a work camp, because there was also forced labor at that time. In 1947, I met French journalists who were very surprised to learn that forced labor was nonvoluntary and not paid for. Transportation was not even covered; nor were food and lodging. The only thing that was covered was work.'
The conquest of Africa inexorably led to such brutality because its purpose was exploitation which has no room for compassion. It was an invasion we could very well have done without. The baneful foreign influence Africa is still subjected to is a result of that invasion. And we are now inextricably linked with our former conquerors, for better or for worse, in an international system which accentuates inequalities and from which no part of humanity can extricate itself.
But the materialism of the West, which has found its way into Africa with devastating impact, must be counterbalanced with the spirituality and sense of sharing of the African which animates his culture, indeed his very being.” - Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and The West, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2000, pp. 14 – 15; Madeira Keita, “Le Parti Unique en Afrique,” in Presence Africaine, No. 30, February – March 1960; and Madeira Keita, “The Single Party in Africa,” in Paul E. Sigmund, ed., The Ideologies of the Developing Nations, New York: Praeger, 1963, p. 170. On the African uprising and war of resistance against German colonial rule in Tanganyika, see, among other works, G. C. K. Gwassa and John Iliffe, eds., Records of the Maji-Maji Rising, Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1968).
Mwakikagile further stated in Africa and The West:
"The argument that we blacks are genetically inferior to members of other races is nothing new. It is a stereotype rooted in Western intellectual tradition and has even been given “credibility” by some of the most eminent thinkers of the Western world including Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, David Hume, and Baron de Montesquieu. Some of them did not even consider blacks to be full human beings. As Montesquieu stated in The Spirit of the Laws:
''These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose, that they can scarcely be pitied. It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black, ugly body. The Negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations so highly value: can there be a greater proof of their wanting common sense? It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men...'
The other philosophers were no less racist. According to Kant:
'The Negroes of Africa have received from nature no intelligence that rises above the foolish. The difference between the two races (black and white) is thus a substantial one: it appears to be just as great in respect of the faculties of the mind as in color.'
Hume:
'I am apt to suspect the Negroes…to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was any civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures among them, no arts, no sciences…Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men.'
And according to Hegel:
'Africa…is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit.'
It is a sentiment echoed more than 100 years later in contemporary times by many people including British historian Arnold Toynbee who died in 1975. As he put it:
'The black races alone have not contributed positively to any civilization.'
And in the words of that great humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer:
'The Negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the Negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother"....
The conquest of Africa led not only to oppression and exploitation, but also to denigration of her culture and indigenous institutions. Africans, at least a vary large number of them, were brainwashed into believing that they had no history they could be proud of; that all their customs and traditions were bad, and that even their languages were bad.... When Africa was conquered by the imperial powers, she was also conquered by ideas...as a very effective weapon for conquering other people by conquering their minds....
There is no other continent which is endowed with so much in terms of natural resources. But there is also no other continent where it has been so easy for foreigners to take what does not belong to them....
Because of the pervasive nature of Western influence, its negative impact has reached all parts of the world, including Africa where the devastation wrought is difficult to contain because of the underdeveloped nature of our economies, and also because of our inability to resist such penetration. The sheer scope of such influence, as well as its negative attraction especially among the youth who are mesmerized by the glitter of the West, is mind-boggling and far beyond our capacity to resist it. That is especially the case in the cities which continue to attract millions of people in search of better -read, Western- life. It is a burden Africa cannot bear.
The West may have harnessed the forces of nature and pushed the frontiers of knowledge in many areas, from which Africa has indeed benefited as has the rest of the world. But Africa’s contribution – material and spiritual as well as intellectual – to the growth of Western civilization has never been fully acknowledged. Nor has the destruction of African civilization by the West through imperial conquest. That is undoubtedly one of the saddest chapters in the history of relations between Africa and the West. As Immanuel Kant, although a racist, conceded in one of his works Eternal Peace and Other Essays:
'If we compare the barbarian instances of inhospitality…with the inhuman behavior of the civilized, and especially the commercial, states of our continent, the injustice practiced by them even in their first contact with foreign lands and peoples fills us with horror; the mere visiting of such peoples being regarded by them as equivalent to a conquest…The Negro lands,…The Cape of Good Hope, etc., on being discovered, were treated as countries that belonged to nobody; for the aboriginal inhabitants were reckoned as nothing…And all this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety, and who, while drinking up iniquity like water, would have themselves regarded as the very elect of orthodox faith.'
Africa has yet to recover from the multiple wounds inflicted on her by this Western invasion. But there is a glimmer of hope. And that is traditional Africa. In spite of all the devastating blows our continent has sustained from the West, traditional Africa continues to be the continent’s spiritual anchor and bedrock of our values without which we are no more than a dilapidated house shifting on quick sand. It is to traditional society that we must turn to save Africa from the West, and also save ourselves – from ourselves....Our future may lie in the past." - (G. Mwakikagile, Africa and The West, ibid., pp. viii - ix, vi, 208, 218).
If Africans don't do that, true African Renaissance is impossible. It is traditional Africa which defines who and what we are as a people and as an organic entity because it is the heart and soul, and essence, of our very being, but capable of coexistence with others on the basis of equality, he contends.
Mwakikagile further contends that it is this essence of African-ness which is acknowledged even by some Westernised or brainwashed Africans in rare moments of nostalgia when they say: That is how we lived before the coming of Europeans; that is how our ancestors lived; that is what our ancestors did; not everything was good but they were good old days; our communal and family ties were stronger in those days than they are today; that is how we lived as Africans; that is what it meant to be African - those days are gone.
It was an essence, of African-ness, that was not contaminated or threatened in its pristine beauty, by foreign influence, because there was no such influence. When they acknowledge this essence, they are invoking the essence of their very being, yet at the same repudiate it when they embrace Westernisation or any other foreign influence and identity because they think it is better than being African, he contends.
He goes on to argue that Africans can continue to be active members of the global community and benefit from modernisation without losing or compromising their essence as Africans. And that means reclaiming the spirit and values of traditional Africa and its institutions as well as indigenous knowledge to enable them to chart their way forward and navigate in the treacherous waters of globalisation which threatens the integrity and well-being of the continent in terms of identity and personality.
Otherwise we are going to copy everything from other people and become a product of other cultures as if we did not have our own essence and identity before we came into contact with them, he contends.
He goes on to argue that culture is a vital force and source of life for a nation.
He also states that by turning against traditional Africa, modernised Africans have lost their soul since it is traditional Africa which is the essence of their very being.
Mwakikagile also contends that cultural imperialism has had a devastating impact on many Africans in terms of identity, with many of them preferring to be anything else but African because they are ashamed of their “primitive” African heritage and Africa's “backwardness."
Some of them even proudly profess they have "forgotten" their native languages after living abroad, especially in the West, for only a few years; sometimes for only two or three - let alone five or more. They say they can no longer speak Swahili, Gikuyu and so on. They can only speak English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish or some other European language. Many of them don't even know those languages well. Yet they are so proud of speaking them because they are not African languages. And there are those who anglicise their African names or spell them in some other European language because it makes them "sophisticated" and no longer "primitive."
He further states that many Africans like to mix English, French or Portuguese - languages of their former colonial masters - with the native languages they speak as a sign of "sophistication" and of being "well-educated," a phenomenon which, in East Africa, has led to the evolution of what is known as Kiswanglish, a hybrid of Kiswahili and English especially in Kenya and Tanzania. He goes on to state that this is especially so among the elite, most of whom are a product of Western education even in local schools in terms of intellectual preparation from the primary school level patterned after the colonial educational systems of Western origin.
Mwakikagile also states that even African countries are described as English-speaking, French-speaking and Portuguese speaking even though the vast majority of the people in those countries don't even understand let alone speak those languages. Africans themselves describe their countries in terms of being Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone instead of describing them as multi-lingual African-speaking countries since most of the people in those countries speak indigenous languages.
He further states that cultural imperialism also has been very destructive in terms of indigenous knowledge that has been lost through suppression of native languages which are the repository of such knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next. Languages of the conquerors who ruled Africa are still given priority at the expense of native languages even decades after independence. Little or nothing is being done to give native languages the status they deserve as vital tools for the preservation and dissemination of indigenous knowledge while, at the same time, continuing to use the languages of the former colonial powers - English, French and Portuguese - out of necessity. It is as if native languages are irrelevant to the well-being of Africans, reinforcing the attitude that nothing good comes out of Africa except minerals and other natural resources. And nothing good, not even indigenous knowledge and institutions, ever came from Africans except labour, especially manual labour.
He also contends that Western education was intended to de-Africanise Africans, as educated Africans also deliberately attempted to de-Africanise themselves by turning against their own indigenous cultures and tradtional ways of life and values - hence against their very being - in order to become "British," "French," and "Portuguese," the colonial powers which ruled Africa. Western education was also intended to alienate them from their own people - the more educated the less African - and turn them into loyal servants of their conquerors to perpetuate imperial domination of Africa even after the end of colonial rule; a goal that was achieved in most cases as has been demonstrated by the existence of neo-colonial governments in all parts of the continent since independence.
He says there were only a few exceptions such as Ghana under Nkrumah, Tanzania under Nyerere, and Guinea under Sekou Toure where the leaders made a genuine attempt to achieve true independence. But even in those countries, there were subversive elements within the government and elsewhere in society working with the imperialist powers to undermine the leaders in order to sabotage their efforts to achieve true liberation from foreign domination.
The colonial rulers never really left Africa; they only changed faces, he contends.
Mwakikagile goes on to state that conquest of the mind was the worst form of imperial subjugation, a position he articulates in his works, Life under British Colonial Rule: Recollections of an African and Conquest of the Mind: Imperial subjugation of Africa which was published on his birthday in 2019. And in another one of his books, Colonial Mentality and the Destiny of Africa published in 2020, he examines the negative impact of colonial mentality on Africa's well-being as a continental crisis and how it impedes Africa's progress and the quest for an African renaissance.
He contends in his books that In many cases, the conquered ended up identifying with their conquerors. They emulated them and even tried to be more British than the British themselves, or more French than the French themselves, and glorified them as if they were the best specimen of mankind in spite of all the suffering and humiliation the colonial rulers inflicted on them.
He further contends that many Africans even identify themselves with their former colonial masters more than they do with fellow Africans who were ruled by other colonial powers. For example, Malians and Senegalese identify with the French more than they do with Ghanaians and Nigerians who were ruled by the British, further reinforcing the racist notion that Europeans are superior to Africans – it is better to be a part of them than it is to be a part of fellow Africans.
He goes on to state that the political and cultural divide between Francophone and Anglophone Africa is evident even in the African Union (AU). There is rivalry and even mistrust between member countries which were ruled by the two colonial powers: France and Britain. The most tragic case, within a country, is the bloody conflict between Anglophone Cameroon and Francophone Cameroon in a nation where the former colonial power, France, still wields enormous power and influence to the detriment of English-speaking Cameroonians of Southern Cameroons in the southwestern part of the country.
Mwakikagile contends that imperial control of Africa is manifested in many other ways, making a mockery of independence Africans are so proud of.
He also states that one of the tragedies that befell Africa was that to many Africans, their conquerors - European colonialists - not only became their role models; they emulated them in many ways and, by doing so, ended up destroying themselves in terms of their Africanness. He says it was a diminution of African identity and an attack on the African personality that goes on even today.
He contends all that is a victory for cultural imperialism not only in terms of language, European manners and mannerisms and culture adopted by many Africans but also in terms of ideas propagated by the West.
That is the imperial logic, deliberately placing Africans in the sub-human category not only in terms of intellect but also in every other conceivable way.
And that was the attitude of some settlers even in Tanganyika, placing Africans in the same category with dogs or other animals, especially monkeys, when Godfrey Mwakikagile was growing up in the fifties. That was the case even after independence in the early sixties, like the white manager of a hotel in the nation's capital Dar es Salaam who had a sign at the entrance of his hotel clearly stating, "No Africans and dogs allowed inside", and even refused to let in the mayor simply because the mayor was black.
There were many incidents of racism in Tanganyika during British colonial rule. In his book Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, Mwakikagile wrote about the British settlers he interviewed - then living in different parts of the world - and what they said about life in Tanganyika in those days. One of them stated the following in the interview:
"The behaviour of the white settlers towards the Africans was not always as good as it should have been. Mind you, many of the white people were unsettled by the war, totally footloose and earning more money in East Africa than was possible back ‘home’. Many should not have been given work out there. Too much money and not enough facilities to spend it on....
I remember being shocked to hear one European admit that he treated his dogs better than he treated his African staff.
Many of the Africans looking for work stated very clearly that they would only work either for a priest or a teacher. If work was not available then they would wander off in search of work elsewhere....
Whites and Africans just did not mix. The white population had their meeting places and the Africans likewise.
I was not aware of any Europeans who were opposed to the status quo. Whites and Blacks just did not mix. Except, that is, in Church. The Europeans sat on the left and the Africans sat on the right hand side of the little straw covered church (in Nach - Nachingwea). My mother was frequently the pianist at the services....
The House servants were a vital part of everyday life; but were very firmly kept in place.
I did though, witness one distressing event. An African was walking along a town street (in Nachingwea), minding his own business, when an Alsatian leapt at him from the back of a pick-up truck. The African was shocked and scared witless. He leapt out of the way and into the road. He landed in the path of an oncoming car. The (white) driver of the car only just managed to pull up in time. He leapt out of his vehicle and punched the hapless African in such a way that his jaw was fractured. Dad took it upon himself to ferry the unfortunate man to the local hospital....
The Europeans had arrived and taken over the best land for themselves. There was an overwhelming feeling that the African 'so newly brought out of barbarism' was incapable of looking after himself without the benevolent eye of the European. For the most part White and African got on. Mainly this was because the African 'knew his place'....
Many Europeans were aware that not enough was being done for the welfare of the Africans, but were unwilling to say so for fear of disturbing their own newly acquired life-style. My father had signed a contract to head a school for Europeans (in Nachingwea). He was not allowed to teach African children. The only Africans who got near the place were those learning to become office workers. They came to what was effectively nightschool....
The idea of being led by Africans was anathema to a great many Europeans....
Before we returned for the last time to the UK we were living in Nakuru (Kenya). Dad was in the process of taking over Greensteds School. The positioning of the buildings was perfect, absolutely alongside the Rift Valley.
The Mau Mau uprising had just started. White settlers living away from civilisation were seen as easy targets. Many Europeans chose to carry guns....
As children we were taken once a week to a firing range and issued with 5 x 0.22 cartridges and expected to hit a tiny target. This I found immensely difficult. Because of the seriousness of the situation , the school was allocated a detachment of Africans from the ‘King’s African Rifles’. They patrolled at night.
Nothing ever happened that I got to know about, except that the local Police station was raided by the Mau Mau; they stole 30 African Police uniforms and got away without being spotted....
The general feeling amongst the Europeans was that all this was a little local nuisance and that given time and a few strongarm European tactics, the indigenous population would be subdued. As we all know that situation escalated.
Another of the silly aspects of the Mau Mau situation was that the colonial ladies took to carrying small pistols and had different coloured holsters to match whatever outfit they were wearing." - (Nicholas Edmondson, UK, interviewed by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, New Africa Press, 2010, pp. 258 - 259, 260 – 263, 264 - 265, 266).
Mwakikagile also states that even members of other races, not just whites, have been equally condescending and outright racist towards blacks. They include Mahatma Gandhi who was not a champion of racial equality yet was revered by a number of African and African American leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King for using non-violent methods of civil disobedience in the struggle against racial injustices and to fight for India's independence.
When he lived in South Africa for 21 years, Gandhi expressed extreme racist views and described black people as "kaffirs," an extremely offensive term used by racist white South Africans and others which was equivalent to calling black people "niggers." He argued that Indians were "infinitely superior" to blacks who were "savage," "half-heathen natives" and inferior to other people as well in many ways. He also supported racial segregation to keep blacks away from members of other races. He said unlike blacks, Indians should be on the same level with whites because they were of the same stock. They had the same Aryan roots.
In 2016, his statue was removed from the University of Ghana in Accra because he did not deserve to be honoured as an icon in the struggle for equality and justice when he despised blacks. His statues sparked similar outrage in South Africa.
Mwakikagile further states that many Asians - mostly Indians and Pakistanis - and Arabs in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, also held racist views but did not express them openly in a country where they were far outnumbered by blacks and whose destiny lay in the hands of the black majority.
He also states that East Africans who were born and brought up during colonial rule had more direct experience with racism than West Africans did because of the larger white population in East Africa with significant settler communities, especially in Kenya, although smaller and fewer in Tanganyika. Many of them had bitter experience with the colonial rulers and the white settlers because of the racial injustices perpetrated against them. including doubts about their intelligence and even common sense expressed by some whites. As he stated in Africa and The West:
"Colonialism, as a system of oppression and exploitation, not only continued to plunder Africa but sought to instill in the minds of Africans feelings of inferiority to justify such domination...This is just one example – what Colonel Ewart Grogan, the doyen of the white settlers in colonial Kenya and leader of the Kenya British Empire Party, said about Africans attending the renowned Makerere University College in Uganda:
'Just teaching a lot of stupid monkeys to dress up like Europeans. Won’t do any good. Just cause a lot of discontent. They can never be like us, so better for them not to try.'
Another (Kenyan) settler in the 'Dark Continent' had this:
'I’ve actually got a farm hand who wears a tie – but the stupid bastard doesn’t realize you don’t wear a tie without a shirt!'
The implication is obvious. It is a sweeping indictment against all “native Africans” as a bunch of idiots.
Yet another one, Sir Godfrey Huggins, Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, acclaimed as a British liberal, shot point-blank at a press conference in London:
'It is time for the people in England to realize that the white man in Africa is not prepared and never will be prepared to accept the African as an equal, either socially or politically. Is there something in their chromosomes which makes them more backward and different from peoples living in the East and West?'" - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, ibid., pp. 9 - 10, 69; Colin M. Turnbull, The Lonely African, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962, pp. 89, 21, 90, 97).
Godfrey Mwakikagile also stated that the total disregard for the rights and well-being of Africans was earlier demonstrated by the arrogance of the imperial powers at the Berlin Conference in 1885 which led to the partition of Africa. He went on to state that Africans were not even represented at the conference, yet it was their fate that was being determined by Europeans who decided to partition the continent among themselves as if Africans did not even exist.
He also stated that this kind of arrogance and contempt for Africans was expressed in its crudest form in many ways including inflicting humiliating punishment on full-grown black men. They were subjected to corporal punishment at the hands of the white settlers who were young enough to be their sons. And shooting blacks was equated with shooting wild animals, as some white settlers in Kenya conceded, including those who had moved there from apartheid South Africa.
Arbitrary seizure of land, depriving Africans of their only means of livelihood, was simply seen as a white man's right exercised at will in what had become a white man's possession. In his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has given one example of this kind of imperial arrogance demonstrated by what happened to Tom Mboya who, together with Oginga Odinga, was one of the leaders of the Kenyan delegation to the constitutional talks in London in 1960 on Kenyan independence. Mboya stated in his book Freedom and After that when he was walking on a street in London, one old English lady stopped him and asked him:
"Which one of our possessions do you come from?"
The British settlers in East Africa even wanted to establish a giant federation of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Northern and Southern Rhodesia and turn it into a white dominion. Kenya was even declared a “white man's country.” Blacks were nothing. It was a sentiment shared by many white settlers. Ewart Grogan, the most outspoken leader of the white settlers in Kenya, was known for such imperial arrogance, as Godfrey Mwakikagile stated in his book Africa and The West:
"A man with a flair for controversy and an outspoken racist, Grogan described himself as 'the baddest and boldest of a bold bad gang.' He also gained notoriety for publicly flogging Africans in Nairobi. The settlers from South Africa also came 'with the racial prejudices of that country. Frederick Jackson, Sir Charles Eliot’s Deputy Commissioner, told the Foreign Office that the Protectorate was becoming a country of 'nigger-' and game-shooters'...Colonel Ewart Grogan, a leader of the white settlers, bluntly stated: 'We Europeans have to go on ruling this country and rule it with iron discipline…If the whole of the Kikuyu land unit is reverted to the Crown, then every Kikuyu would know that our little queen was a great Bwana.' - (G. Mwakikagile, ibid., pp. 97, 113; E. S. Grogan, in the East African Standard, Nairobi, Kenya, 12 November 1910; Elspeth Huxley, White Man’s Country, Vol. I, London and New York: Macmillan, 1935, pp. 222 - 223, 261 - 262; George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?: The Coming Struggle for Africa, London: Denis Dobson, 1956, pp. 255, 256).
The humanity of Africans, and their lives, meant absolutely nothing to many whites, demonstrated by the injustices and indignities black people suffered under colonial rule. African children, even if not the primary target, sometimes witnessed their parents and other adults being humiliated by their colonial masters. It happened in Kenya, and in Tanganyika, Mwakikagile's home country, even when the countries were approaching independence; the fifties being one of the most critical periods in the history of colonial rule in Africa.
School children who grew up in the fifties were among the victims. The problem was compounded by inequities in the provision of funds and facilities for education. Meagre resources were allocated to education for African children in sharp contrast with the amount spent on schools for European and Asian children. The school Godfrey Mwakikagile attended was no exception. It was also the dawn of a new era in the history of Tanganyika.
He stated in his autobiographical works that the fifties which was a decade that preceded independence was a transitional period which symbolised the identity and partly shaped the thinking of those who grew up in those years as a product of both eras, colonial and post-colonial. They also served as a bridge between the two.
Godfrey Mwakikagile also stated in his works, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties and Life under British Colonial Rule among others, that it was in the same year he was bitten by the dog that Princess Margaret visited Mbeya and Sao Hill in his home region, the Southern Highlands Province, as well as other parts of the country, in October 1956; a visit that symbolised British imperial rule over Tanganyika but also at a time when the nationalist movement was gaining momentum in the struggle for independence. The party that led the country to independence, Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), had been formed just two years before, in July 1954, and within months succeeded in mobilising massive support across the country in its quest to end colonial rule. Independence was inevitable.
A few months after Princess Margaret visited Tanganyika, the Gold Coast became the first black African country to emerge from colonial rule as the new nation of Ghana in March 1957, blazing the trail for the African independence movement; while Tanganyika blazed the trail in East Africa four years later.
Mwakikagile has written about other incidents of racial injustice and other subjects to show how life was in colonial Tanganyika in the fifties from the perspective of colonial subjects who hardly had any rights in their own country ruled and dominated by whites. Africans were lowest in the racial hierarchy, with Asians and Arabs ranked next to whites.
According to his autobiographical works, he is the first-born in his family. Most of his siblings were also born during colonial rule in different parts of Tanganyika – Western, Coast and Southern Highlands provinces – when their father worked for the British colonial government. Three were born after independence; one when the country was still Tanganyika and two after it became Tanzania.
His father played a critical role in his life and early education. He was a very strict disciplinarian and taught him at home when he was attending primary school and during the first two years of middle school before he left home to go to boarding school.
He grew up in a politically conscious family. He and his parents knew some of the leading figures in the independence struggle who came from the Southern Highlands Province and other parts of Tanganyika. They included Austin Shaba who did not come from the Southern Highlands Province but was his classmate at a medical training centre at the national hospital in Dar es Salaam and later became a cabinet member in the first independence cabinet serving as minister of local government. Shaba was also a member of parliament for Mtwara and later served as served as minister of health and housing and as deputy speaker of parliament.
Although Austin Shaba was brought up in Tanganyika, he lost his "citizenship" and cabinet post as well as other government positions because the government found out that both of his parents, who moved to Tanganyika from Nyasaland, were born in Nyasaland and were not Tanganyikan citizens. Therefore he himself was not a citizen and lost something he never had, although it had been assumed through the years that he was a citizen; he was not, according to the law. He and his parents came form Mzimba, Nyasaland. He returned to his home country and later died there.
There was also a time when Elijah Mwakikagile and Austin Shaba worked together when they were medical assistants. Years later, when Godfrey Mwakikagile was a news reporter, he stated that he once interviewed Austin Shaba on the telephone when Shaba was chairman of the Tanganyika Sisal Marketing Board based in Tanga. Shaba asked him: "Are you Elijah Mwakikagile's son? I know your parents and knew you when you were a child."
When he was growing up, Godfrey's parents told him about some of the people they knew, especially his father's classmates, schoolmates and co-workers who were involved in the nationalist movement during the struggle for independence. Godfrey knew some of them. They came from the same area where he grew up in Rungwe District.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about the "complex" race relations between Africans and the British settlers in those days and about many other subjects in his book, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties:
"What makes this account particularly compelling is that he is an African whose own family experienced life under colonial rule. Interviewing many surviving actors, this book offers compelling primary evidence on the state of race relations at this delicate time before independence." - (British Empire Books, Authors, Bibliography, Historiography and Library: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/library/library.htm).
The book has had favourable reviews. A reviewer on amazon.com who lived in Tanganyika in those days stated the following:
"I grew up in Tanzania, and this book really takes me back home. The man tells how things were without hiding the bad times of the colonial era. But, I must say, he is NOT bitter and angry at the British like many other African writers. This story has its boring moments of course because life is like that. I found it very realistic and refreshing." - (Steve VN, An African Growing up in Tanzania in the 1950s and 1960s, amazon.com, August 18, 2016, https://www.amazon.com/Life-Tanganyika-Fifties-Godfrey-Mwakikagile/dp/9987160123#customerReviews).
Another reviewer, also on amazon.com, wrote the following about the same book:
"I was there. What a beautiful country! Wonderful days, wonderful memories. The best of times. Brought tears to my eyes. I have yet to read a better book on Tanganyika in those days." - (Keith, Tanganyika in the fifties - a decade to remember, amazon.com, July 7, 2006, https://www.amazon.com/Life-Tanganyika-Fifties-Godfrey-Mwakikagile/dp/9987160123#customerReviews).
It was an era of delicate and sometimes tense race relations, with Africans confined to a subordinate status, being on the lowest rung of the racial hierarchy. Education meant nothing in terms of social status and earnings. Africans were never treated equal to Europeans, Asians and other non-blacks. Some of the earliest African nationalists were those who fought in World War II, an experience which fuelled nationalist sentiments among them when they returned home. One of them was Ali Sykes who played a major in forming the party that led Tanganyika to independence:
"One thing that Ally Sykes learned from these experiences was that he must come back and liberate Tanganyika from the yoke of imperialism. There were three different diets in the army designed on racial basis for Europeans, Asians and Africans. Back home salary grades were similarly designed along racial lines with Africans at the bottom rung. A fully qualified African doctor from Makerere was being paid half of what a semi-qualified Indian doctor was earning....
Returning to Tanganyika - today Tanzania - in the early 1950s, Sykes became a key activist in the liberation movement being one of the founder members of the Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) the forerunner of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). He carried membership card number two while Julius Nyerere carried card number one." - (Douglas Kiereini, "Ally Sykes' Courage That Saw Tanzania Gain Independence," Business Daily, Nairobi, Kenya, 10 May 2018).
African leaders, including Julius Nyerere, campaigning for independence were subjected to the same racial indignities which continued even after the end of colonial rule, especially during the early years, but drew a swift response from the new government which was predominantly black and multi-racial. As Godfrey Mwakikagile stated in Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era:
“Mwalimu himself had experienced racial discrimination, what we in East Africa – and elsewhere including southern Africa – also call colour bar. As Colin Legum states in a book he edited with Tanzanian professor, Geoffrey Mmari, Mwalimu: The Influence of Nyerere:
'I was privileged to meet Nyerere while he was still a young teacher in short trousers at the very beginning of his political career, and to engage in private conversations with him since the early 1950s.
My very first encounter in 1953 taught me something about his calm authority in the face of racism in colonial Tanganyika. I had arranged a meeting with four leaders of the nascent nationalist movement at the Old Africa Hotel in Dar es Salaam. We sat at a table on the pavement and ordered five beers, but before we could lift our glasses an African waiter rushed up and whipped away all the glasses except mine.
I rose to protest to the white manager, but Nyerere restrained me. 'I am glad it happened,' he said, 'now you can go and tell your friend Sir Edward Twining [the governor at the time] how things are in this country.'
His manner was light and amusing, with no hint of anger.'
Simple, yet profound. For, beneath the surface lay a steely character with a deep passion for justice across the colour line and an uncompromising commitment to the egalitarian ideals he espoused and implemented throughout his political career, favouring none.
Years later his son, Andrew Nyerere, told me about an incident that also took place in the capital Dar es Salaam shortly after Tanganyika won independence in 1961 near the school he and I attended and where we also stayed from 1969 - 1970. Like the incident earlier when Julius Nyerere was humiliated at the Old Africa Hotel back in 1953, this one also involved race. As Andrew stated in a letter to me in 2002 when I was writing this book:
'As you remember, Sheikh Amri Abeid was the first mayor of Dar es Salaam. Soon after independence, the mayor went to Palm Beach Hotel (near our high school, Tambaza, on United Nations Road in Upanga). There was a sign at the hotel which clearly stated: 'No Africans and dogs allowed inside.' He was blocked from entering the hotel, and said in protest, 'But I am the Mayor.' Still he was told, 'You will not get in.' Shortly thereafter, the owner of the hotel was given 48 hours to leave the country. When the nationalization exercise began, that hotel was the first to be nationalized.'
Such insults were the last thing that could be tolerated in newly independent Tanganyika. And President Nyerere, probably more than any other African leader, would not have tolerated, and did not tolerate, seeing even the humblest of peasants being insulted and humiliated by anyone including fellow countrymen." - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Fifth Edition, New Africa Press, 2010, pp. 501 – 502).
It was also at the Palm Beach Hotel where Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) stayed when he went to Tanzania in November 1967; he was interviewed by the Sunday News and The Nationalist, Dar es Salaam, 5 - 6 November.
He gave a fiery speech at the University of Dar es Salaam in early 1968 denouncing racism which he himself would have experienced at the Palm Beach Hotel had he gone there before or soon after independence, as did the first African mayor of Dar es Salaam, Sheikh Amri Abeid, who assumed the post not long after Tanganyika attained sovereign status.
Professor Terence Ranger (1929 - 2015), a renowned British historian who specialised in African history and who taught at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now the University of Zimbabwe) in Salisbury (renamed Harare in 1982) from 1957 until 1963 when he was deported in March by the white minority regime for supporting Africans in their quest for racial equality - he went to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam after he was deported - recalled the day Stokely Carmichael spoke at Tanzania's leading academic institution. As he stated in his book, Writing Revolt: An Engagement with African Nationalism, 1957 - 67:
"Early in 1968 Stokely Carmichael [Trinidadian-American civil rights activist] visited the College to give a lecture under the auspices of the Student Revolutionary Front. As the frogs croaked loudly in the pool outside, Stokely held his audience spellbound inside. A master orator, he could do more with a whisper than anyone else with a shout.
He had three messages. The first was that African students were the true proletariat and that they, guns in hand, must spearhead the revolution.
The second was that the major liberation movements could not be trusted. He attacked particularly the so-called 'authentic' movements, recognized as such by Soviet Russia - ZAPU, FRELIMO, and the MPLA. He offered to chair a debate between their representatives and spokesmen of the rival parties, ZANU included. (Wisely none of them took up the challenge). Giovanni Arrighi, now teaching in Dar and a strong supporter of ZAPU, was incandescent with rage, hissing to me that Stokely must be an agent of the CIA.
The third message was that it was necessary, but hard, to hate the whites. It was easy to hate Asians, he said, but whites were so much admired and so dominant that one had to work really hard to hate them.
At one stage he was interrupted while students came up and mopped his brow with a large handkerchief.
A history student sitting next to me was shouting 'I do hate the whites, I do hate the whites,' pausing to whisper to me, 'I don't mean you, Professor Ranger.'
Stokely's then wife, Miriam Makeba, sang 'Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika,' a moment of true emotion.
It was the only meeting I have ever been to at which it was impossible for me to raise a question or to make an objection.
The next day I visited the Refugee School, where the teachers thought their students would be interested to hear about 1896 (when blacks fought white settlers in Zimbabwe and lost). I took Revolt with me.
It turned out that Stokely had been there the day before. He had told the students that he was pleased they were passing exams but they must not take this white knowledge seriously. They must always be suspicious of whatever whites told them, and be most suspicious when a white told them something they liked to hear. They must always ask themselves what the motive was. So I encountered a very critical audience.
The first questioner told me that he had understood what I had said but that what he wanted to know was the function of it. Fortunately for me, he gave an example by adding:
'I think you have told us about 1896 because the Africans were defeated in the end and you want to discourage us.'
I determined not to knuckle under and fought back, grasping a convenient hammer which was lying on the desk. I asked whether Nyerere talked of Maji Maji because it had been defeated in the end and he wanted to discourage Tanzanians.
When they refused to believe that some Africans served on the white side in 1896, I showed them photos in the book (Revolt). 'But who took the photos?' they asked.
Would that all audiences were so critical!
A very different repudiation of the book came when I arrived at UCLA in 1969. As I entered the elevator in the Bunche building, Donald Abraham wheeled himself out. 'I hold you personally responsible for the death of spirit mediums in Mozambique,' he said in passing.
Nor were the academic reviews all positive. Robert Rotberg wrote a particularly disobliging one for African Historical Studies." - (Terence Ranger, Writing Revolt: An Engagement with African Nationalism, 1957 - 67, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: James Currey; Harare, Zimbabwe: Weaver Press, 2013, pp. 178 - 170).
Stokely Carmichael's message had universal appeal in terms of struggle against racism, especially in the context of southern Africa where white minority regimes were in control during that period, with Tanzania being the headquarters of all the African liberation movements. It was also a message that resonated with his audience at the University of Dar es Salaam and at the school for young refugees (Kurasini International Education Centre on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam) from southern Africa in a country where incidents of racism were nothing new, blacks being the main victims during colonial times and even after independence at the hands of other non-blacks as well, not just whites.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's home region, the Southern Highlands Province, was one of the areas of Tanganyika which had a significant number of white settlers, mostly British, during the colonial period and in the early years of independence. Incidents of racial discrimination in the province were not uncommon, including some involving his father in the town of Tukuyu, as he explained in his book Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties. He has, in the same book, written about other incidents when he himself was a victim of racism; incidents which he has also narrated in his other work, Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman.
It was also in the town of Tukuyu where the first meeting of the leaders of the white settlers met in October 1925 to discuss formation of a giant federation covering East and Central Africa – Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia – to consolidate imperial rule. The conference was called by Lord Delamere, the leader of the British settlers in Kenya. Godfrey Mwakikagile wrote about that in his books, Africa and the West and Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood. As he stated in Africa and the West:
"In 1920, the protectorate of British East Africa became Kenya Colony...a fundamental transition...intended to consolidate the power of the white settlers.
In London the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, speaking at an East African dinner...in January 1922...said the democratic principles of Europe were 'by no means suited to the development of Asiatic and African people.' According to The Times, London, 28 January 1922, he stated that the intention was to enable British settlers in Kenya to have their own government, a situation similar to what led to the consolidation of white power in Southern Rhodesia and...to the eruption of guerrilla warfare years later by black nationalists in both countries....
Had such self-government been granted,...it would eventually have led to a declaration of independence by whites, making Kenya an independent 'white' nation like apartheid South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and as Rhodesia attempted to do when it declared independence in November 1965, had black people in Kenya not unleashed Mau Mau.
There was such a determined attempt to consolidate white power that even a giant federation of all the British territories in East and Central Africa was considered. Settler leaders from the British colonies in the region met for the first time in October 1925 at Tukuyu, in the southwestern highlands of Tanganyika, to consider the proposal with the blessings of the British government. As George Bennett states:
'In Kenya Delamere was ready for (Governor Edward) Grigg's federation plans...(and) called a conference, at Tukuyu in southern Tanganyika, of settler leaders from the whole area from Kenya to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. This was succeeded by others, at Livingstone (Northern Rhodesia) in 1926 and Nairobi in 1927.'
However, after the British Conservative Government fell in June 1929, hopes for any federation of East and Central African territories were also dashed....Yet the Hilton Young Commission of the British government which issued a report on the failure of the proposed federation was condescending towards Africans, and its recommendations were endorsed by successive governments. As Bennett states: 'The Report itself describes (Africans as) 'the backward races' twenty centuries (2,000 years) behind the Europeans.'
That was tantamount to saying the interests of the indigenous people could never be considered equal to those of the members of the 'advanced' race. According to the Hilton Young Report: '(Waiting) till the backward races have reached their (white settlers') standard is an impossible proposition which no virile and governing race could be expected to acquiesce in'....
Continued mistreatment of Africans led to increased political agitation...during the late 1920s and thereafter." – (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and the West, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2000, pp. 88 – 89).
In his work, Sidney Webb and East Africa: Labour's Experiment with the Doctrine of Native Paramountcy, Professor Robert G. Gregory provided another perspective on Lord Delamere and the meeting of the white settler leaders he convened at Tukuyu:
“The idea of a federation in East and Central Africa was not new; it was almost as old as white settlement in Kenya....By 1925, when Griggs became Governor, Delamere had decided that federation was inevitable.
In October 1925, with characteristic zeal, he organized an unofficial conference. At Tukuyu, a remote outpost in southern Tanganyika, he met with twelve influential settlers from Kenya, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, and Northern Rhodesia to discuss closer union. He fed them canned food and champagne and by the end of the week had convinced them of the advantages of a federation. ...Sir Herbert Stanley, Governor of Northern Rhodesia, delivered the opening address, and Delamere as chairman presided over the other sessions.
But although Delamere at this time gained much prestige and was hailed as 'the Rhodes of East Africa,' he did not succeed in bringing the delegates to any agreement. Representatives from the Rhodesias (Northern and Southern Rhodesia) feared amalgamation with the 'Black North.' ” – (Robert G. Gregory, Sidney Webb and East Africa: Labour's Experiment with the Doctrine of Native Paramountcy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962, pp. 64 - 65).
In the late 1920s and 1930s and even thereafter, British settlers, especially in Kenya, continued to campaign for a federation of the three East African countries – Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika – they knew they would dominate. Nairobi, Kenya's capital, had, in the 1920s, virtually become the capital of the British East African colonies. The proposed federation was strongly opposed by African leaders who saw it as an instrument of domination to perpetuate imperial rule.
The Central African Federation, also known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland), collapsed for the same reason. Formed in August 1953 and dominated by Southern Rhodesia which had the largest number of white settlers among the three countries, it was dissolved in December 1963 because of strong opposition by African nationalists.
Founded in 1900 by the German colonial rulers and named Neu Langenburg, the town of Tukuyu where the leaders of the white settlers met to formulate plans on how to turn the entire region into a white dominion was and still is the headquarters of Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands. It was partly destroyed by an earthquake in 1919:
"During May and June, 1919, very severe seismic disturbances were experienced in the south-western portion of the Territory, which wrecked the Government station and several mission buildings in the Rungwe (former Langenburg) district and caused much damage at Songea....
At Tukuyu, (formerly Neu Langenburg) the shocks occurred almost hourly till the end of the month, and at Songea 72 separate shocks were recorded. They appeared to emanate from the Livingstone Mountains and to travel in a north-easterly or north-westerly direction. All earth tremors were accompanied by heavy rumblings, whilst rumblings were frequently heard though no shock was felt." - (Report on Tanganyika Territory, Covering the Period from the Conclusion of the Armistice to the End of 1920, H.M. Stationery Office, Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, 1921, p. 10; and Gerald Fleming Sayers, The Handbook of Tanganyika, London: MacMillan and Co., 1930, p. 28).
A hilly plateau with abundant rain (more than 100 inches every year) at an elevation of 3,000 - 5,000 feet above sea level with mountain ranges which form the walls of the Great Rift Valley reaching up to 8,000 - 10,000 feet or more in the peaks of the eastern range (Livingstone Mountains also known as the Kipengere Range), Rungwe District has very fertile soil and temperatures ranging from 40°F - 80°F; before climate change, temperatures were sometimes in the 30s and frost was common. The district is prone to earthquakes like other parts of the Southern Highlands.
John Mwakangale represented the Southern Highlands Province in the colonial legislature (LEGCO) where, together with his colleagues, he continued to campaign for independence.
The Southern Highlands Province in the southwest bordering Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) was one of seven provinces of colonial Tanganyika. The provinces were Western Province which was the largest; Lake Province, Northern Province, Central Province, Coast Province, Southern Province, and the Southern Highlands Province which was simply known as the Southern Highlands. The provinces were divided into smaller administrative units called regions in 1963.
After Tanganyika won independence in December 1961, John Mwakangale continued to be a member of parliament. He was appointed Regional Commissioner of the Southern Highlands in 1962 after serving as TANU provincial secretary for the same province. Others who were appointed regional commissioners in the same year - and who had also served as TANU provincial secretaries of other provinces - were Richard Wambura, Samuel Luangisa, John Nzunda, S.J. Kitundu and J. Abdallah. S.A. Mtaki and S. P. Muro, who once served as TANU provincial chairmen, were also appointed regional commissioners. During colonial rule, heads of provinces - all British - were known as provincial commissioners (PCs). Led by Nyerere, TANU - Tanganyika African National Union - was the nationalist movement that won independence for Tanganyika.
Mwakangale was also described as the most "anti-white" or "anti-British" member of the government. He was also very defensive of the interests of African workers. Humphrey Taylor, a British who served as a District Officer (D.O.) in Tanganyika from 1959 to 1962, wrote the following about John Mwakangale when he was a cabinet member serving as minister of labour under Prime Minister Nyerere:
"Soon after Tanganyika became independent, and near the end of my time as a District Officer in Njombe, I received a call from the British manager of the Commonwealth Development Corporation’s wattle plantation and factory a few miles from the District Office. The factory took the bark that was stripped from the wattle trees and used it to make tannin. The workers there were on strike for higher pay, in part because they expected to earn more now that the country was no longer a British colony.
The manager called me because he was afraid that a large crowd of strikers near the factory might attack and damage it. He asked for police protection. I arrived a little while later with ten or fifteen African policemen. I cannot remember if they were armed with anything other than truncheons. It is possible that they also brought rifles. Anyway, everything passed off peacefully without a serious incident. The police and I stood for a couple of hours between the strikers and the factory. The strikers then dispersed and went away. There was no violence of any kind.
However the local union leader sent a fiery telegram to the Minister of Labour, John Mwakangale in Dar es Salaam, in which he wrote that there was a dangerous crisis with provocative action by the British colonial District Officer and the police and that there was a 'danger of the spilling of blood.' Mwakangale was believed to be the most aggressively anti-white or anti- British member of the government. He telegrammed back to say he was coming to Njombe the next day and he sent us a very sharp message criticizing my action and asking to meet with us as soon as he arrived.
At the start of the meeting he was very aggressive and hostile, but as he listened to the manager, the police and to me, he understood what had, and had not, happened. At the end of the meeting we went off and had some beers together.
A little while later, I was in Dar es Salaam to catch the plane on my way home at the end of my brief colonial career. As I was walking on a street there I saw a small group of African cabinet ministers, including Mwakangale, walking towards me on the other side of the street. When he saw me, he dashed across the road, welcomed me enthusiastically, took me by the hand, and brought me across to meet his cabinet colleagues. He told me how sorry he was to hear that I was leaving Tanganyika." - (Humphrey Taylor, "Danger of Spilling Blood," The BritishEmpire, https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/dangerofspillingblood.htm).
Professor John Iliffe in his book A Modern History of Tanganyika described John Mwakangale as a "vehement nationalist," an assessment underscored by some of the remarks Mwakangale made in parliament. According to Professor Paul Bjerk in his book Building a Peaceful Nation: Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania (pp.72 - 73):
"In October 1961, racialist sentiments sprang up even among his (Nyerere's) own party members when a proposal was brought forward to delay citizenship for non-Africans for five years after independence. Christopher (Kasanga) Tumbo urged for a distinction between 'native' and 'immigrant races.' A TANU member from Mbeya, J. B. Mwakangale, went so far as to call for the resignation of non-African ministers after independence. 'We have no proof of their loyalty. They are bluffing and cheating us,' Mwakangale alleged.
In response, Nyerere threatened that he and his ministers would resign if the assembly did not support TANU's policy. Nyerere denounced the hypocrisy of a policy favoring Africans in a country that was just about to emerge from a racially prejudiced colonial state. Visibly angry, he argued that once racial bias was introduced to Tanganyikan politics its logic would take a life of its own, leading to widespread ethnic animosity:
'A day will come when we will say all people were created equal except the Masai, except the Wagogo, except the Waha, except the polygamists, except the Muslims, etc...You know what happens when people begin to get drunk with power and glorify their race, the Hitlers, that is what they do. You know where they lead the human race, the Verwoerds of South Africa, that is what they do...
I am going to repeat, and repeat very firmly, that this Government has rejected, and rejected completely any ideas that citizenship with the duties and rights of citizenship of this country, are going to based on anything except loyalty to this country.'"
John Mwakangale also strongly opposed the recruitment of American Peace Corps to work in Tanganyika contending that they were there to destabilise and topple the government. "Wherever they are we always hear of trouble, you hear of people trying to overthrow the government. These people are not here for peace, they are here for trouble. We do not want any more Peace Corps." He was quoted in a news report, "M.P. Attacks American Peace Corps," which was the main story on page one published in the Tanganyika Standard (renamed Daily News in 1972), 12 June 1964.
Professor Henry Bienen, in his book, Tanzania: Party Transformation and Economic Development, stated that citizenship on non-racial basis and equality for all in the new nation of Tanganyika which was soon to achieve independence "provoked anti-Commonwealth and racialistic sentiments among TANU members in the National Assembly. One MP (John Mwakangale), who was to become both a regional commissioner and a parliamentary secretary, said:
'I think 75 per cent of the non-African population still regard an African in Tanganyika as an inferior human being. Why is it so? Is it because the white population has been dominating us, both economically and politically, and their neighbours, the Asians, have been economically dominating us, we Africans...Do you think the individual African forming the vast majority of the population will agree to have equal rights with the Europeans and Asians? My answer is no...
All foreigners who are living in Tanganyika now and have transferred their money to their home countries or to other countries should within this period of five years bring their money back. I repeat...they must bring it back. From now on those foreigners who are rich...should contribute at least 15 per cent of their money to us, the Tanganyika National Fund.'
Other MPs expressed similar sentiments...National Assembly members Tumbo, Msindai, Mtaki and Wambura expressed similar opinions. Msindai was to become an area commissioner in 1962. Mtaki and Wambura became regional commissioners and are now junior ministers...
This peroration was cut by the speaker after Mr. Mwakangale claimed that 'they are bluffing us, cheating us, doing all sorts of things showing that they are our friends---but I know...'
Mr. Nyerere rose in reply to say: 'There cannot be a bigger difference between the speakers [for others took a similar line] and this Government here. Discrimination against human beings because of their color is exactly what we have been fighting against'...
Earlier in October 1961, many of the men who were later to speak up in the National Assembly attacked the government's and Nyerere's position in the NEC (National Executive Committee, supreme body of authority in TANU - Tanganyika African National Union). They persisted with these attacks in another NEC meeting of January 1962, during which Nyerere made up his mind to resign. He was to say in January that he first considered resigning in October 1961, after the National Assembly debates.
By then (January 1962), the pressure from middle-level leaders - regional/district secretaries and chairmen, MPs, MNE, administrative secretaries in National Headquarters, and trade union leaders - had become very great. When the Citizenship Bill was presented to the National Assembly in October 1961, Nyerere said he would resign unless he carried the House with him. Under this threat, the Bill was carried overwhelmingly, but dissidence was not ended within TANU over racial issues which fed on economic imbalances. Throughout the last two months of 1961 unrest persisted, and Asians were periodically threatened in various parts of Tanganyika." - Henry Bienen, Tanzania: Party transformation and Economic Development, Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press, 1967, pp. 162 - 163).
John Mwakangale was also the first leader of Tanganyika whom Nelson Mandela met in January 1962 when Mandela secretly left South Africa to seek assistance from other African countries in the struggle against white minority rule in his home country. Tanganyika was the first country in the region to win independence; it was also the first independent African country Mandela visited after he left South Africa for the first time on 11 January 1962. He met John Mwakangale in Mbeya, the capital of the Southern Highlands Province. Mwakangale had been assigned to receive Mandela in Mbeya on behalf of the government of Tanganyika. After meeting Mwakangale, Mandela flew to Dar es Salaam the next day where he met Julius Nyerere. Nyerere was the first leader of an independent African country Mandela met. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela recalled his meeting with John Mwakangale in the town of Mbeya and how, for the first time in his life, he felt free and proud to be in an independent African country:
"Early the next morning we left (Bechuanaland, now Botswana) for Mbeya, a town near the Northern Rhodesian border....(In Mbeya) we booked in a local hotel and found a crowd of blacks and whites sitting on the veranda making polite conversation. Never before had I been in a public place or hotel where there was no color bar. We were waiting for Mr. John Mwakangale of the Tanganyika African National Union, a member of Parliament and unbeknown to us he had already called looking for us. An African guest approached the white receptionist. 'Madam, did a Mr. Mwakangale inquire after these two gentlemen?' he asked, pointing to us. 'I am sorry, sir,' she replied. 'He did but I forgot to tell them.' 'Please be careful, madam,' he said in a polite but firm tone. 'These men are our guests and we would like them to receive proper attention.'
I then truly realized that I was in a country ruled by Africans. For the first time in my life, I was a free man. Though I was a fugitive and wanted in my own land, I felt the burden of oppression lifting from my shoulders. Everywhere I went in Tanganyika my skin color was automatically accepted rather than instantly reviled. I was being judged for the first time not by the color of my skin by the measure of my mind and character. Although I was often homesick during my travels, I nevertheless felt as though I were truly home for the first time....
We arrived in Dar es Salaam the next day and I met with Julius Nyerere, the newly independent country's first president. We talked at his house, which was not at all grand, and I recall that he drove himself in a simple car, a little Austin. This impressed me, for it suggested that he was a man of the people. Class, Nyerere always insisted, was alien to Africa; socialism indigenous." – (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1994, p. 538).
Besides John Mwakangale and others, Brown Ngwilulupi, who was one of the founders and leaders of the main opposition party in Tanzania, Chadema, was also a classmate of Elijah Mwakikagile. He served as vice chairman of Chadema when the party was founded in 1992. Edwin Mtei was the party's chairman.
Ngwilulupi was also a relative-in-law of the Vice President of Tanzania during that time, John Malecela, who served concurrently as Prime Minister and was once Minister of External Affairs and vice chairman of the ruling party when he was vice president. His daughter, later divorced, was married to the vice president's son.
Years earlier, John Malecela was District Commissioner (D.C.) of Rungwe District in the early part of independence, appointed by President Nyerere, and knew Brown Ngwilulupi and Elijah Mwakikagile when they worked in the town of Tukuyu, the district capital during British colonial rule and after independence and known as Neu Langenburg during German colonial rule. Ngwilulupi was a senior officer at the main office of the Rungwe African Cooperative Union and Mwakikagile was a member of the Rungwe District Council where he served as a councillor for many years.
Edwin Mtei wrote a book, From Goatherd to Governor, an autobiographical account of his rise from humble roots and poverty to the corridors of power in Tanzania, also in the regional context of East Africa and in the international arena.
Edwin Mtei worked with President Nyerere for many years. He was the first governor of the Bank of Tanzania, appointed by Nyerere in 1966, and later served as minister of finance. After he differed with Nyerere on economic policies, he left the cabinet and went to work at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., on Nyerere's recommendation. He supported structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and other austerity measures including currency devaluation recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and which were to be imposed on Tanzania as a mandatory condition for financial aid to rejuvenate the country's economy. Nyerere was strenuously opposed to that. He saw the measures as a deliberate attempt by the United States and other Western powers who dominate the IMF and the World Bank to reverse his socialist policies and force the country to mortgage its independence in order to get assistance from the world's financial institutions. He also said the draconian IMF measures would hurt the poor. He went on to say that IMF imposition of ready-made prescriptions on poor countries for their ailing economies as a condition for aid was unacceptable:
"Any serious Third World government will ask serious questions. I cannot sign an agreement (with the IMF) and then have riots on the streets. You may be the economic experts but I am the political expert - allow me at least to say how much the people can take." - (Julius Nyerere at a press conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 22 November 1984, quoted by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Economic Development in Africa, Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 1999, pp. 63 and 66; and in Mwenge, Tanzania Embassy Newsletter, Washington, D.C., November 1984. On the hardship on the poor caused by IMF conditions imposed on African countries, see also Joe Mensah, quoted by Colleen Lowe Morna, "Surviving Structural Adjustment," Africa Report, September-October 1989, p. 48, and by G. Mwakikagile, Economic Development in Africa, op. cit., p. 68; and Chinua Achebe, "Africa is People," in his Presidential Fellow Lecture to the World Bank Group, Washington, D.C., 1998).
The heavy-handed approach taken by the IMF ostensibly to fuel economic growth and alleviate the plight of the poor in developing countries prompted Nyerere to ask what came to be a famous question:
"When did the IMF become an International Ministry of Finance? When did nations agree to surrender to it their power of decision-making?" - (Julius Nyerere, quoted in "NO to IMF Meddling," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2 January 1980, and by Lawrence E.K. Lupalo, Nyerere and Nkrumah: Shared Vision, CreateSpace, Scotts Valley, California, USA, 2016, p. 41).
Nyerere also contended that IMF conditions for aid had not only made life worse for the poor but had not been helpful in improving the overall condition of developing countries. As he stated:
"I was in Washington last year (1997). At the World Bank the first question they asked me was 'how did you fail?' I responded that we took over a country with 85 per cent of its adult population illiterate. The British ruled us for 42 years. When they left, there were 2 trained engineers and 12 doctors. This is the country we inherited.
When I stepped down there was 91-per-cent literacy and nearly every child was in school. We trained thousands of engineers and doctors and teachers.
In 1988 Tanzania's per-capita income was $280. Now, in 1998, it is $140. So I asked the World Bank people what went wrong. Because for the last ten years Tanzania has been signing on the dotted line and doing everything the IMF and the World Bank wanted. Enrolment in school has plummeted to 63 per cent and conditions in health and other social services have deteriorated.
I asked them again: 'What went wrong'? These people just sat there looking at me. Then they asked what could they do? I told them have some humility. Humility - they are so arrogant!....
It seems that independence of the former colonies has suited the interests of the industrial world for bigger profits at less cost. Independence made it cheaper for them to exploit us. We became neo-colonies. Some African leaders argued against Kwame (Nkrumah)'s idea of neocolonialism.
The majority of countries in Africa and the rest of the South are hamstrung by debt, by the IMF. We have too much debt now. It is a heavy burden, a trap. It is debilitating. We must have a new chance. If we doubled our production and debt-servicing capabilities we would still have no money for anything extra like education or development. It is immoral. It is an affront. The conditions and policies of the World Bank and the IMF are to enable countries to pay debt not to develop. " - (Julius Nyerere, in an interview with Ikaweba Bunting, "The Heart of Africa: Interview with Julius Nyerere on Anti-Colonialism," New Internationalist, Oxford, UK, January-February 1999; and in G. Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, op. cit., p. 582).
Paying debts is an enormous burden African countries and others in the developing world continue to bear, prompting Nyerere in 1986 to ask:
"Must we starve our children to pay our debt?"
Although Mtei had fundamental differences with Nyerere on economic policy, he did not alienate Tanzania's founding father and remained on very good terms with him. That is why Nyerere recommended him for the IMF position as Africa's representative - director of IMF's African Department - after he left the cabinet; it was Tanzania's turn to choose one and Nyerere chose Mtei.
And when Mtei founded the opposition party Chadema, Nyerere predicted then (proved correct years later) that it was the only party - among all the new parties formed in the early 1990s - which had a clear programme and which would become the main opposition party in the country. Many of its founding members had been senior government officials and politicians who decided to leave the ruling party and provide a credible challenge to it in the political arena and chart a new course for the country.
Nyerere also advised the leaders of the opposition parties to unite and form one major party with a nationwide base of support to challenge the ruling party if they were to have a chance at winning elections instead of pursuing the goal as a divided opposition. It is an advice that has gone unheeded through the years, thus helping the ruling party - in stewardship of the nation for decades - to perpetuate itself in power. Even Mtei, as the leader of the main opposition party in the country, did not seek unity with the other leaders - nor did they - to form one broadly-based national party, not an alliance of parties, to challenge the ruling party whose dominance on the political landscape and hegemonic control of the country tilted the balance in its favour in every election even without rigging electoral contests.
Mtei also once served as secretary-general of the East African Community (EAC) and was one of the most prominent Tanzanians in the nation's post-colonial history when he founded Chadema with Brown Ngwilulupi and other leading figures including Bob Nyanga Makani, the first secretary-general of Chadema and former deputy governor of the Bank of Tanzania. Makani also once served as Tanzania's deputy attorney general. He was later elected chairman of Chadema after Mtei stepped down.
The leadership of Chadema, when the party was formed, was nationally representative. Chairman Mtei came from the northeastern part of the country. Vice chairman Ngwilulupi came from the southwest, and secretary-general Makani from the lake zone comprising regions around Lake Victoria. Deputy secretary-general Erick Mchatta came from southern Tanzania.
There were also high-ranking officials representing western, central and coastal regions including the former island nation of Zanzibar, now semi-autonomous.
Brown Ngwilulupi (his father was Ngwilulupi Mwasakafyuka) who came from Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands was also a childhood friend of Elijah Mwakikagile. They came from the same village of Mpumbuli in the area of Kyimbila four miles south of the town of Tukuyu. John Mwakangale's home village was about five miles north of theirs near Tukuyu.
They were, together with John Mwakangale, classmates all the way from Tukuyu Primary School (in the town of Tukuyu) to Malangali Secondary School in Iringa District (then a part of the Southern Highlands Province) and later became relatives-in-law. Brown Ngwilulupi's wife, Lugano Mwankemwa, and Elijah Mwakikagile's wife, Syabumi Mwambapa, were first cousins.
Brown Ngwilulupi also went to Tabora Government School (in Western Province), also known as Tabora Boys, another highly-rated academic institution in colonial Tanganyika which Professor Julian Huxley described as "the Eton of Africa," patterned after the British school.
He attended Tabora School together with Amon Nsekela; Oscar Kambona who became Tanganyika's minister of defence and foreign affairs after the country won independence; and Kanyama Chiume who also became minister of foreign affairs in his home country of Malawi after independence. Both Kambona and Chiume held other ministerial posts at different times in their respective countries in the sixties.
Kanyama Chiume left Nyasaland in 1937 and went to Tanganyika to live with his uncle in what is now Morogoro Region in the eastern part of the country. He was about eight years old. He grew up in Tanganyika where he attended primary school and secondary school before going to Makerere University College in Uganda. After he graduated from Makerere, he returned to Tanganyika where he became a secondary school teacher. He spoke perfect Swahili and became one of the most eloquent "native" speakers of the language. He lived in Tanzania (and Tanganyika) longer - for decades since his childhood - than he did in Malawi (and Nyasaland) and was in that sense more Tanzanian than Malawian.
His classmates at Dar es Salaam Central School included Rashidi Kawawa who later became prime minister and vice president of Tanzania; Abdul Sykes and Ali Sykes who became some of the leading members of the nationalist movement in the struggle for independence; and Hamza Aziz who became the country's second indigenous inspector general of police since independence in 1961 and later ambassador to the United States among other posts; he was buried with full military honours when he died in 2004. As Chiume stated in an interview with Benjamin Lawrence of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, on 13 November 1998:
"I was born on the 22nd of November in 1929...at Usisya, which is my home village,...in Nkhata Bay District, Nyasaland. I had my primary education in Tanzania, Tanganyika as it was then, because up to the death of my mother in 1937 when I was about eight years old, my uncle, who himself had been very much helpful to me and my mother...took me to Tanganyika where he was working as a head clerk under the district commissioner in Kiberege in the then Eastern Province. And from there I went to Dar es salaam Central School where I had the rare privilege of going to the same class, same dormitory, for five years, with Rashidi Mfaume Kawawa, among many others, who later on became...the vice president and prime minister of Tanzania.
From Dar es Salaam, in 1946, after I had skipped one class, Standard Eight, I was selected as the only student from that school to go to Tabora Secondary School which was then the senior territorial secondary school in Tanzania (Tanganyika) for those who came from eight government junior secondary schools. This is the school to which Nyerere himself went. He was not a student at the time when I was there but he was teaching in a Catholic School (St. Mary's) just about a mile or so from Tabora (School). And from there in 1949 after I had passed...Makerere College Entrance Examination - we also did Cambridge School Certificate Examination, we were the first people in that government school to sit for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination - I went to Makerere as a science student."
Kanyama Chiume also played a major role as one of the main leaders of the independence movement in Nyasaland (Malawi). After he and other cabinet members fell out with Malawi's President Hastings Kamuzu Banda in 1964, he returned to Tanzania where he lived for 30 years in Dar es Salaam before going back to Malawi in 1994.
During his years of exile in Tanzania, Kanyama Chiume worked as a features writer and editor at The Nationalist, the ruling party's daily newspaper, together with Benjamin Mkapa who was the managing editor before President Nyerere appointed Mkapa editor of the Daily News. Chiume also worked with the Daily News during that period.
Before joining the opposition, Brown Ngwilulupi was a member of the ruling party, TANU, renamed CCM, and served for many years as secretary-general of the country's largest farmers' union, the Cooperative Union of Tanganyika (CUT), appointed by President Nyerere. His younger brother, Weidi Ngwilulupi Mwasakafyuka, a former senior diplomat at the Tanzania Mission to the United Nations and at the Tanzanian embassy in Ethiopia and later Tanzania's ambassador to France and Nigeria also left the ruling party and joined one of Tanzania's major opposition parties in the early 1990s where he became head of its foreign affairs division. He also once served as head of the Africa and Middle East Division at the Tanzanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The American ambassador to Tanzania, James W. Spain, described Weidi N. Mwasakafyuka in the following terms, according to a "Public Library of US Diplomacy" report, 5 May 1976:
"E.W. N. Mwasakafyuka, Director of Africa and Middle East Division of Foreign Ministry, educated at the University of California-Los Angeles (and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada)...is a career Foreign Service Officer who has served in Addis Ababa and at the U.N. He drafts many Tanzanian policy papers on African matters, and is articulate, outspoken, approachable, and confidential, prepared to listen to US points of view with an open mind. He is friendly with Americans, has a strong but dry sense of humor, and looks like a black Disraeli....FonOff (Foreign Office) number one African expert...a forthright source when he is unleashed. A regular embassy contact."
Godfrey Mwakikagile stated in his autobiographical works that he moved to Rungwe District in 1955 with his parents when he was 5 years old after living in different parts of Tanganyika - Kigoma, Ujiji, Kilosa, Morogoro, and Mbeya - where his father worked as a medical assistant for the British colonial government. They also stayed in the area of Kandete, near Elijah Mwakikagile's elder sister Ngabagila Mwakikagile (Mwangolela married name), in what is now Kyela District for many months in 1955 before moving to Kyimbila in Rungwe District in the same year.
His father was one of the few medical assistants in colonial Tanganyika. Medical assistants underwent intensive training for three years (after finishing secondary school) at the national hospital which also served as a medical training institute in the nation's capital Dar es Salaam and became the country's first medical school in 1963. One of his classmates there was Austin Shaba who later became a cabinet member in the first independence cabinet under Prime Minister Nyerere.
In a country with an acute shortage of doctors, medical assistants played a critical role in the provision of vital medical services. Well-trained, they were, in many cases, a substitute for doctors during colonial rule and even after Tanganyika won independence. In fact, when Tanganyika won independence from Britain on 9 December 1961, it had only 12 doctors. As Professor John Iliffe of the University of Cambridge stated in his book, East African Doctors: A History of the Modern Profession:
"Medical assistants, normally with three years of medical training, and often much practical experience, had become the core of colonial medical systems....(In Tanganyika)...the Medical School opened (in 1963) but...by the mid-1960s it was realised that medical assistants were still needed and their training resumed in 1968." - (John Illife, East African Doctors: A History of the Modern Profession, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 128).
They were few in colonial Tanganyika, a vast expanse of territory of about 365,000 square miles with millions of people to serve. According to John Illife, there were only about 300 medical assistants in January 1961, in the whole country, the same year Tanganyika won independence. Tanganyika had a population of 12 million during that time. With only 12 doctors, that was one doctor for one million people; and one medical assistant for 40,000.
Godfrey Mwakikagile stated in his autobiography that his father also worked at Amani Research Institute in Muheza District.
During German colonial rule, Amani Research Institute was world-renowned for its research in a number of areas including tropical medicine (for malaria and other vector-borne diseases among others), as well as biological and agricultural sciences and had highly trained scientists. It excelled in high-quality research and retained its international reputation under British rule after Germany lost its colony (Deutsch-Ostafrika - German East Africa - renamed Tanganyika) in World War I:
"Amani Research Institute is a research institute located in Amani of the Muheza District, in the Usambara Mountains of the northeastern region in Tanzania, in tropical East Africa.
Also known as Amani Institute, the research institute was founded in 1902 by German colonists in German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika). It was established under the leadership of Dr Frantz Stuhlmann, who was in charge of the Department of Surveying and Agriculture (est. 1893) of German East Africa.
The Amani Institute started out as a biological-agricultural research centre, and came to be known as the Amani Biological-Agricultural Institute. But it quickly expanded into other areas of research in the following years. 'The Amani Institute soon became a 'tropical scientific institute superior to anything in the British colonies and protectorates and comparable with Pusa in India or the Dutch establishment at Buitenzorg in Java.'
During their reign, the Germans had other research centres in the colony, especially in the northern region. 'Although Amani was the most famous of Germany's colonial research stations, representing a 2-million-mark investment, it was only one of several German agricultural stations in the northern region. Another, named Kwai farm and located in the nearby West Usambaras, preceded Amani as the colony's chief center for agricultural and livestock experiments. Kwai lacked Amani's international reputation, but it nonetheless held a prominent place in the minds of the Africans who lived in its shadow.'
The Germans built other facilities, including schools and hospitals, in different parts of the country while ruling the colony (1891–1918). One of their biggest colonial achievements was in scientific research at the institutes they established in German East Africa, especially at Amani.
The German East Africa colony was renamed Tanganyika Territory in 1920 when the British took over, by a League of Nations Mandate, after the German Empire lost World War I. Other areas of research were added to the institute in 1960.
Although the Amani Research Institute became world-famous during German colonial rule as a scientific research centre, it retained its international reputation after the British received control of the colony they renamed Tanganyika.
In 1964, liberated Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the independent nation of Tanzania. After British colonial rule ended, the institute continued to play an important role as a research centre in Tanzania.
In 1977, it was renamed Amani Medical Research Centre of the National Institute for Medical Research, covering a wide range of areas in medical research.
Achievements
During World War I, the Amani Research Institute reinforced its international reputation in research when scientists at the centre developed various products. They included medicine and chemical products, from local material to meet war needs and those of the German settlers at a time when the colony was cut off from the rest of the world and could not import anything:
'Considerable ingenuity was shown in producing in the colony manufactured goods and medical supplies normally imported from Europe. Quinine was made at the Amani Institute and at Mpwapwa....Dye-stuffs were made from native barks. In the first eighteen months of the war the Amani Agricultural Research Institute 'prepared for use from its own products 16 varieties of foodstuffs and liquors, 11 varieties of spices, 12 varieties of medicines and medicaments, 5 varieties of rubber products, 2 of soap, oils and candles, 3 of materials used in making boats, and 10 miscellaneous substances. Many of these were prepared in comparatively large quantities, e.g.15,200 bottles of whisky and other alcoholic liquors, 10,252 lb. of chocolate and cocoa, 2,652 parcels of toothpowder, 10,000 pieces of soap, 300 bottles of castor oil etc.'
After the British took over, they were "impressed both with Amani's international reputation and the quality of research conducted there...and continued operating it as a research institute under the British postwar government. Amani therefore continued to function as an important center of botanical research and became a flash point for arguments over the value of pure versus applied research in Britain's East African colonies."
The institute also became famous for its research in malaria during British colonial rule and was transformed in 1949 into the East African Malaria Unit. The research centre served not only Tanganyika but also Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar and British Somaliland in the prevention and control of malaria and other vector-borne diseases. It became the East African Malaria Institute in 1951 and was renamed the East African Institute of Malaria and Vector Borne Diseases in 1954.
In the present day it maintains a high reputation in research, as the Amani Medical Research Centre, in the Tanga Region of Tanzania." - (Wikipedia; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Life in Tanganyika in the Fifties, New Africa Press, 2010, p. 164: ""The Amani Research Institute....was established by the German colonial rulers and became world-famous as a tropical research institute.")
Elijah Mwakikagile also worked in Handeni and then in Tanga before moving to Kigoma four months before Godfrey Mwakikagile was born.
Coincidentally, it was also in what is now Tanga Region where Godfrey's paternal grandfather, Kasisika Molesi Mwakikagile, died. His other surname was Mwakalinga.
Born and brought up in Mwaja, Kyela, in what is now Mbeya Region, Godfrey's grandfather went to work in Tanga and Muheza and worked there for a number of years. He died in 1937 and was buried at Power Station, Muheza, in the northern part of what was then known as the Coast Province.
His younger brother, Lamusi Mwakalinga (Mwakikagile), was also born in Mwaja and lived almost his entire life in Kasumulu, Kyela. Their father was Kyoso Mwakalinga, Godfrey Mwakikagile's great-grandfather.
Godfrey Mwakikagile stated in some of writings that when he and his siblings were growing up, and before he went to (Mpuguso) boarding school in 1963 (he was a day student from 1961 - 1962), their paternal grand uncle Lamusi Mwakalinga (Mwakikagile), the younger brother of their grandfather, used to visit them and their parents in Kyimbila, travelling on the bus from Kyela, a distance of about 30 miles.
Godfrey's father Elijah Mwakikagile was also born in what is now Kyela District in an area called Lwangwa in the ward of Busale but grew up in Kyimbila near the town of Tukuyu in Rungwe District. He was born on 26 October 1924.
Rungwe was the home district of Godfrey Mwakikagile's parents. Both were born and brought up in Rungwe District and were members of an ethnic group indigenous to that part of Tanzania.4
Rungwe District, ringed by misty blue mountains, is close to the border with Malawi and is located in the Great Rift Valley north of Lake Nyasa. And what is now Kyela District bordering Malawi was once a part of Rungwe District.
Godfrey Mwakikagile went to school in Tanzania and in the United States.
Tanganyika united with Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania.
Godfrey Mwakikagile attended Kyimbila Primary School (up to Standard 4) two miles south of the town of Tukuyu and Mpuguso Middle School (up to Standard 8) seven miles southwest of Tukuyu in Rungwe District in Mbeya Region in the Southern Highlands; Songea Secondary School (up to Standard 12 or Form Four) near the town of Songea in Ruvuma Region, and Tambaza High School (up to Standard 14 or Form Six) in the nation's capital Dar es Salaam.5
The headmaster of Songea Secondary School, Paul Mhaiki, when Godfrey Mwakikagile was a student there from 1965 to 1968, later in the early 1970s became director of adult education at the ministry of national education, appointed by President Nyerere. He was later appointed director of UNESCO's Division of Literacy, Adult Education, and Rural Development.
After finishing high school at Tambaza in November 1970, Godfrey Mwakikagile joined National Service in January 1971, which was mandatory for all who had completed secondary school, high school, college and university. He underwent training, which included basic military training, at Ruvu National Service camp, 33 miles west of Dar es Salaam in the Coast Region, when it was headed by his former primary school teacher Eslie Mwakyambiki before he became a member of parliament and deputy minister of defence and national service. After that, he went to another national service camp in Bukoba on the shores of Lake Victoria in the North-West Region bordering Uganda. The region was later renamed Kagera Region. Ugandan military ruler, Idi Amin, attempted to annex the region when he invaded Tanzania in October 1978.
Godfrey Mwakikagile once worked as a news reporter at the Standard, which was later renamed Daily News, and as an information officer at the ministry of information and broadcasting in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam before going to school in the United States in November 1972.6
He left Tanzania on November 3rd and arrived in the United States on November 4th, three days before the US presidential election on November 7th the incumbent, Richard Nixon, a Republican, won against his Democratic opponent George McGovern in one of the biggest landslide victories in the nation's modern history.
He first joined the editorial staff of the Standard as a junior reporter when he was still in high school, in Form Five (Standard 13), in 1969.7 Founded in 1930, it was the oldest and the largest English newspaper in the country and one of the three largest in East Africa, a region comprising Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Coincidentally, his editor at the Daily News, Benjamin Mkapa, who also helped him to go to school in the United States, years later became president of Tanzania and served two five-year terms (1995–2005).8 He was the third president in the nation's history since the country won independence from Britain in 1961. Before then, Benjamin Mkapa served as Tanzania's minister of foreign affairs, among other ministerial posts, and as high commissioner (ambassador) to Nigeria and Canada, and as ambassador to the United States. He also served as press secretary to President Julius Nyerere and was later appointed minister of information and broadcasting before assuming other cabinet posts - including serving as minister for science, technology and higher education - in the following years.
The president of Tanzania during that period, Julius Nyerere who led the country from 1961 to 1985, was the editor-in-chief of the Daily News. But his role was only ceremonial rather than functional.
Mkapa was preceded by Sammy Mdee as managing editor of the Daily News. Godfrey Mwakikagile joined the editorial staff when Mdee was the editor. After he was replaced by Mkapa, Mdee became director of information service at the ministry of information and broadcasting, appointed by President Nyerere, and later served as Nyerere's press secretary and, after that, as a diplomat.
Godfrey Mwakikagile graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit in the state of Michigan, USA, in 1975 and was president of the African students union at that school.9
He also attended Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1976. One of his professors of economics at Aquinas College was Kenneth Marin who once worked in Tanzania. 10
It was just a coincidence that he went to Aquinas College where he ended up being taught by someone who had worked in Tanzania years before. He did not know anything about Professor Marin before then and met him at Aquinas College for the first time.
Here is another coincidence: Kenneth Marin worked in the multi-storey Co-operative Building on Lumumba Street, in Dar es Salaam, where Brown Ngwilulupi also worked as secretary-general of the country's farmers' union. The two knew each other well and used to have lively exchanges on a number of issues, as Professor Marin said in an economics class he taught at Aquinas College when he recalled his days working in Tanzania. Godfrey Mwakikagile was in that class, one of four African students and the only one from Tanzania; three were Nigerian.
Professor Marin was a great admirer of President Nyerere as a leader and as an intellectual and said he used to go to the same church he did in Oyster Bay, Dar es salaam. They were Roman Catholic. He called him a world leader, not just an African leader, as Mwakikagile stated in his book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
He even read Nyerere's writings in class when he lectured on development economics and other Third World subjects. He also said Nyerere was an excellent writer and had thorough command of the English language. He also said the following about Nyerere in one of his lectures at Aquinas College: "He is one of the best world leaders we have today."
Professor Marin worked as an economist for the government of Tanzania in the late sixties and early seventies. He went to Tanzania in 1968 and served as an adviser to the government on capital mobilisation and utilisation. Before then, he worked as an economist for the United States federal government. He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to serve on Wage and Price Control during the mid-sixties. President Johnson appointed Professor Kenneth Marin as a member of the White House Consumer Advisory Council. 11
In 1966, Professor Marin was a member of a U.S. State Department evaluation team that was assigned to review various performances in the economic and political arena in six South American countries. 12
Years later, one of his students, Godfrey Mwakikagile, also ended up writing about economics, among other subjects, mostly about Africa. And coincidentally, Mwakikagile's first book, Economic Development in Africa, was also about economics.13
Godfrey Mwakikagile came into prominence in Tanzania and elsewhere after he wrote a major book about Julius Nyerere not long after the former Tanzanian president died.14
He is considered by many people, including those who have reviewed his books about President Nyerere in different newspapers, magazines and academic journals in a number of countries, to be an authority on Nyerere and one of his most prominent biographers.15
One scholar who cited Godfrey Mwakikagile as an authoritative source on President Nyerere was Professor David Simon, a specialist in development studies at the University of London and Director of the Centre for Development Areas Research at Royal Holloway College at the university. Professor Simon published excerpts from Godfrey Mwakikagile's book on Nyerere in his compiled study, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development, published in 2005.16
During that time and thereafter, Professor David Simon was also the editor of the scholarly Journal of Southern African Studies and was on the editorial staff of another academic publication, the Review of African Political Economy.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's works have been getting serious attention among many people including academics in many countries who have also reviewed some of his books in scholarly journals.
His first book, Economic Development in Africa, was published in June 1999 and he has maintained a steady pace since then, writing books, as demonstrated by the number of titles he has on the market. He is one of Tanzania's most well-known authors and one of Africa's most prolific.
He has written more than 60 books (since 1999) mostly about Africa during the post-colonial period, and has been described as a political scientist and as a historian although his works defy classification. He has written about history, politics, economics, as well as contemporary and international affairs from an African and Third World perspective and is known for such works as Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, and Africa and the West.17
He takes an interdisciplinary approach in his works combining history, political science, economics, philosophy, cultural and international studies and other academic disciplines in his analysis of a wide range of issues focusing on Africa, especially during the post-colonial era. He has also written some books about the African diaspora, mainly Black America and the Afro-Caribbean region including Afro-Caribbean communities in Britain and the United States.
Both have been favourably reviewed in a number of publications including the highly influential West Africa magazine (founded in 1917 and based in London) which reviewed two of his books in the same year; a rare accomplishment in such a major publication.
The books were reviewed by West Africa magazine editor Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, a Ghanaian who also once was a visiting lecturer and scholar-in-residence at the University of Botswana. They were excellent reviews.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, his magnum opus and probably his most well-known title, was reviewed by West Africa magazine in 2002 three years after Nyerere died of leukemia in October 1999 at the age of 77.18
It was also reviewed by a prominent Tanzanian journalist and political analyst, Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala of the Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in October 2002 and is seen as a comprehensive work, in scope and depth, on Nyerere.19
Others who have reviewed the book include Professor A.B. Assensoh, a Ghanaian teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. He reviewed the first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era in the African Studies Review, an academic journal of the African Studies Association, in 2003.
The same book was also reviewed by Professor Roger Southall of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), formerly of Rhodes University, South Africa, in the bi-annual interdisciplinary publication, the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Taylor & Francis Group), 22, No. 3, in 2004. Professor Southall was also the editor of the journal during that period.
It is a comprehensive work on post-colonial Africa in terms of the major events covered since the sixties when most countries on the continent won independence.
Events covered include emergence and consolidation of the one-party state as a continental phenomenon after the end of colonial rule; the Congo crisis triggered by the secession of Katanga Province and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba; the end of Mobutu's reign over Congo after decades in power since Lumumba's assassination; the Zanzibar revolution followed by the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar to form Tanzania; declaration of independence by Biafra and subsequent civil war ignited by the secession of the Eastern Region resolutely opposed by Federal Nigeria.
Other events Mwakikagile has covered in his book include Western involvement in the countries of southern Africa in support of white minority governments; the liberation struggle in Mozambique and eventual victory by the freedom fighters of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique(Frelimo); the war in Zimbabwe leading to victory by the liberation forces of ZANU and ZAPU; the struggle for independence in Angola led by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and subsequent victory over the Portuguese colonial forces.
The influence of Nyerere as a continental and Third World leader also constitutes a significant part of the book including a chapter on Nyerere and Nkrumah on the different approaches they took in an attempt o achieve continental unity under one government.
The first and last chapters provide a comprehensive look at the continent from the sixties to the nineties and beyond, constituting a panoramic view of post-colonial Africa during some of its most turbulent times since the end of colonial rule.
The first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era was published in November 2002, and the second, an expanded edition, in January 2005. The third edition, also an expanded version, was published in November 2006. The fourth edition, also expanded, was published in December 2008. And the fifth edition was published in 2010.
The book has also been cited by a number of African leaders including South African Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka in one of her speeches about African leadership and development in which she quoted the author. 20
She was the main speaker at a conference of African leaders, diplomats and scholars at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa in September 2006 when she gave her speech.
Although his books have been able to get the attention of some African leaders, it is impossible to know if they have had any influence on any of them. But the mere fact that they are cited by them shows that he is taken seriously as an author, not only in Tanzania but in other African countries and elsewhere.
One of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Africa and the West, which is a sweeping survey of the continent before the advent of colonial rule and during the colonial era as well as after independence, was also reviewed by West Africa magazine in its edition of 21–27 January 2002.21
The book, which was published in 2000, has been described as an appeal to Africans to respect their cultures, values and traditions and take a firm stand against alien ideas which pollute African minds and undermine Africa. It is also a philosophical text used in a number of colleges and universities in the study of African identity, philosophy and history. It is also a strong condemnation of the conquest of Africa by the imperial powers.
West Africa magazine, in its January 2002 edition, also described Godfrey Mwakikagile as an author who articulates the position of African Renaissance thinkers.
But in spite of his passionate defence of Africa, past and present, Godfrey Mwakikagile is also highly critical of some Afrocentric scholars who propagate myths about Africa's past and even reinvent the past just to glorify the continent, claiming spectacular achievements in the precolonial era in some areas where there were hardly any or none; for example, in advanced science, technology and medicine. They also inflate achievements in some areas. He contends that "true scholarship requires rigorous intellectual discipline and entails objective enquiry and analysis of facts and evidence including admitting failures and shortcomings"; a position he forcefully articulates in his books Africa and the West and Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done, among other works.
It is a position that led one renowned Afrocentric Ghanaian political analyst and columnist, Francis Kwarteng, to describe Godfrey Mwakikagile as a "Eurocentric Africanist" in his article, "End of the Dilemma: The Tower of Babel," on GhanaWeb, 28 September 2013, in which he discussed the role and the question of race, religion, and ethnicity in Ghana's politics and, by extension, in a Pan-African context including the African diaspora; which is a wrong characterisation of Mwakikagile since all his works are written from a purely African, not a Eurocentric, perspective.
In his article, Francis Kwarteng also cited one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, in his analysis of the role of ethnicity in national politics in Africa:
"Wole Soyinka...rightly admits in Of Africa that if America, a racist country at that, can elect a person of African ancestry, a black man of Luo ethnicity, president, then, he sees no reason Kenya shouldn't learn from that—that precedent....Soyinka believes Kenya's democratic process must allow enough political space for the accommodation of ethnic diversification, so that qualified minorities can also partake in leadership positions, principally the presidency....But Soyinka's Nigeria has its own fair share of problems, a cornucopia of them. A truism flies across Nigeria's social and political landscape that Hausas are born natural rulers....Yet Nigeria has about 250 ethnic groups. So, what defines the criteria for Nigeria's multiethnic exclusivism from the presidential pie?....This is not unique to Nigeria, however. The same thing happened in Ghana and Uganda, producing the likes of Idi Amin. This phenomenon is captured in the Eurocentric Africanist Godfrey Mwakikagile's Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria."
In another article on GhanaWeb, 15 October 2013, Francis Kwarteng also stated:
"We all know how Western material culture and unholy spiritualism are destroying Africa. Corruption in Africa is proliferating like cancerous cells in the body politic. Corrupt African politicians collaborate with Western banking officials to secrete the people's money in Western banks, monies, which, however you look at it, either fortunately for the West or unfortunately for Africa, are reinvested in Western national economies. So, in the long run Africa becomes positively poorer and the West negatively wealthier. Analytically, this runs counter to the central thesis of Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. In fact, it's what the Eurocentric Africanist Godfrey Mwakikagile calls 'Africa in a Mess.' This inverse relationship of economic bilateralism is unhealthy and must be critically addressed by Africa."
It is a case of Africans themselves, especially the leaders, contributing to the underdevelopment of Africa. Bad leadership including corruption in African countries is one of the subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed extensively in his books, especially in Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century: What Lies Ahead, and Statecraft and Nation Building in Africa: A Post-colonial Study, and Africa in Transition: Witness to Change. He contends that bad leadership is the biggest problem most African countries have faced since independence, and everything else revolves around it.
Africans of all ideological stripes agree corruption is one of the biggest problems African countries face. It is even acknowledged by some leaders. And a number of African scholars including Godfrey Mwakikagile have addressed the problem, proposing solutions to a seemingly intractable problem. As Francis Kwarteng stated in "A Political Coin of Three Sides: What Do We Actually Want?", GhanaWeb, 8 November 2013:
"Today's leadership has failed to show moral and social leadership in the face of mounting national crisis. Indeed corruption threatens the very future of the youth....President Mahama's book (My First Coup D'état) must be read in tandem with Wole Soyinka's The Open Sore of a Continent, Ali Mazrui's The African Condition: A Political Diagnosis, Molefi Kete Asante's Rooming in the Master's House, and Godfrey Mwakikagile's Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done and Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood. In fact, these bibliographies must be included in every secondary school curriculum as well as the curricula of teacher training institutions across the country. We may then use them as bibliographical platforms to ask students to come up with comprehensive solutions to our myriad national problems."
As he stated in another article, "Africa Must Practice Its Own Democracy: A Moral Necessity," GhanaWeb, 17 October 2013:
"We were not the first to raise this question; others had before us! Celebrated prescient leaders like Kwame Nkrumah made this philosophical mantra part of their political platform, so were others ― Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, etc. Literacy scholars like Chinua Achebe, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o; international economists like Dambisa Moyo and Yaw Nyarko; political scientists like Ali Mazrui, Godfrey Mwakikagile, and Mahmood Mamdani; legal experts like Shadrack Gutto and Randall Robinson; world-renowned anthropologists and linguists like Cheikh Anta Diop and Théophile Obenga; and Afrocentrists like Molefi Kete Asante, Chinweizu, Maulana Karenga, and Ama Mazama had made similar arguments in the past few decades―via their prolific scholarship, organizations, and political activism."
One of the problems Africa faces in nation building is how to achieve unity in diversity in countries composed of different ethnic groups and threatened by ethno-regional loyalties and rivalries. It is one of the subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed in his books.
He has written extensively about ethnicity and politics in Africa in the post-colonial era and how the two phenomena are inextricably linked in the African political context. He has used case studies in different analyses of the subject in different parts of the continent. One of his books, Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda, has been described by Tierney Tully as "a great book, but very dense." A reviewer on amazon, UK, has described Godfrey Mwakikagile's work, Uganda: The Land and Its People, as a "very studious book about Uganda's history, politics, ethnic groups and social structure."
His other books on the subject include Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study; Burundi: The Hutu and The Tutsi: Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise; Civil Wars in Rwanda and Burundi: Conflict Resolution in Africa; Ethnic Diversity and Integration in The Gambia; The People of Ghana: Ethnic Diversity and National Unity in which, among other subjects, he contends that African Americans who have settled in Ghana constitute a viable ethnic entity that has become an integral part of the Ghanaian society; and Belize and Its Identity: A Multicultural Perspective, a scholarly work on the Central American nation founded by the British colonial rulers and African slaves as British Honduras and which, culturally and historically, is considered to be an integral part of the Afro-Caribbean region, hence of the African diaspora. Although written by an African, the book is an important part of Afro-Caribbean literature.
One American journalist who interviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile described him as an independent scholar who was also a widely read and highly regarded author.
Godfrey Mwakikagile responded by saying that he was just an ordinary African, like tens of millions of others, deeply concerned about the plight of his continent.
But there is no question that he is a serious writer whose writings are widely read even if he considers himself to be just an ordinary African like millions of his brethren across the continent and elsewhere.
In his book, African Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Professor Guy Martin has described Godfrey Mwakikagile as one of Africa's leading populist scholars who refuse to operate and function within the limits and confines of Western ideologies - or any other external parameters - and who exhort fellow Africans to find solutions to African problems within Africa itself and fight the syndrome of dependency in all areas and create a "new African." He goes on to state that all these African-populist thinkers are academics and deal strictly with ideas, without being directly involved in politics, although most of them are political scientists.
Professor Martin states in his book that some of the most prominent African-populist scholars include Senegalese scientist, historian and Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop (1923 - 1986), Nigerian political scientist Calude Ake (1939 - 1996), Burkinabé historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo (1922 - 2006), Tanzanian scholar Godfrey Mwakikagile, Kenyan political science professor, Mueni wa Muiu, and Daniel T. Osabu-Kle, a professor of politicial science from Ghana. He goes on to state that all these scholars are also ardent Pan-Africanists and, for reasons explained in the book, he has devoted chapter eight exclusively to the thoughts, concepts and ideas of only four scholars: Mwakikagile, Ake, Osabu-Kle and Muiu. As he states in Chapter Eight, "The Africanist-Populist Ideology: Popular Democracy and Development in Africa," which he starts with a quotation from President Julius Nyerere:
"'Africa...is isolated. Therefore to develop, it will have to depend upon its own resources basically, internal resources, nationally, and Africa will have to depend upon Africa. The leadership of the future will have to devise, try to carry out policies of maximum national self-reliance and maximum collective self-reliance. They have no other choice. Hamna! [There is none!] - Julius K. Nyerere, "Reflections," quoted in John S. Saul, The Next Liberation Struggle, 159.'
As we saw in Chapter 7, Frantz Fanon's warning to African people, leaders, and scholars was that for popular democracy and development to succeed in Africa, they must stop blindly following the West: they must stop aping Western culture, traditions, ideas, and institutions; they must think 'outside of the box'; and, above all, they must be bold and innovative and develop their own ideas, concepts, and institutions based on African values, culture, and traditions. This alternative path to Western liberal democracy and capitalist development is precisely the line of thinking of an emerging African scholarship, exemplified by the four African scholars whose political ideas are examined in this chapter.
More specifically, this chapter reviews the ideas and values for a new, free, and self-reliant Africa put forth by African scholars who have the best interest of the African people at heart and thus advocate a popular type of democracy and development. However, unlike the populist-socialist scholars, the Africanist-populist scholars refuse to operate within the parameters of Western ideologies - whether of the socialist, Marxist-Leninist, or liberal-democratic persuasion - and call on all Africans to become the initiators and agents of their own development, with the ultimate goal of creating a 'new African.'" - (Guy Martin, African Political Thought, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 129 - 130).
Professor Guy Martin is also the author of Africa in World Politics: A Pan-African Perspective (2002); co-editor, with Chris Alden, of South Africa and France: Towards a New Engagement in Africa (2003); and, with Mueni wa Muiu, co-author of A New Paradigm of the African State: Fundi wa Afrika (2009). As Edmond J. Keller, professor of political science and former Director of the UCLA Globalization Research Center-Africa and of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at the University of California-Los Angeles, stated in his review of Professor Guy Martin's book, African Political Thought, in one of the leading academic journals on African research and studies, Africa Today, Volume 60, Number 2, Winter 2013, published by Indiana University Press:
"The work is an ambitious survey. Martin is encyclopedic in his treatment of the subject of African political thinking. He demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of African political thought throughout history. He has succeeded in his efforts to produce what is arguably the first real attempt to synthesize African political thought into a single thematic volume....
Martin begins his analysis by focusing on indigenous political thought dating back to ancient times (Kush/Nubia, sixth century BCE). He then brings his study up to the present...He systematically introduces the reader to the ideas of specific theorists and their biographies. He situates these thinkers in the context of their times. Some were political activists, such as Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Steve Biko. Others were public intellectuals and academic theorists, such as Claude Ake, Godfrey Mwakikagile, Daniel Tetteh Osabu-Kle, and Mueni wa Muiu.
For the amount of ground covered in African Political Thought, this is quite a slim volume. The comprehensiveness of the book is its greatest strength. It touches upon most of the major African political thinkers....It is interesting that the political thought of Meles Zenawi, the now-deceased political leader of Ethiopia, is not considered. Debate is currently raging as to whether or not, despite his views on Marxism, he was an original thinker."
Godfrey Mwakikagile is also featured as a major African author and scholar in the Dictionary of African Biography, Volume 6 (Oxford University Press, 2011), edited by Harvard University professors, Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. As Professor Ryan Ronnenberg who wrote a profile of Mwakikagile in the Dictionary of African Biography (pp. 365–366) states:
"Godfrey Mwakikagile's childhood in the closing stages of Tanzania's colonial period made a significant impression on him. He witnessed colonial oppression firsthand, and the racist ideology that upheld it....Indeed, the ideas of Pan-Africanism embraced by the early Nyerere government would resonate with Mwakikagile deeply, as he early on came to possess a deep and abiding respect for Africans and African Americans who preserved their culture in the face of racist ideology and institutions. In his introduction to Africa and the West (2000), he wrote, 'Much as the conquest of Africa led to the denigration of the African personality, leading many Africans to hate themselves by despising their heritage; an equally intense but opposite reaction was caused by this very invasion and conquest of our continent.'
Mwakikagile embraced Tanzania's independence, and the independence of the African continent as a whole, with fierce pride. 'I was too young to play a role in the independence movement, but old enough to know what Mau Mau in neighboring Kenya was all about, and who our leaders were: from Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana to Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika; from Nnamdi Azikiwe in Nigeria to Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Patrice Lumumba in Belgian Congo' (Africa and the West, 2000)
His experience also inspired his thinking regarding Africa and its relationship to the Western world, which led to several academic works dedicated to the subject.
Mwakikagile's early works focused on pressing issues in African studies, particularly the theory and realization of development in Africa. Economic Development in Africa, published in 1999, uses the rich case study of Tanzania's transition from socialism to free-market capitalism as a foundation for broader conclusions concerning the continent's development failures.
Mwakikagile writes about Africa as a whole in such a way as to suggest that he possesses not only a keen understanding of the way things are, but also a deep understanding of the way they should be. The arcebically titled Africa Is in a Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done reflects on the decades since independence with pragmatism and regret, observing the loss of both leadership and ingenuity as the continent's intellectual elite settle abroad, while suggesting how this process might be reversed.
In fact, as the years have passed, and as those early optimistic moments after independence have slipped away, Mwakikagile has taken it upon himself to write about why Africa has fallen short of its vision.
Mwakikagile has translated his experience as a youth in colonial East Africa and his adulthood in postcolonial Tanzania into provocative scholarship concerning topics vitally important to African studies.
Deeply invested in the ideas of Pan-Africanism that guided the Nyerere government, Mwakikagile has brought this perspective to bear upon a variety of crucial areas of scholarship, including postcolonial development, the African diaspora, and the late Julius Nyerere's career."
Kofi Mensah, one of the people who reviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done on amazon.com wrote the following about Godfrey Mwakikagile: "He was one of the most promising intellectuals of our generation, and one of the most inspiring, to emerge out of the seventies, when he graduated from university."
In one of his lectures, Professor Abdul Karim Bangura of Howard University, a Sierra Leonean, cited Godfrey Mwakikagile as one of the major African thinkers. He used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, among other works by different scholars, in his lecture, "The Democratic Project and the Human Condition across the African Continent" in January 2013 at Howard University and stated that his lecture was "based on the analyses of major African thinkers" including Godfrey Mwakikagile.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has also been invited to give lectures at different universities because of the books he has written. And his role as a public intellectual has been demonstrated in other ways. For example, he has been sought for interviews by BBC, PBS (America's public television network), and by Voice of America (VOA), among other media outlets. This is documented in the interview he had with the American journalist.
The interview, which focused on Julius Nyerere as a leader and on other subjects about Africa, is reprinted in its entirety in one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
Although he has been exposed to Western cultures, was educated in the Western intellectual tradition and even lived in the United States for many years, his perspectives and philosophical conceptions have undoubtedly been shaped by his African upbringing and are deeply rooted in African cultures and traditions. And he rejects the notion that Africa was a blank slate until Europeans came to write on it.
He passionately argues that the history written about Africa by Europeans when they first went to Africa and even during colonial rule as well as after independence is not African history but the history of Europeans in Africa and how they see Africa and Africans from their European perspective or perspectives.
He also contends that traditional Africa has produced philosophers and other original thinkers whose knowledge and ideas - including ideas at a high level of abstraction - can match and even surpass the best in the West and elsewhere in the world. He forcefully articulates that position in his book, Africa and The West.22
And although he sees Africa as an indivisible whole, he also argues that all nations, include those in Africa, have different national characters. He looks at the concept of national character in the African context in one of his books, Kenya: Identity of A Nation, and makes a compelling case for this idea which is sometimes highly controversial. The work is, among other subjects, a study of comparative analysis in which the author looks at the national characters of Kenya and Tanzania, thus demonstrating that nations do indeed have different national characters and have been that way throughout history.
Kenyans themselves have had to grapple with questions of identity, ethnic versus national, and how to reconcile the two for the sake of national unity, peace and prosperity. As Dr. George Nyabuga, a lecturer at Nairobi University, stated about Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Kenya: Identity of a Nation, in his article, "Politics of East Africa," in Oxford Bibliographies, 29 November 2011:
"Ethnicity, identity, conflict, power, democracy, corruption, and governance are often mentioned as issues of interest when examining not only African but also East African politics. Sometimes these issues make it difficult for people within the countries of East Africa to develop appropriate characteristics with which to identify themselves. This is perhaps the issue that Mwakikagile tries to examine as many nation-states grapple with their multiple identities. However, in most instances many people identify with their ethnic groups whose consequences for politics in Africa are sometimes deleterious. In Kenya, ethnicity has been the cause of numerous conflicts, most recently the post-election violence of late 2007 and early 2008."
Tanzania is one of the few countries on the continent which have been spared the agony and scourge of ethnic conflicts, unlike Kenya which Godfrey Mwakikagile has used for comparative analysis in looking at the identities of the two neighbouring countries. In his books, including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, he has also explained how Tanzania has been able to contain and even neutralise tribalism unlike other countries on the continent. As Keith Richburg, who travelled and reported on many African countries when he was The Washington Post bureau chief based in Nairobi in the 1990s, stated in his book,Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa:
"One of my earliest trips was to Tanzania, and there I found a country that had actually managed to purge itself of the evil of tribalism. Under Julius Nyerere..., the government was able to imbue a true sense of nationalism that transcended the country's natural ethnic divisions.... Tanzania is one place that has succeeded in removing the linguistic barrier that separates so many of Africa's warring factions. But after three years traveling the continent, I've found that Tanzania is the exception, not the rule. In Africa..., it is all about tribes."
One of Africa's most prominent political analysts, Kenyan columnist Philip Ochieng, articulated the same position. As he stated in his article, "Mwalimu Nyerere's Bequest to Mkapa a Tall Order," in one of Kenya's main newspapers, the Daily Nation, Nairobi, 16 October 1999:
"Tanzania (is) the most united country in Africa. This unity and sharp national consciousness was contributed to by (the) life-works of the Teacher (Mwalimu Nyerere).... He insisted on uniform Kiswahili throughout the Republic. During the three years that I worked in Dar es salaam I rarely heard any tribal language spoken."
He also stated the following in another article, "Africa's Greatest Leader," in The East African, Nairobi, 19 October 1999:
"(Under President Nyerere) Tanzania became the African country with the highest degree of national self-consciousness and has almost annihilated the bane of Kenya that we call tribalism.... At a time when Nairobi was drowning in crude elite grabbing, Dar es Salaam was a Mecca of the world's national liberation movements, and a hotbed of global intellectual thought.... Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere is the most successful leader that Africa has ever produced since the European colonial regime collapsed 50 years ago."
One Kenyan reviewer of There Was a Country, a book about Biafra by Chinua Achebe who considered Nyerere to be the role model for African leaders, stated on amazon.com:
"Nyerere succeeded in creating the only non-tribal country in Africa where there is no tribalism..... I have seen... tribalism in Kenya and know how it works. And surely enough, we also have violence in almost every election we have because of tribalism."
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia also said in a television interview that Nyerere was her role model. Wole Soyinka also considered Nyerere to be a role model other African leaders should emulate.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has written extensively about tribalism and contends that it is one of the biggest problems Africa faces and is the source of instability in many countries on the continent, including civil wars.
He undoubtedly has strong convictions but does not neatly fit into any ideological category. He expresses strong Pan-Africanist views in his writings and sees Africa as a collective entity and one organic body and has strongly been influenced by staunch Pan-Africanist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure and Patrice Lumumba whom he also strongly admires.23
He says Africa does not have leaders of that kind anymore.
He also strongly admires Thomas Sankara as a man of the people like Nyerere and contends that among the new breed of African leaders, Sankara - who has been described as the African Che Guevara - showed great promise but was eliminated by some of his so-called compatriots working for France and other Western powers before he could realise his full potential the same way Lumumba was, eliminated by the United States and Belgium. Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about Thomas Sankara in his book Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in African Countries among other works.
But some of his critics contend that he overlooks or glosses over the shortcomings of these leaders precisely because they are liberation icons and played a leading role in the struggle for independence and against white minority rule in Southern Africa.24
He also seems to be "trapped" in the past, in liberation days, especially in the seventies when the struggle against white minority rule was most intense. But that may be for understandable reasons.25
He was a part of that generation when the liberation struggle was going on and some of his views have unquestionably been shaped by what happened during those days as his admiration for Robert Mugabe, for example, as a liberation icon clearly shows; although he also admits in his book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe could have been implemented in an orderly fashion and in a peaceful way and without disrupting the economy.
But his admiration for Mugabe as a true African nationalist and Pan-Africanist remains intact; a position that does not sit well with some of his critics although he does not condone despotic rule as he clearly states in his writings.
He admires Mugabe mostly as a freedom fighter and liberation hero who freed his people from colonial rule and racial oppression and exploitation, and as a strong leader who has taken a firm and an uncompromising stand against Western domination of Africa.
And by remarkable contrast, his contempt for African leaders whom he sees as whites with a black skin also remains intact. He mentions Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda as a typical example of those leaders.
He has written about Dr. Banda and other African leaders, among other subjects, in his book, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood.26
Godfrey Mwakikagile also contends that only a few African leaders - Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Ben Bella and Modibo Keita - strove to achieve genuine independence for their countries and for Africa as a whole and exercised a remarkable degree of independence in their dealings with world powers. And Mugabe was the only other leader who fit in this category, in spite of his shortcomings.
According to Ben Bella, the six leaders - Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Nasser, Modibo Keita and Ben Bella himself - constituted what came to be known as "The Group of Six" within the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In an interview in Switzerland in 1995 with Jorge G. Castañeda, the author of Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, Ben Bella said the six leaders worked together secretly within the OAU on a number of issues including the Congo and African liberation, excluding other African leaders. It is a subject Godfrey Mwakikagile has also addressed in his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.27
Godfrey Mwakikagile's background as a Tanzanian has played a major role in his assessment of many African leaders because of the central role his country played in the liberation struggle in the countries of Southern Africa, and not just in South Africa - the bastion of white minority rule on the continent.28
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was one of the African leaders who had strong ties to Tanzania, Godfrey Mwakikagile's home country, since liberation days. Others with strong ties to Tanzania include Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa; Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique; and Sam Nujoma, former president of Namibia.29
Tanzania, then known as Tanganyika, was also the first independent African country Nelson Mandela first visited when he secretly left South Africa for the first time in 1962 to seek support from other African countries for the liberation struggle in his home country. And Julius Nyerere was the first leader of an independent African country he met when he went to see him in Dar es Salaam during that time. It was also Nyerere who authorised the government of Tanganyika to give Mandela a travel document that enabled him to go to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend a conference of African leaders and to go to other African countries. Mandela wrote about that in his book Long Walk to Freedom:
"Because I did not have a passport, I carried with me a rudimentary documentary from Tanganyika that merely said, 'This is Nelson Mandela, a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. He has permission to leave Tanganyika and return here.' I handed this paper to the old Sudanese man behind the immigration counter and looked up with a smile and said, 'My son, welcome to the Sudan.' He then shook my hand and stamped my document." - (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, ibid., p. 176).
Newspaper background
In those days, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was the headquarters of all the African liberation movements, under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere, and Godfrey Mwakikagile got the chance to know many of the freedom fighters who were based there when he worked as a young news reporter in the nation's capital.30
They included Joaquim Chissano who was the head of the FRELIMO office in Dar es Salaam and who later became the minister of foreign affairs and then president of Mozambique when his country won independence after 500 years of Portuguese colonial rule.31
Many other freedom fighters who were based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, also went on to become national leaders in their respective countries after the end of white minority rule in southern Africa. And they all still have strong ties to Tanzania even today.
Tanzania played a big role in supporting the African liberation movements not only by giving sanctuary to the freedom fighters but by providing them with military training and guerrilla bases and by supporting them financially because of Nyerere's leadership. As the legendary British journalist David Martin stated after interviewing Nyerere one day:
"I remember one day sitting in his office questioning that a number of African countries had not paid their subscriptions to the OAU Liberation Committee Special Fund for the Liberation of Africa. He looked at me for some moments, thoughtfully chewing the inside corner of his mouth in his distinctive way. Then, his decision made, he passed across a file swearing me secrecy as to its contents. It contained the amount that Tanzanians, then according to the United Nations the poorest people on earth, would directly and indirectly contribute that year to the liberation movements. I was astounded; the amount ran into millions of US dollars.
It was the practice among national leaders in those days to say that their countries did not have guerrilla bases. Now we know that Tanzania had many such bases providing training for most of the southern African guerrillas, who were then called 'terrorists' and who today are members of governments throughout the region....
Tanzania was also directly attacked from Mozambique by the Portuguese. But, in turn, each of the white minorities in southern Africa fell to black majority political rule and Nyerere saw his vision for the continent finally realized on 27 April 1994 when apartheid formally ended in South Africa with the swearing in of a new black leadership." - (David Martin, "A Candle on Kilimanjaro," in Southern African Features, 21 December 2001).
Tanzania was also threatened by the apartheid regime many times. South Africa's defence minister, P.W. Botha - who later became president - publicly stated in 1968 that countries which support "terrorists" - freedom fighters - should receive a "sudden hard knock," in pointed reference to Tanzania, which had the largest number of guerrilla camps, and Zambia which also had a number of such bases. According to Africa Contemporary Record:
"By 1968 the potential threat of escalating guerilla attacks became elevated to a top priority of the South African regime....This threat was taken a stage further on April 24 (1968) by the Commandant-General S.A. Melville, former head of the S.A. Defence Force, who said that South Africa already had sufficient justification and provocation for retaliation against countries which 'harboured' and encouraged terrorists whose only intention was to penetrate South Africa or South West Africa. He supported the Minister of Defence's view that such countries should receive a 'sudden hard knock.'
On April 25, the Deputy Minister of Police, Mr. S.L. Muller, informed parliament on information about fresh groups of 'terrorists' gathering in Zambia....Accodring to Muller, there were in Zambia '19 training and transit camps for terrorists as well as officers of all the African subversive organisations'....the South African Minister of Defence, Mr. P.W. Botha, warned on April 5 (1968) that countries aiding and inciting terrorism and guerilla warfare against South Africa could eventually provoke South Africa into 'hitting back hard'....
The Rhodesia rebel Minister of Law and Order, Mr. Lardner Burke, extending the state of emergency at the beginning of 1968, said that the number of 'terrorists' waiting in Zambia and Tanzania to cross the Rhodesian border continued to mount. The South African Deputy-Minister of Police, Mr. S.L. Muller, said Tanzania posed 'the greatest potential threat to the Republic.' He claimed there were '40 camps in Tanzania for the training of terrorists and all the offices of subversive organisations'.
A new external service of Radio Tanzania was inaugurated in 1968 to assist in 'propagating the ideological principles of the liberation movements in Tanzania.'
Tanzania's relations with its southern neighbour, Malawi, continued to decline in 1968 for three reasons. First, because of Dr. Banda's growing relations with South Africa. Second, because Malawi accuses Tanzania of supporting its exile Ministers, like Mr. Chipembere, in subversive activities. And third, because of frontiers disputes.
Malawi's territorial claims to districts in Tanzania provoked President Nyerere to retort that Dr. Banda was 'insane'; but, he warned, 'Dr. Banda must not be ignored; the powers behind him are not insane'....
A Tanzanian note in January, 1967, objected to maps which showed the Malawi-Tanzanian boundary as running along the eastern and northern shores of Lake Nyasa. Tanzania contended the boundary passes through the middle of the lake and that the change was made illegally by the British government on the declaration of the Rhodesian Federation.
Dr. Banda counter claimed that the lake had always belonged to Malawi, and that he had every right to change its name to Lake Malawi. The Portuguese Foreign Minister, Mr. Nogueira, supporting Malawi in March, recalled that under a Portuguese-British treaty still in effect, Malawi owned one part of the lake and Portugal the other.
By September, 1968, Dr. Banda had not only laid further claim to four districts in Tanzania, but to four Zambian districts as well. Speaking at the Malawi Congress Party's annual convention on September 17, Banda said that 'the real boundary' between his country and Zambia should be the Luangwa River, thus incorporating the whole of the Zambian eastern province. At the same time he announced he was putting the first of many gunboats on Lake Nyasa to start patrols as an answer to Tanzania's 'claim.'
Dr. Nyerere described these claims as 'expansionist outbursts which do not scare us, and do not deserve my reply.'
On September 27, President Kaunda said his country could not establish diplomatic relations with Malawi until claims to Zambian territory had been renounced....(and) challenged Dr. Banda 'to go ahead and declare war on Zambia'....
Suspicious that Swaziland's independence on September 6 (1968) was more apparent than real, President Nyerere declined to permit Tanzania to be represented at their celebrations....
On May 17, Mr. Vorster (the prime minister), speaking at the National Party's 'twenty years of Nationalist rule festival,' said that slowly but surely an army would be built up in certain Central African States for an eventual 'now or never' attack on South Africa....'These people have put it very clearly that they will abandon their plans only if South Africa is prepared to hand over to the Blacks'....Two days before, on May 15, at a summit meeting of 14 Central and East African leaders in Dar es Salaam, full support was promised to the guerilla movements fighting in Southern Africa." - (Colin Legum and John Drysdale, eds., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents 1968 - 1969, London: Africa Research Limited, 1969, pp. 291, 292, 249, 373 - 374, 220, 180, 250, and 250).
Dr. Banda's territorial claims extended to Mozambique; he even tried to convince Nyerere in the early sixties to share the territory with him. As Nyerere said years later:
"In 1961 we became independent. In 1962, early 1962, I resigned as prime minister and then a few weeks later I received Dr. Banda. We had just, FRELIMO had just been established here and we were now in the process of starting the armed struggle.
So Banda comes to me with a big old book, with lots and lots of maps in it, and tells me, 'Mwalimu, what is this, what is Mozambique? There is no such thing as Mozambique.' I said, 'What do you mean there is no such thing as Mozambique?' So he showed me this map and he said: 'That part is Nyasaland. That part is part of Southern Rhodesia. That part is Swaziland, and this part, which is the northern part, Makonde part, that is your part.'
So Banda disposed of Mozambique just like that. I ridiculed the idea, and Banda never liked anybody to ridicule his ideas. So he left and went to Lisbon to talk to Salazar about this wonderful idea. I don't know what Salazar told him. That was '62.'" - (Julius K. Nyerere, at an international conference, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 15 December 1997, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Pretoria, South Africa: New Africa Press, 2010, pp. 556 - 557).
Mozambique won independence in 1975 after almost 500 years of Portuguese colonial rule with its territory intact; so did Angola, in the same year, from the same colonial power. Three countries in southern Africa remained under white minority rule: Rhodesia, Namibia, and South Africa.
In 1976, the American secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, went to Tanzania and met with President Nyerere three times - once in April, twice in September - in an attempt to help find solutions to conflicts in the countries of southern Africa still under white minority rule, especially Rhodesia where the white minority rulers had unilaterally declared independence, excluding the black majority from the government.
Nyerere was chairman of the Frontline States - Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola and Botswana - in the struggle against the white minority regimes and was critical to finding solutions to conflicts in the region. As David Martin stated about Nyerere's prominent status and the meetings he had with Kissinger:
"Tanganyika became independent on 9 December 1961 and a year later...the country became a republic. For the next 24 years Nyerere was to fill the African and international stage like a colossus.
When he met the astute American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for the first time in Dar es Salaam in 1976, the two men began a mental verbal fencing match of David and Goliath proportions. One began a quote from Shakespeare - some of whose works Nyerere translated into Swahili setting them in an African context - or a Greek philosopher and the other would end the quotation. Then Nyerere quoted an American author. Kissinger laughed: Nyerere knew Kissinger had written the words.
Neither man trusted the other. Kissinger wanted the negotiations kept secret. Nyerere, understanding the Americans' duplicity, took the opposite view and as Africa correspondent of the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, I was to become the focal point of the Tanzanians' strategic leaks. That year the newspaper led the front page on an unprecedented 13 occasions on Africa. All the leaks, as Kissinger knew, came from Nyerere. One political fox had temporarily outwitted the other.
Apart from his simplicity and piercing intellect, one of Nyerere's most endearing traits was his honesty." - (David Martin, "Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere: Obituary," Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC). David Martin was a founder-director of the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre of which Nyerere was a patron. He lived in Tanzania for 10 years from 1964 to 1974 and frequently talked with Nyerere through the decades, a period of 35 years, until Nyerere's last days).
His simplicity belied his intellect and leadership potential demonstrated by his meteoric rise to power. He returned to Tanganyika in October 1952 after earning a master's degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Nine years later, he led his country to independence becoming the youngest national leader in the world. He was 39.
When he was at Edinburgh, no-one thought he would become a titan not only on the African political landscape but on the world stage years later. He did not stand out among other students as a leader or future politician anymore than he did when he was a student at Makerere University College in Uganda before he went to Scotland for further studies. One of his fellow students from Tanganyika, Abdallah Said Fundikira who was with him at Makerere and who became a cabinet member in the first independence cabinet, said people did not really notice Nyerere. It was when he spoke that others noticed he had leadership qualities in addition to his sharp intellect. As Fundikira put it:
"If you want to know the truth, one did not particularly notice Nyerere." - (Abdallah Said Fundikira, Africa News Online, 8 November 1999).
He had a passionate desire to see his country and Africa as a whole free. Trevor Grundy, who was a critic of Nyerere, stated the following in his review of Nyerere: The Early Years, a book written by Thomas Molony, a senior lecturer in African studies at the University of Edinburgh:
"He went on to use his Edinburgh years to great advantage, bewildering - some might say bamboozling - liberal-minded journalists in the 1960s and 1970s with his formidable intellect which was the result of his reading of Jacques Rousseau and John H. Stuart Mill, T. H. Green's Principles of Political Organization, Benard Bosanquet's Philosophical Essay of the State and Harold Laski, the famous London School of Economics theorist.
He had a blotting paper brain.
Hardly a soul at Edinburgh guessed he would turn into Africa's number one brain box in years to come. As the historian George Shepperson put it in a BBC interview: 'We at Edinburgh were very surprised in mid-1950s when Dr Nyerere's name became widespread throughout the world press. We never felt when he was here that he was going to become a leading politician.'
Statesmen and journalists were amazed at his knowledge....
With his eager tongue, (and) a formidable intellect...he is presented by Commonwealth groupies as the politician who did the most to mastermind the downfall of Portuguese and British/Afrikaner rule in Africa....The Rhodesian leader Ian Smith several times referred to Nyerere as Africa's 'evil genius'....
He did so much to help liberate different parts of Africa from European rule while bankrupting Tanzania in the process." - (Trevor Grundy, "Julius Nyerere Reconsidered," 4 May 2015, africaunauthorised.com).
The years he spent at Edinburgh were some of the most rewarding in terms of intellectual preparation for his role as a national leader after he returned to Tanganyika.
Nyerere's commitment to the liberation struggle and his uncompromising stand on racial equality was also demonstrated in his negotiations with Kissinger. He did not trust the United States and did not make concessions Kissinger wanted him to make. As James Spain, the American ambassador to Tanzania during that time, stated:
"One of the amusing sidelights of Henry Kissinger's second or third visit was this. He stayed in the Kilimanjaro Hotel. When the party was clearing out to go to the airport, I was told that the Secretary of State wanted me. I went upstairs. People were carrying away files and suitcases.
In the middle of a table there was a 'bug' protector that was still making weird electronic sounds. Henry gets both of us hunched over this thing. He said 'Thank you very much. This visit has been useful. Your arrangements were fine, but I want to warn you about one thing: This fellow Nyerere is not our side.'
This was a pretty accurate reflection of the spirit of the times....
If I did anything useful, it was to convince Washington that Nyerere was not a brutal African dictator and a Communist stooge....
He...loved word play. I never read a book that he hadn't read. He translated Shakespeare into Kiswahili....
He was a hopeless socialist. Still, he was clearly a very sincere and humane man....Most Western development aid to Tanzania came from Scandinavia, particularly the Swedes. They like the intellectual socialist, the benign father of his people who didn't kill or imprison people, while trying to create a new way of life with better prospects....
The fact was that Nyerere certainly wasn't on our side, but he wasn't a tool of the Chinese or the Russians either....
He was a very remarkable man and, I think, a very constructive element in the peaceful solutions to the problems of Southern Africa that eventually emerged." - (James W. S. Spain, interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, 31 October 1995, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, copyright 1998, pp. 36 and 34).
Kissinger's failure to extract concessions from Nyerere prompted American reporters who had accompanied him, as well as other journalists, to conclude that Kissinger's mission was a failure. When Nyerere was asked at a press conference in Dar es Salaam if he considered Kissinger's mission to be a failure, he said in response:
"A mission of clarity is not a mission of failure."
The immediate concern was Rhodesia where guerrilla warfare was most intense during that period. Nyerere played a critical role in helping end white minority rule in that country. Frustrated by Nyerere's intellectual manoeuvres, political skills and determination to remove white minority regimes from power, Rhodesia's prime minister, Ian Smith, called him Africa's "evil genius."
Once Rhodesia was free, Namibia would be next, and finally South Africa. Nyerere was seen as a critical player in all those theatres. Kissinger acknowledged Nyerere's vital role in resolving conflicts in the region, as did other leaders. As Richard N. Viets who served as American ambassador to Tanzania from 1979 to 1981 stated:
"At that time in mid-1979, the so-called front-line states in Southern Africa, I think there were five of them...the organization was chaired by Julius Nyerere, the President of Tanzania, a very remarkable gentleman. Nyerere really towered over the other four heads of state and this organization in many respects was a one-man operation. Because of his long association with the independence movements in East Africa and throughout Southern Africa he was highly respected.
Nyerere is an intellectual of very considerable dimensions, an extraordinarily articulate person. So the leadership of this group was essentially his without any challenge. He was offering almost daily advise to the Zimbabwean leadership on tactics, strategy, etc. in their negotiations with the British and the Americans and the others involved....
I decided I needed to know more about Julius Nyerere than anybody else on the face of the earth....He is a very shrewd man.
He was...a most remarkable figure in contemporary African political history. I always said, and others who knew him well I think shared this view, that if Nyerere had been born in Western Europe or the Far East or even in North America, he would have been an exceptional figure in public life. He was a superb politician.
He had an acute brain, the memory of an elephant, intellectual horsepower that was second to none.
He was cunning. He could be warm-hearted one moment and cut you off at the legs at the next if it met his political or personal needs.
Nyerere...remains as far as I know the principal translator of Shakespeare from English into Swahili and one of the most gifted orators I have ever heard in English, and a marvelous drafter of the English language." - (Richard N. Viets interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, April 1990, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, copyright 1998, pp. 56, 58, 59, 61, 67 - 68).
Nyerere was also interviewed in Dar es Salaam in 1976 on an American television programme, ABC's "Issues and Answers," about the escalating conflict in southern Africa. He made it clear that the United States and other Western powers were supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa and asked a pointed question:
"Why are Western countries arming South Africa? Why are you arming South Africa? Against what military combination? And you expect us to sit just like that."
His pivotal role in the region also prompted an American journalist on ABC's "Issues and Answers" to ask Nyerere:
"Can you use your influence, which is tremendous influence, and ask Castro to withdraw his troops from Angola?"
Nyerere responded:
"Even if I had that kind of influence, it would be unnecessary. First, you remove the cause...."
He was also asked:
"Will you commit troops (in a war against South Africa)?"
Nyerere: "Yes, I will commit troops. We would rather hang together than hang separately...."
Nyerere blamed the United States for fomenting trouble and fuelling conflict in Angola. When he was asked on the American television programme, "Issues and Answers," who was causing turmoil in the country, he responded:
"I believe the CIA. Who is doing it? Who else could be doing it? Why do we keep on hearing these whispers coming from Washington, saying, 'Let us create another Vietnam for the Russians in Angola'? You are causing us trouble."
His commitment to the liberation of Africa was clearly evident to the freedom fighters themselves based in Tanzania and even to other people elsewhere. Many Tanzanian soldiers fought and died in the liberation wars in southern Africa and are honoured at a memorial site in Tanzania; so are those who fought and died in the war with Uganda under Idi Amin.
Nyerere's relentless support for the liberation struggle was also underscored by Professor Piero Gleijeses who stated in his book, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959 - 1976:
"Of all the African leaders who proclaimed their support for the liberation struggle in Africa - Nkrumah, Nasser, Ben Bella, Sekou Toure - he was the most committed. And by the second half of 1964, spurred by events in Zaire and the obvious failure of peaceful attempts to end white rule in southern Africa, this commitment, and his disappointment with Western powers, was increasingly evident.
By the time Che (Guevara) arrived (in Tanzania in 1965), Dar es Salaam had become the Mecca of African liberation movements...Dar es Salaam 'has become a haven for exiles from the rest of Africa,' the CIA lamented in September 1964. 'It is full of frustrated revolutionaries, plotting the overthrow of African governments, both black and white'....
In September 1964, Frelimo, the movement against Portuguese rule in Mozambique, had launched the opening salvo of its guerrilla war from bases in southern Tanzania, its only rear guard.
Following Stanleyville, Nyerere had thrown his full support to the Simbas, and Tanzania had become their main rear guard and the major conduit of Soviet and Chinese weapons for them.
It was also the seat of the Liberation Committee of the OAU. The head offices of Frelimo and a host of other movements struggling against the white regimes in South Africa, Namibia, and Rhodesia were in Dar es Salaam.
The Cuban embassy there was, the CIA reported accurately in March 1965, 'the largest Cuban diplomatic station in sub-Saharan Africa.' The ambassador, Captain Pablo Ribalta, was a close friend of Che Guevara." - (Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959 - 1976, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002, pp. 84 and 85).
About ten years later, Kissinger was in Tanzania trying to find a diplomatic solution to the conflicts in southern Africa, a mission that was somewhat compromised because of American - Western - support for the white minority regimes in the region. As Nyerere stated in his article, "Rhodesia in the Context of Southern Africa" published in Foreign Affairs in April 1966:
"The deep and intense anger of Africa on the subject of Rhodesia is by now widely realized. It is not, however, so clearly understood. In consequence the mutual suspicion, which already exists between free African states and nations of the West, is in danger of getting very much worse....
Successive Western governments have declared their hostility to apartheid, and their adherence to the principles of racial equality. They have frequently made verbal declarations of their sympathy with the forces in opposition to South African policies. But they have excused their failure to act in support of their words, on the grounds of South Africa's sovereignty. Africa has shown a great deal of scepticism about this argument, believing that it masked a reluctance to intervene on the side of justice when white privilege was involved. Now, in the case of Southern Rhodesia, legality is on the sde of intervention. What is the West going to do? Will it justify or confound African suspicions?
So far the West has demonstrated its intentions by the gradual increase of voluntary economic sanctions; there has been a refusal even to challenge South African and Portuguese support for Smith by making sanctions mandatory upon all members of the United Nations. And there have been repeated statements by the responsible authority that force will not be used except in case of a break-down in law and order - which apparently does not cover the illegal seizure of power! What happens if the economic sanctions fail to bring down the Smith regime is left vague.
The suggestion therefore remains that, despite legality, the domination of a white minority over blacks is acceptable to the West....It is time for...Britain and the United States of America to make clear whether they really believe in the principles they claim to espouse, or whether their policies are governed by considerations of the privileges of their 'kith and kin.'" - (Julius K.Nyerere, "Rhodesia in the Context of Southern Africa," Foreign Affairs, New York, April 1966; Julius K. Nyerere, Freedom and Socialism/Uhuru na Ujamaa: A Selection from Writings and Speeches, 1965 - 1967, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 143, 154 - 155, and 156).
The critical role Nyerere played in finding solutions to the conflicts in southern Africa was also demonstrated by the fact that not only did Kissinger meet with him three times but longer than he did with any other African leader during his mission to the continent in 1976. In acknowledging Nyerere's role, Kissinger wrote the following, "Julius Nyerere and Tanzania: The Ambivalent Intellectual," in his book, Henry Kissinger: Years of Renewal:
"Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere proceeded to arrange an official reception that could not have been more cordial. The motive, however, was altogether different from Kenyatta's. Nyerere...was, at heart, deeply suspicious of American society and American intentions.
In international forums, Tanzania's ministers frequently castigated us. Nyerere would not have described friendship with the United States as a national priority; instead, he tended to think of relations with us a necessary evil....
Brilliant and charming, Nyerere had an influence in Africa out of proportion to the resources of his country, proof that power cannot be measured in physical terms alone....Because Tanzania was involved in the armed struggle that was taking place in Rhodesia, and because of Nyerere's intellectual dominance, Nyerere would be a key to any solution....
Many of Nyerere's American admirers thought he and his colleagues were the embodiment of American values and liberal traditions. By contrast, his American critics viewed Nyerere as a spokesman for Communist ideology. Neither view was accurate. Nyerere was his own man. His idiosyncratic blend of Western liberal rhetoric, socialist practice, nonaligned righteousness, and African tribalism was driven, above all, by a passionate desire to free his continent from Western categories of thought, of which Marxism happens to be one. His ideas were emphatically his own....
For our first meeting, Nyerere, a slight, wiry man, invited me to his modest private residence. It was a signal honor, and he introduced me to his mother and several members of his family. He was graceful and elegant, his eyes sparkling, his gestures fluid.
With an awesome command of the English language (he had translated Julius Caesar into Swahili), Nyerere could be a seductive interlocutor. But he was also capable of steely hostility. I had the opportunity to see both these sides during my three visits to Dar es Salaam....
Nyerere was the key to the frontline states....
The two most impressive leaders I encountered on this trip, Nyerere and Senghor, were at opposite ends of the African sppectrum. In a sense, they represented metaphors for varying approaches to African identity.
Nyerere was a militant who used ideology as a weapon; Senghor was an intellectual who had taught himself the grammar of power.
Nyerere considered himself as a leader of an Africa that should evolve in a unique way, separate from the currents in the rest of the world which Africa would use without permitting them to contaminate its essence. Senghor saw himself as a participant in an international order in which Africa and négritude would play a significant, but not isolated, role.
When all is said and done, Nyerere strove for the victory of black Africa while Senghor sought a reconciliation of cultures within the context of self-determination." - (Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger: Years of Renewal, New York: Touchstone, 1999, pp. 931 - 932, 936, 949 - 951).
In its assessment of Nyerere, the CIA prepared a report, dated May 1965, about his passionate desire to see Africa free and united and how determined he was to achieve his goal:
"On the question of African liberation, Nyerere is a fanatic. Beneath a charming personality which disarms many Westerners, he is a man of strong conviction, prepared to pay almost any price to achieve a united Africa ruled by black Africans."
Nyerere's commitment to African liberation was indisputable; so was his ambition to see Africa united which even surpassed his desire to achieve socialism. As he stated in an interview in 1998 not long before he died:
"I have always said that I was African first and socialist second. I would rather see a free and united Africa before a fragmented socialist Africa." - (Julius K. Nyerere, in an interview with Ikaweba Bunting, New Internationalist, Oxford, UK, December 1998).
It is also true that Nyerere wanted Africa to be ruled by Africans - just as Europe is ruled by Europeans, America by Americans and so on - and wanted Africans to maintain their identity as Africans. As he stated when spoke about the Portuguese colonies in Africa and their policy of assimilation which was actually never implemented as they claimed it was on the basis of racial equality:
"Portugal pretends that her colonies are really part of Europe, and that she abjures racial discrimination. She claims instead to be in the process of making European Gentlemen out of the African inhabitants of those areas, and talks proudly of the policy of equality for the 'assimilado.' But Africans are not European, could not become European, and do not want to become European. They demand instead the right to be Africans in Africa, and to determine their own cultural, economic, and political future. This right is what Portugal denies. The inhabitants of her colonies can certainly be 'African'; but if they are, then they are subjected to special laws, and special taxation and labour levies; their participation in the functions of their own government is ruled out.
In South Africa there is no longer even the pretence that citizens of different races are equal before the law, or in social and economic rights and duties." - (Julius K. Nyerere, "The Honour of Africa," an address to the National Assembly , Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 14 December 1965, before Tanzania broke off diplomatic relations with Britain the following day, the first country to do so - followed by Ghana under Nkrumah and Egypt under Nasser the day after - because of Britain's refusal and unwillingness to use force to remove the white minority government from power in Rhodesia after it unilaterally declared independence on11 November 1965; in Julikus K. Nyerere, Freedom and Socialism/Uhuru na Ujamaa: A Selection from Writings and Speeches 1965 - 1967, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 123 - 124).
Because of the prominent role he played on the political scene in southern Africa, President Nyerere was also invited to Washington by President Jimmy Carter in August 1977 in an attempt to find solutions to the conflicts in the region. He was the first black African leader to be invited by Carter for a state visit. High on Carter's agenda was Rhodesia, Namibia and the war in Angola and the involvement of Cuban troops in the conflict supporting the MPLA government against South African-backed UNITA forces. As the American ambassador to Tanzania during that time, James Spain, stated in an interview years later:
"Nyerere was the first African chief of state that Carter invited back. I accompanied him. Only twice in my life have I been in substantive sessions in the White House.
I was with Carter and Nyerere, Vance, Moose and Brzezinski for something like five hours. Then too, five or six days are allotted for the distinguished visitor to see the US. We took our own plane out to Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the rural Midwest and South. Nyerere didn't play bridge but his foreign minister (Benjamin Mkapa who later became president of Tanzania and was Nyerere's student at St. Francis College, Pugu, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam) did....
Rhodesia and Namibia were high priority issues at the time. Kissinger had devoted three or four days to them in 1976....David Owen, the British Foreign Secretary, joined him for a couple of his meetings with Nyerere....
Nyerere made no bones that he would give all the support he could, including arms, to the Namibian and Rhodesian rebels. That was to end 'colonialism.' But he saw the situation within South Africa differently. That was a fight between African and Africans. The Boers, as he always called the Afrikaners, were Africans too, bad Africans, but Africans. As he told an American visitor, 'Unlike the British in Rhodesia, they have no place to go home to'....
We were in the middle of the negotiations for an independent Rhodesia.
The personal chemistry between Carter and Nyerere was great. Toward the end of the discussions Carter shuffled his papers and said, 'Well, I think that is all Mr. President. It has been very useful.'
His National Security Adviser who had been sitting down the table and hadn't said a word coughed pointedly.
'Oh, yes,' said Carter. 'There is the matter of the Cubans in Angola.'
'Yes, indeed Mr. President,' Nyerere responded. 'I thought we were going to agree on everything, but that is something that we can disagree on. Let's talk about it.'
Carter didn't seem very eager. He said, 'We feel that's bad.'
Nyerere gave his standard reply: as soon as the South Africans get out of Angola the Cubans will get out.
'How can you guarantee that?'
'Because the president of Angola has promised me and I will see to it that he lives up to his promise.'
There isn't.
Brzezinski broke in. 'Mr. President, are you aware that the number of Cubans in Angola compared to the total population of Angola is larger than the number of Americans who were in Vietnam at the height of our involvement?'
'Oh, really, how interesting,' replied Nyerere.
Carter started folding up his papers.
'And, Mr. President,' asks Brzezinski, 'Are you aware that the number of Cubans in Angola compared to the total population of Cuba is very much larger than the number of Americans in Vietnam at the height of our involvement compared to the total population of the United States?'
This time Nyerere didn't say a word. He waved his hand with a condescending smile.
Carter grabbed his papers, stood up, and announced 'Well, it looks like we are really finished!'" (James W. Spain, interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, 31 October 1995, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, copyright 1998, pp. 33, 41).
On the Rhodesian question, there was hope that the conflict could be resolved diplomatically. But the intransigence of the white minority regime left little room, if any, for a diplomatic solution. As the leader of the white minorities in Rhodesia, Prime Minister Ian Smith, said, there would be no black majority rule in his life time, not even in a thousand years. Africans insisted, there would be, in his lifetime. As he put it:
"No African rule in my lifetime. The white man is master of Rhodesia. He has built it, and he intends to keep it." - (Ian Smith, in Alan Cowell, "Ian Smith, Defiant Symbol of White Rule in Africa, Is Dead at 88," The New York Times, 21 November 2007).
His defiance was even more pronounced in the same year Kissinger went to Africa in his abortive attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. As the Rhodesian leader bluntly stated in 1976:
"I don't believe in black majority rule ever in Rhodesia - not in a thousand years."
War seemed to be the only solution. As The New York Times stated in its report when President Nyerere visited the United States at the invitation of President Carter:
"Other Americans who spoke with Nyerere today (5 August 1977) said that he feared it was too late for a projected new British-American peacekeeping effort in Rhodesia and that the issue between the white minority Government and black nationalist forces would have to be decided by war....
Mr. Nyerere is chairman of a committee of presidents of the so-called 'front-line countries' that lie on or near Rhodesia's borders. The Administration believes he could be the single most influential African leader in getting a fair hearing for the British-American proposals both from the other 'front-line' presidents and from the Patriotic Front, which is waging guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white minority government.
Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, the leaders of the Patriotic Front coalition, have publicly rejected any further efforts to negotiate a settlement in Rhodesia, a country of 270,000 whites and more than six million blacks, and have said the issue must be resolved by war." - (Graham Hovey, "Nyerere Is Called Hopeful on Rhodesia," The New York Times, 5 August 1977).
Without Nyerere's direct involvement, there was little hope a solution to the conflict could found. President Carter knew that. According to The Washington Post:
"Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere, probably black Africa's most widely respected figure, arrives in Washington today (4 August 1977) on his first official trip to the United States since he was President Kennedy's guest 14 years ago. He is the first black African leader invited by President Carter to visit him at the White House.
Since the Vietnam war, the United States and Tanzania have been on opposite sides of almost every major world issue and Tanzania's U.N. ambassador, Salim Salim, has stood out as one of the Third World's most distinguished critics of American policies. Relations between the two countries first soured in 1964 when Tanzania accused the United States of plotting to overthrow the government and they have never been warm since.
Improving bilateral relations is unlikely to be the substance of Nyerere's talks with Carter, however.
Nyerere is chairman of the presidents of the so-called frontline states - Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania - the independent African countries most directly involved in the southern African drama. This makes him the continent's most influential spokesman on strategies for achieving majority rule in Rhodesia, granting legitimate independence to Namibia (Southwest Africa) and ending apartheid in South Africa.
Nyerere is personally considered to be above reproach. A wealthy Nairobi-based Greek businesswoman, whose family has been involved in Tanzania for two generations, says, 'Nyerere is the only man in East Africa who cannot be bought.' A practicing Roman Catholic of simple tastes, the 55-year old philosopher-president is said to be the lowest paid head of state in Africa.
To much of the continent, the United States...is still regarded as one of the leading collaborators in maintaining white supremacy and black exploitation in southern Africa....
Part of Carter's success in convincing Africans that he is sincere about changing American policy something former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger tried and failed to do, stems from U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young's open identification with the African cause....
Ten months before his 1969 trip to Canada, Nyerere let it be known that he would also like to visit Washington to help improve relations with the United States, but he was told that President Nixon would be too busy.
The following year, when Nyerere came to New York to address the U.N. General Assembly on southern Africa - with a speech that had such an impact on African and black American students that mimeographed copies were passed hand-to-hand throughout American campus communities - no effort was made to see President Nixon.
In 1975, however, Nyerere was invited to deliver the commencement address at Boston University and he asked for a brief meeting with President Ford. He was rebuffed yet by another American President and later declined the Boston invitation." - (Roger Mann, "Nyerere Visit Seen as Symbol of Shift in U.S. Policy on Africa," The Washington Post, 4 August 1977).
This deliberate snub of a prominent and highly respected African leader by presidents Nixon and Ford reflected their attitude towards Africa in general as a continent which they saw as a peripheral actor on the global stage and one that could simply be ignored at will by the United States. It is an attitude that was shared by Henry Kissinger who served under both presidents as national security advisor and as secretary of state.
It is also a sentiment that was echoed by President Donald Trump decades later when, on 11 January 2018, he described African countries as "shithole countries." Trump also, on 27 July 2019, described an overwhelmingly black congressional district in Baltimore, which is also a predominantly black city and one of the largest in the United States, as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess....The district...is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States....Very dangerous & filthy place....(the) disctirict is considered the worst in the USA....No human being would want to live there." Except blacks, of course, was the implication of Trump's statement.
The same contempt for blacks in the United States by a number of American leaders has also been directed against Africans in Africa through the years. As James K. Bishop, a veteran foreign service officer since the Kennedy Administration who also served as deputy director for West Africa at the State Department and as United States ambassador to Nigeria, Liberia and Somalia among other posts, stated about Nixon and Kissinger:
"For countries I covered, we had a pretty broad spectrum of US interests at a time when the US administration was not particularly concerned about Africa. In addition to other issues that Nixon and Kissinger had to face - Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, disarmament - they both had also had very disparaging views of Africa.
Nixon told one of our ambassadors - with whom I was working when he made his farewell call on the President at the White House - that Africans were a bunch of children and should be treated as such. Those were the ambassador's marching orders.
Kissinger went to Africa once during my period in Washington when I was the Deputy Office Director for West Africa. Bill Schaufele was the Assistant Secretary at the time; he looked over the manifest for Kissinger's plane and realized that he was the only African expert aboard. He asked whether he could bring an assistant along to help him. I was marched up to Kissinger's office and inspected - as a slave might have been inspected 200 years earlier on a block in Annapolis. He looked at me as if I were a piece of rancid meat.
During the inspection, Kissinger went out of the room to take a telephone call from the President. Winston Lord, who remained with Schaufele and I, was kind enough to tell me not to be offended because Kissinger treated all of his staff the same way.
The bottom line was that I didn't go on the plane; Schaufele went by himself." - (James K. Bishop, Jr., interviewed by Charles S. Kennedy, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, 15 November 1995, p. 30).
Kissinger had a bad reputation as a very arrogant person since his student days at Harvard University and probably even before then. One of his professors at Harvard, William Yandell Elliott who was his supervisor when he was a doctoral candidate, and who later served in both Democratic and Republican administrations as presidential advisor, told him years later:
"Henry, you're brilliant. But you're arrogant. In fact you're the most arrogant man I've ever met. Mark my words, your arrogance is going to get you in real trouble one day." - (William Yandell Elliott, in Greg Grandin, Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015, p. 39).
It was when he served as secretary of state under President Gerald Ford that he had to go to a continent he despised so much and whose leaders he equally despised. The presidents he worked for had no more respect for Africans than he did.
Nixon believed in scientific racism, legitimised by pseudoscience, and expressed extremely racist views. According to Newsweek, he described black people in recorded conversations as "Negro bastards" who "live like a bunch of dogs"; "they are not going to make it for 500 years." His predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, routinely called blacks "niggers," civil rights bills "nigger bills."
Blacks were also intellectually "inferior" to whites and members of other races, a belief common among racists.
But when Kissinger went to Tanzania and met with President Nyerere, he met his intellectual equal who was not intimidated by him. And he knew that, despite his arrogance; an arrogance typical of Nixon and other American leaders.
Other American leaders have also used racist language to describe blacks people in Africa and the United States.
Ronald Reagan was one of them. In a recorded conversation with President Richard Nixon, Reagan, who was then governor of California before he himself became president, described African diplomats at the United Nations as "monkeys." Nixon called them "cannibals." That was when the diplomats celebrated the admission of the People's Republic of China to the UN, ousting Taiwan, in a campaign spearheaded by Tanzania and her permanent representative to the UN, Salim Ahmed Salim. As Professor Tim Naftali of New York University stated in his article, "Ronald Reagan's long-Hidden Racist Conversation with Richard Nixon," published in The Atlantic, 30 July 2019:
"The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. 'Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,' Reagan said. 'Yeah,' Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: 'To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!' Nixon gave a huge laugh....
The exchange was taped by Nixon (in October 1971), and then later became the responsibility of the Nixon Presidential Library, which I directed from 2007 to 2011....When the UN took its vote to seat a delegation from Beijing instead of from Taiwan in 1971, members of the Tanzanian delegation started dancing in the General Assembly. Reagan, a devoted defender of Taiwan, was incensed, and tried to reach Nixon the night of the vote. Reagan despised the United Nations, which he described as a 'kangaroo court' filled with 'bums,' and he wanted the U.S. to withdraw from full participation immediately....
Nixon’s anger at the UN delegations from African nations for the loss was misplaced. His own State Department blamed factors other than African voting, including maneuvering by the British and French behind the scenes, for the loss. But Nixon would have none of it. The Africans were to blame....
Right after hanging up with Reagan, Nixon sought out Secretary of State William Rogers....'As you can imagine,' Nixon confided in Rogers, 'there’s strong feeling that we just shouldn’t, as [Reagan] said, he saw these, as he said, he saw these—' Nixon stammered, choosing his words carefully—'these, uh, these cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on.'
The president wanted his patrician secretary of state to understand that Reagan spoke for racist Americans, and they needed to be listened to. 'You know, but that’s typical of a reaction, which is probably'—'That’s right,' Rogers interjected—'quite strong.'
Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said....He spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary. 'Reagan called me last night,' Nixon said, 'and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, 'These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.' And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.' Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: 'Apparently, it was a terrible scene.' Nixon added, 'And they cheered.'
Then Nixon said, 'He practically got sick at his stomach, and that’s why he called. And he said, 'It was a terrible scene.' And that sort of thing will have an emotional effect on people … as [Reagan] said, 'This bunch of people who don’t even wear shoes yet, to be kicking the United States in the teeth' … It was a terrible thing, they thought'....
Reagan’s comment about African leaders resonated with Nixon, because it reflected his warped thinking about African Americans....Only three weeks before the call with Reagan, Nixon had revealed his opinions on Africans and African Americans in a conversation with the Harvard professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had briefly served in the Nixon administration. Nixon was attracted to the theories of Richard Herrnstein and Arthur Jensen, which linked IQ to race, and wondered what Moynihan thought.
'I have reluctantly concluded, based at least on the evidence presently before me … that what Herrnstein says, and what was said earlier by Jensen, is probably … very close to the truth,' Nixon explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites....Nixon confided in Moynihan, who had been one of his house intellectuals, about the nature of his interest in research on African American intelligence: 'The reason I have to know it is that as I go for (social) programs, I must know that they have basic weaknesses.'
As these and other tapes make clear, the 37th president of the United States was a racist: He believed in treating people according to their race, and that race implied fundamental differences in individual human beings. Nixon’s racism matters to us because he allowed his views on race to shape U.S. policies—both foreign and domestic. His policies need to be viewed through that lens.
The 40th president has not left as dramatic a record of his private thoughts. Reagan’s racism appears to be documented only once on the Nixon tapes, and never in his own diaries. His comment on African leaders, however, sheds new light on what lay behind the governor’s passionate defense of the apartheid states of Rhodesia and South Africa later in the 1970s. During his 1976 primary-challenge run against Gerald Ford, Reagan publicly opposed the Ford administration’s rejection of white-minority rule in Rhodesia....
These new tapes are a stark reminder of the racism that often lay behind the public rhetoric of American presidents. As I write a biography of JFK, I’ve found that this sort of racism did not animate President Kennedy—indeed, early on he took political risks to help African leaders, most notably Gamal Abdel Nasser and Kwame Nkrumah. But his reluctance to do more, sooner for African Americans cannot be separated from the paternalism he brought to the Oval Office or the prejudice held by parts of his Boston inner circle.
Kennedy, at least, learned on the job that securing civil rights for all was a moral imperative. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a symptom of a sickness that dwells in American society, sometimes deeply and weakly, sometimes on the surface and feverishly. He bears responsibility for his own actions, but the tropes, the turns of phrase, the clumsy indirection, and worse, the gunk about American society that he and his most devoted followers pass off as ideas, have an ugly tradition....it remains an ineluctable part of American culture....
Nixon never changed his mind about the supposed inherent inferiority of Africans. At the end of October 1971, he discussed the UN vote with his best friend, Bebe Rebozo. Bebe delighted Nixon by echoing Reagan: 'That reaction on television was, it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the trees by their tails.' Nixon laughed.
These days, though Trump’s imagery is less zoological, it is pretty much the same in spirit. And this president, unlike Nixon, doesn’t believe he needs to hide behind anyone else’s racism."
Trump's raw-naked racism was further demonstrated by his tirades against four non-white female members of the United States Congress – all Americans like him, three of them American-born - when he told them to go back where they came from. As he bluntly put it in his tweet on 14 July 2019, the congresswomen who "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came....These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!"
Two were black: one African American; the other, African, from Somalia. And the conclusion was obvious. They were an integral part of Africa, and the face of Africa, in the United States Congress where they didn't belong, according to Trump and his supporters, in spite of the fact that they were American citizens; and they, by virtue of their origin, represented a continent of what President Trump called "shithole countries"; so do African leaders, of course.
There are other American leaders - and others in the West and elsewhere - who have used foul language about Africans.
It is only when American interests - and the interests of American allies - are at stake that American leaders start to pay attention to African leaders and their people, although not much. They then, sometimes, use polite language when they talk about them instead of being crude the way Reagan and Nixon were and the way Trump is today.
That was the case with the countries of southern Africa where the white minority rulers, who were allies of the United States and the West in general, came under increasing pressure from Africans to relinquish power to the indigenous people.
With the war intensifying in Rhodesia, waged by the freedom fighters to end white minority rule in that country, it was clear that President Nyerere could no longer be ignored by the United States as a major player on the political scene in southern Africa. It was President Ford who sent Kissinger to Africa to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict. But Kissinger failed to achieve his goal when he met with Nyerere.
When Carter became president, the new American leader went a step further not only by inviting Nyerere to the White House but by seeking his guidance and support in the quest for an amicable solution to the conflict in Rhodesia and in trying to get Cuban troops out of Angola. He made some progress with Nyerere on the question of Rhodesia but not on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.
Nyerere's disagreement with the United States on the presence of Cuban troops in Angola sent a clear signal to the Carter administration that Cuban troops were not going to leave Angola, and he would not ask Castro to withdraw his troops, unless South African troops were out of Angola.
President Carter acknowledged Nyerere's role as a major political force in southern Africa and did not want to alienate him by seeking concessions he knew Nyerere would not make. As The Washington Post stated about Nyerere's prominence as a leader and as a prime factor and determinant in the calculus of the political events unfolding in southern Africa:
"President Carter asked visiting Tanzanian President Julius K. Nyerere yesterday (4 August 1977) for his crucial support of a new diplomatic attempt to resolve the conflict over majority rule in white-dominated Rhodesia.
The two leaders were said to have agreed there is still 'a possibility' of heading off 'massive bloodshed and civil war' throughout Rhodesia, where black guerrilla spokesmen say the time for diplomacy is gone.
However, 'It cannot be overemphasized,' White House press secretary Jody Powell told reporters after the first Carter-Nyerere meeting, 'that hope for a realization of that [diplomatic] possibility involves an extremely difficult and complex process.'
Nyerere...is a pivotal figure in the Carter administration's African diplomacy in Rhodesia and in South African-ruled Namibia (Southwest Africa).
The United States and Britain are now drafting proposals to try to produce a peaceful transition to majority rule in Rhodesia, where 270,000 whites rule 6 million blacks....
Nyerere...was publicly asked by Carter yesterday for his advice and his counsel and his friendship and his guidance for achieving 'peace with justice' in Africa.
Welcoming Nyerere on the South Lawn of the White House with full military honors, Carter reached back to the memories of the Kennedy administration, when Nyerere last visited the White House, to re-kindle and strengthen the U.S. link with Tanzania.
During the Nixon-Ford years, the relationship was frigid, until 1976 when Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger suddenly reversed U.S. policy toward black African nationalism, and launched an aborted attempt at a Rhodesian settlement and 'majority rule' in all Africa.
Carter lauded Nyerere yesterday as 'a senior statesman...a scholar, a philosopher, a great writer,' who 'has forgone material wealth and ease in a sacrificial way for his own people.'
The gray-haired Nyerere, whose mild humble appearance conceals the intellect and political skill to bargain shrewdly with the world's Communist and non-Communist leaders responded warmly to the welcome.
There was no allusion on either side yesterday to Nyerere's long-standing complaint about U.S. policy in Africa, that for years it looked at Africa 'through anti-Communist spectacles,' ignoring Africa's basic needs.
Nyerere...has maintained that Africa's nationalists must 'accept help from wherever they can get it' to achieve their own objectives. To achieve black majority rule in Rhodesia and Namibia and South Africa, the stronghold of white-minority rule, Nyerere has said the United States must join in efforts to assure that South Africa is 'isolated economically, politically and socially,' by the rest of the world.
Nyerere...added to his schedule a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus." - (Murray Marder, "President Asks Nyerere for Support on Rhodesia," The Washington Post, 5 August 1977).
At the welcoming ceremony after his arrival in Washington, President Nyerere underscored the importance of the United States as a global power exercising economic and military might - including the enormous influence it had on the white minority regimes in southern Africa - when, responding to President Carter who had just welcomed him, he said in his speech:
"We in Tanzania, Mr. President, and in Africa generally, follow American politics with close attention. There is the intrinsic interest of the affairs of the most powerful nation the world has ever known. But more to the point, your politics do affect us. Indeed, we in Tanzania sometimes think that the world should somehow join n the process of electing the American President--[laughter]--for though we realize that the American people do not elect an absolute monarch, the world power structure is such that other peoples in other nations have a vital interest in the person whom the American people choose as their executive head of state." - (The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara: Jimmy Carter, XXXIX President of the United States: 1977 - 1981. Visit of President Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania - Remarks of the President and President Nyerere at the Welcoming Ceremony, 4 August 1977).
After his meetings with President Nyerere, President Carter was asked at a press conference in Washington, D.C.:
"What can you tell us, sir, about the outcome of the visit with President Nyerere?"
Carter: "Well, President Nyerere is a man who has the best insight into African problems of anyone I've ever met. I think he has the trust and confidence of almost all the other nations in Africa and obviously is a natural scholar, student, historian, and political leader.
He and I have reached, I think, almost complete agreement over the goals and purposes of diplomatic efforts relating to Rhodesia and Namibia. And we will try to carry out those purposes, working as closely as we can together, recognizing, of course, that many other nations and leaders will be involved.
But we have, I think, made a great deal of progress in our meetings these last 2 days, and I've developed an increasing respect for him." - (The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara: Jimmy Carter, XXXIX President of the United States: 1977 - 1981. Visit of President Nyerere of Tanzania - Remarks to Reporters Following The President's Departure, 5 August 1977).
Pressure exerted on the Rhodesian white minority regime by the freedom fighters and their supporters, who continued to wage war, finally led to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. At a conference at Lancaster House in London in 1979, an agreement was reached for a transition to majority rule through democratic elections. The elections were held in February 1980. Robert Mugabe won. He became prime minister in April. White minority rule had finally ended in Rhodesia which was later renamed Zimbabwe.
Decades later, President Robert Mugabe launched a book, Julius Nyerere: Asante Sana, Thank You Mwalimu, a tribute to Nyerere for the major role played in the liberation of the countries of southern Africa. As he stated, the liberation of all the countries in southern Africa was planned in Dar es Salaam under the leadership of Nyerere. He went on to say:
"When we gained our independence in Mozambique and Angola in 1975, in Zimbabwe in 1980, Namibia in 1990, and a new democratic dispensation, in South Africa in 1994, we said - Asante sana, Thank you, Mwalimu....
Mwalimu Nyerere was honoured this year (2015) by the African Union with the naming of the AU Peace and Security headquarters after him....
The time is now to recognise the role played by Julius Nyerere in the political liberation of Africa, and to enshrine his legacy to reside with the present and future generation of Africans." - (Robert Gabriel Mugabe, foreword to Julius Nyerere: Asante sana, Thank You, Mwalimu, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2015).
Remembering those days, Philip Ochieng, who worked at the Daily News in Dar es Salaam during that period, stated the following:
"Under Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Dar es Salaam served as the external headquarters of practically every one of the nationalist movements fighting to bring down Europe's racially conceited tyrannies all over our continent - all the way from the borders of Egypt in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south, including Kenya (Ochieng's home country).
That was how I first met Robert (Bob) Mugabe, a great nationalist, at that time considered as the most redoubtable of all of Southern Africa's campaigners for indigenous self-rule.
For, in the Tanzanian capital, Robert Mugabe was seen then as the topmost and most cherished among Africa's nationalist leaders fighting to bring down European tyranny all over our vast continent, especially in that Southern African colony, and throughout the world.
Power corrupts
Southern Rhodesia, as Ian Smith and other white supremacists conceitedly insisted on calling it, was what Robert Mugabe would soon lead into independence as Zimbabwe - in triumph and to the accompaniment of vigelegele all over the continent and the world, especially in Kambarage's Tanzania, where, in Dar es Salaam, I was then working as a weekend newspaper editor and weekly columnist.
Unfortunately, however - as one of Britain's own top political historians had already noticed - power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If anybody doubted it, the Third World's own history since independence, especially Africa's, has powerfully proved the correctness of that dictum by a noted observer of human behaviour.
Corruption is the name of it in all capitals of Africa and the Third World - including ours - and death is frequently the result of all reactions to anybody intrepid enough to criticise and attempt to put paid to it.
In our own country, a number of true fighters for freedom have paid for it with their own personal lives.
However, although Robert Mugabe was initially adored at home and profoundly respected throughout the continent and, indeed, throughout the world, his regime began to be increasingly personified by economic grabbing, political heavy-handedness, social decay and personal arrogance by every one of that country's top leaders.
Independence
Power drunkenness has been the most spectacular characteristic of all leaders in all the countries the world over in which - encouraged by Europe's own economically dominant classes pursuing their own gluttonous self-interests all over the world - 'independence' was granted precisely under that kind of leadership throughout what Europe now contemptuously calls the Third World.
Quiet evidently, nevertheless, times do change. Of all the nationalists fighting to bring down Britain's colonial high-handedness and arrogance, Robert Mugabe was at one time one of Africa's most cherished darlings.
When I worked in Dar es Salaam, I often met and deeply admired the person whom fellow nationalists in exile called 'Dear Bob.'
Time was indeed when I wholeheartedly recommended 'Bob' as the chief spokesman for our continent and for humanity's downtrodden classes all over the world, including even in that same Western Europe which had, for the nonce, assumed the role of model of what was alleged to be 'democracy.'
Specifically, I would wholeheartedly have recommended Robert Mugabe as the future leader of my Zimbabwean cousins.
When I first met face to face and interviewed what was then our 'dear Bob' in an hotel room in Dar es Salaam at some point in the early 1970s, he proved overwhelmingly charming, courteous, captivating in manner, overpowering in intellect and overwhelmingly knowledgeable of history and the modern human world.
Of all the nationalists seeking to defeat Caucasian racist tyranny and conceit in Africa, especially in Namibia and Southern Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe remained what William Shakespeare - the great bard of England's own intellectual and cultural celebration - would have embraced in poetry and drama as 'the nonpareil.'
Quite evidently, it would have been a terrible and embarrassing mistake." - (Philip Ochieng, "The Mugabe We All Adored in Dar Turned Out an Embarrassment," Daily Nation, Nairobi, Kenya, 25 November 2017).
Mugabe looked up to Nyerere when he was in prison in Rhodesia for about 11 years for opposing white minority rule and remained close to him from the time he set foot in Dar es Salaam after he was released from confinement. When Mugabe assumed power in April 1980, Nyerere told him, "You have inherited the jewel of Africa" and advised him to keep it that way. He did for some time and then something went wrong.
Nyerere's influence could not be underestimated. He was an inspiration to freedom fighters throughout the continent as much as Nkrumah was. As Professor Ali Mazrui stated in his lecture at the University of Ghana in 2002:
"The torch of African radicalism, after the coup which overthrew Nkrumah in 1966, was in fact passed to Nyerere. The great voice of African self-reliance, and the most active African head of government in relation to liberation in Southern Africa from 1967 until the 1980s was in fact Julius Nyerere....
On the question of Nyerere's commitment to liberation...Nyerere was second to none in that commitment" - (Ali A. Mazrui in his lecture, "Nkrumahism and The Triple Heritage: Out of the Shadows," University of Ghana-Legon, 2002).
It is an observation shared by others. As Trevor Grundy stated:
"He did so much to help liberate different parts of Africa from European rule while bankrupting Tanzania in the process."
At a meeting of the leaders of the member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Harare, Zimbabwe, in April 2015 chaired by Robert Mugabe and whose participants included Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, the Zimbabwean leader lamented that Nyerere had not been accorded the respect, recognition and gratitude he deserved for the major and decisive role he played in the liberation of the countries of southern Africa and others elsewhere on the continent. As he stated, among other things:
"The reckonings, the consciousness, of our forefathers, those who formed the Frontline States, we don't have them all now. Only one of them still remains alive, KK.
Mwalimu is gone. Neto of Angola is gone. Machel of Mozambique is gone. Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana is gone. They are the ones who formed the Frontline States which grew and transformed into SADCC, with two Cs, which was a coordinating body at that time; and the coordinating body, on the strength of whose reckonings, much more happened.
Greater freedom came. A new political dispensation later came for South Africa. We got our independence. Namibia got its independence. But must not also be forgotten that it was the - because of the earlier stand of these founding fathers of our region that the OAU decided that the liberation of the whole of Africa would be done now through a body called the Liberation Committee to be hosted in Tanzania, Mwalimu's country. And all the freedom movements were harboured there; some of them divided, ZANU, ZAPU, we were two. ANC, PAC. SWAPO, SWANU. We were all there.
And the results, of course, were resounding. Africa became free.
So the arm of southern Africa freed, played a great part in freeing the whole of Africa and rendering each independent.
We have not done done much by way of paying tribute to our forefathers. Yes, something has been done to Kwame Nkrumah at the AU, and recently the hall was named after Mandela.
But we forgot, perhaps because we are a new generation, a new generation of leaders, that the greatest burden of freeing Africa was borne by the one country Tanzania, and that one - I am saying the greatest, not that he was alone, Nyerere, Mwalimu.
No mention has been made, no symbol, to remember his part. And I say, no, we must do something, we will do something. Even if Zimbabwe was - we can't be that ungrateful. No. So I would want to say, help us, help me, my thought that we respect Mwalimu at the AU, somehow." - ("President Robert Mugabe Pays Tribute to Mwalimu," Harare, Zimbabwe, April 2015).
Kwame Nkrumah's eldest son, Gamal Nkrumah, a journalist with a leading Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, who said Nyerere became a father to him after his own father died, also paid tribute to Nyerere when the Tanzanian leader died in October 1999. Coincidentally, both leaders, Nkrumah and Nyerere, died of cancer. Also, both died at hospitals in Europe; Nkrumah in Romania, Nyerere in Britain. As Gamal stated in his tribute to Nyerere, "The Legacy of a Great African":
"Former Tanzanian President Julius Kambarage Nyerere had the gift of incandescence. Undaunted by the multiplicity and complexity of the development problems his people faced, Nyerere's presence at political rallies, remote poverty-stricken villages, academic conferences and international forums where he pleaded the case of the South always lit up the occasion.
He had a way with words, especially in his native Kiswahili. He was the philosopher-king, intellectual, enlightened, the polar opposite of the despotic ruler so common in the Africa of his day. But he was also a man of the people....
Two years ago, at celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of Ghana's independence, I met and spoke to Nyerere for the last time. I would never have guessed that he was ill. As always, he spoke so eloquently and with such intellectual vigour....
He was not only a man of great integrity, but he also had the courage and modesty to admit to past mistakes. I have heard him speak in London, at the Commonwealth Institute, in several forums in the United States and at the United Nations, as well as in many an African setting. To me personally, Nyerere was always the attentive father figure, never missing an opportunity to remind me that my own father's vision for a united Africa was the only way forward.
With his wit, humour, sharp intellect and disarming sincerity, Nyerere was always a winning personality....
He...continued to champion the liberation movements of southern Africa and provide training camps for their freedom fighters on Tanzanian soil....
However we judge him on particular issues, there is no denying Nyerere's enormous contribution to the post-independence African political scene. His greatest achievement is undoubtedly the successful unification of mainland Tanganyika with the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar....It was to Nyerere's credit that he managed to unite this most ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse of nation-states and make it one of Africa's most politically stable countries....
Until his death, Nyerere continued to serve as the Leader and chief spokesman of the Geneva-based South Commission. He also remained actively involved in scores of developmental and peacekeeping missions both in Africa and throughout the developing world....
Nyerere bequeathed his country and Africa a great legacy, that of unity, solidarity with the poor and down-trodden worldwide and political secularism, together with a real pride in the continent's languages and cultural heritage.
He could have chosen an academic career in the West, after graduating from Kampala's celebrated Makerere University, then one of Africa's finest institutions of higher learning, and then again when he left Africa to do post-graduate work at Edinburgh in 1949. He translated two of William Shakespeare's plays into Kiswahili, his namesake Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice. But instead, he wisely chose to return to Africa and lead the anti-colonial struggle. In 1960, he even offered to delay Tanganyika's independence plans if the move would facilitate the creation of an East African Federation of Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda.
That dream failed, and Nyerere officiated instead over the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. It is a union that has lasted long, and there are no signs of cracks in it to this day. That this is so is thanks in large measure to Nyerere's own force of character and vision." - (Gamal Nkrumah, "The Legacy of a Great African," Al Ahram, Cairo, Egypt, 21 - 27 October 1999).
Not long before he died, Nyerere had also started translating Plato's work, The Republic, into Kiswahili.
Probably Nyerere's most enduring legacy in a Pan-African context - besides his success in uniting two countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, to form Tanzania, the only union of independent states ever formed on the continent and that still exists to day - is the prominent role he played in helping liberate the countries of southern Africa which were still under white minority rule.
He will always be remembered for that as much as Nkrumah will always be remembered for his quest for immediate continental unification and his support of liberation movements in Africa.
Nyerere also will be remembered for his approach to continental unity, formation of regional federations as a practical step towards uniting the continent under one government, after he failed to convince the leaders of Kenya and Uganda to form a federation with Tanganyika and achieve independence on the same day as one political entity.
Both leaders shared a vision for a united Africa under one government unlike most of their colleagues with a few exceptions such as Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, Modibo Keita of Mali, Milton Obote of Uganda, Sourou-Migan Apithy of Dahomey, and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. As Nyerere stated in his speech in Accra, Ghana, in March 1997:
"Without unity, there is no future for Africa."
In Nkrumah's case, most African leaders ignored him when he exhorted them to unite their countries under one government, immediately, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where they met in May 1963 and formed the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
Nkrumah's quest for immediate continental unification was sharply contrasted with Nyerere's gradualist approach which was dictated by pragmatic considerations. As Nyerere stated in an interview with the New Internationalist in 1998 not long before he died the following year:
"Kwame Nkrumah and I were committed to the idea of unity. African leaders and heads of state did not take Kwame seriously. However, I did.
I did not believe in these small little nations. Still today I do not believe in them. I tell our people to look at the European Union, at these people who ruled us who are now uniting.
Kwame and I met in 1963 and discussed African unity. We differed on how to achieve a United States of Africa. But we both agreed on a United States of Africa as necessary. Kwame went to Lincoln University, a black college in the US. He perceived things from from the perspective of US history, where 13 colonies that revolted against the British formed a union. That is what he thought the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) should do.
I tried to get East Africa to unite before independence. When we failed in this way, I was wary about Kwame's continental approach. We corresponded profusely on this. Kwame said my idea of 'regionalization' was only balkanization on a larger scale. Later, African historians will have to study our correspondence on this issue of uniting Africa.
Africans who studied in the US like Nkrumah and Azikiwe were more aware of the Diaspora and the global African community than those of us who studied in Britain. They were therefore aware of a wider Pan-Africanism. Theirs was the aggressive Pan-Africanism of W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. The colonialists were against this and frightened of it." - (Julius Nyerere, in an interview with Ikaweba Bunting, "The Heart of Africa: Interview with Julius Nyerere on Anti-Colonialism," in the New Internationalist, Issue 309, Oxford, UK, January-February 1999).
He also explained in the same interview what happened when he and Ugandan leader Milton Obote went to see Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya in an attempt to form an East African federation:
"I respected Jomo immensely. It has probably never happened in history. Two heads of state, Milton Obote and I, went to Jomo and said to him: 'Let's unite our countries and you be our head of state.' He said no. I think he said no because it would have put him out of his element as a Kikuyu Elder." - (Nyerere, New Internationalist, ibid.).
In an interview with The New York Times in his home village of Butiama near the shores of Lake Victoria in 1996, Nyerere said his biggest failure was that he failed to convince the other leaders in East Africa to form an East African federation; his biggest achievement, he said, was forming a united nation out of more than 120 different ethnic groups:
"I felt that these little countries in Africa were really too small, they would not be viable - the Tanganyikas, the Rwandas, the Burundis, the Kenyas. My ambition in East Africa was really never to build a Tanganyika. I wanted an East African federation.
So what did I do in succeeding? My success is building a nation out of this collection of tribes." - (Julius Nyerere in an interview with James C. McKinley Jr., "Many Failures, and One Big Success," The New York Times, and in the International Herald Tribune, 2 September 1996, p. 2).
In another interview, Nyerere also explained the differences he had with Kwame Nkrumah in an attempt to unite African countries under one continental government:
"My differences with Kwame were that Kwame thought there was somehow a shortcut, and I was saying there was no shortcut. This is what we have inherited, and we'll have to proceed within the limitations that that inheritance has imposed on us.
Kwame thought that somehow you could say, 'Let there be a United States of Africa' and it would happen. I kept saying, 'Kwame, it's a slow process.'
He had tremendous contempt for a large number of leaders of Africa and I said, 'Fine, but they are there. What are you going to do with them? They don't believe as you do - as you and I do - in the need for the unity of Africa. BUT WHAT DO YOU DO? THEY ARE THERE, AND WE HAVE TO PROCEED ALONG WITH EVERYBODY!'
And I said to him in so many words that we're not going to have an African Napoleon, who is going to conquer the continent and put it under one flag. It is not possible.
At the OAU conference in 1963, I was actually trying to defend Kwame. I was the last to speak and Kwame had said this charter has not gone far enough because he thought he would leave Addis with a United States of Africa.
I told him that this was absurd; that it can't happen. This is what we have been able to achieve. No builder, after putting down the foundation, complains that the building is not yet finished. You have to go on building and building until you finish; but he was impatient because he saw the stupidity of the others." - (Julius Nyerere, in an interview with Bill Sutherland in Bill Sutherland and Matt Mayer, eds., Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insight on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle, and Liberation in Africa, Trenton, New Jersey, USA: Africa World Press, 2000; reproduced by Chambi Chachage, "Excerpt from Interview with Bill Sutherland," Centre for Consciencist Studies and Analyses (CENSCA), 5 September 2008. See also Bill Sutherland in William Minter, Gaily Hovey, and Charles Cobb Jr., eds., No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950 - 2000, Trenton, New Jersey, USA: New Africa Press, 2007).
Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria was resolutely opposed to a continental government and bluntly stated in his speech at the OAU summit in Accra, Ghana, in October 1965 that Nigeria would never surrender its sovereignty to a higher authority. As Professor Willard Scott Thompson stated in his book, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957 - 1966: Diplomacy Ideology, and the new State:
"Sir Abubakar (Tafawa Balewa) let them go no further. An African government was a dream, he said, 'Or a nightmare.' Nigeria, for its part, would never surrender its sovereignty. 'This request, Mr. Chairman, is indirectly a vote of no confidence in the Oirganisation of African Unity. When we started this Organisation only a year ago, we were working, progressing and now we are trying to impose something.' Union government might come, so might world government, he said." - (Willard Scott Thompson, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957 - 1966: Diplomacy Ideology, and the new State, Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press,1969, p. 355).
And as Nyerere stated in his speech in Accra on Ghana's 40th independence anniversary where he was an official guest invited by President Jerry Rawlings:
"Prior to independence of Tanganyika, I had been advocating that East African countries should federate and then achieve independence as a single political unit. I had said publicly that I was willing to delay Tanganyika's independence in order to enable all three-mainland countries to achieve their independence together as a single federated state.
I made the suggestion because of my fear, proved correct by later events, that it would be very difficult to unite our countries if we let them achieve independence separately.
Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and passports, seats at the United Nations, and individuals entitled to 21-gun salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers, and envoys, you will have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised. That was what Nkrumah encountered in 1965.
After the failure to establish the union government at the Accra (OAU) summit of 1965, I heard one head of state express with relief that he was happy to be returning home to his country still head of state. To this day I cannot tell whether he was serious or joking. But he may well have been serious, because Kwame Nkrumah was very serious and the fear of a number of us to lose our precious status was quite palpable.
But I never believed that the 1965 Accra summit would have established a union government for Africa. When I say that we failed, that is not what I mean, for that clearly was an unrealistic objective for a single summit. What I mean is that we did not even discuss a mechanism for pursuing the objective of a politically united Africa. We had a Liberation Committee already (based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). We should have at least had a Unity Committee or undertaken to establish one. We did not. And after Kwame Nkrumah was removed from the African political scene nobody took up the challenge again." - (Julius K. Nyerere, speech on Ghana's 40th independence anniversary, Accra, March 1997).
The coup against Nkrumah was engineered by the CIA and masterminded by the CIA station chief in Accra, Howard T. Bane. After he returned to the United States from Ghana, he was quickly promoted and given a senior position at the CIA and the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the agency's highest award, for his role in overthrowing Nkrumah. It was an achievement that was well-received by American officials, President Lyndon B. Johnson among them, and was even celebrated in some quarters including the CIA and the State Department. As Robert P. Smith, who once served as United States ambassador to Ghana and was working at the State Department when Nkrumah was overthrown, stated when he explained how Secretary of State Dean Rusk reacted to the news about Nkrumah's downfall:
"I also remember, the morning of the coup, I got the call about 2 a.m. here at the house and went into the Department and immediately set up a little task force in the Operations Center. Later in the same morning, about 8 or 8.30, Secretary Rusk wandered down the hall and came in and said, 'I've seen the early reports, but I just want to hear it firsthand. What's going on in Ghana?' When I related how Nkrumah had landed in Peking and had been informed by his Chinese hosts of what had happened in Ghana, Dean Rusk broke into an ear-splitting grin. I've never seen him look so happy." - (Robert P. Smith, interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral Project, 28 February 1989, p. 14).
It was also when Dean Rusk was secretary of state that the State Department recommended arming some groups in Tanzania to destabilise the government in an attempt to overthrow President Nyerere. As John Prados states in his book, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA:
"The Special Group (at the CIA) reportedly considered a State Department proposal to supply arms to certain groups in Tanzania, where secret-war wizards saw President Julius Nyerere as a problem, in the summer of 1964....Like Nyerere, Washington viewed Ghana's leader Kwame Nkrumah as a troublemaker." - (John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, Chicago, Illinois, USA: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2006, p. 328).
Yet the CIA was wary of supporting covert operations against Nyerere to undermine his government in order to overthrow him because he was not corrupt, did not use his position to enrich himself and his family members, and was extremely popular. His commitment to the well-being of the masses and everybody else was beyond question.
The CIA knew a coup against him would not have the support of the people, especially the masses who constituted the vast majority of the population and who sincerely believed he cared about them and was doing his best to improve their lives.
Even his opponents who wanted to overthrow him would not have been able to justify his ouster and convince the people that he did not care about them. They included former foreign affairs minister Oscar Kambona who was the mastermind of the 1969 coup attempt.
The coup was exposed by the Tanzanian intelligence service with the assistance of the South African freedom fighters of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) based in Dar es Salaam. The accused started in March 1968 working on plans to overthrow the government. They were arrested in October 1969, the same month they were going to launch the coup.
Kambona sought the assistance of the guerrilla fighters who were being trained in Tanzania but the PAC leader, Potlako Leballo, notified the Tanzanian authorities about that. He continued to cooperate with the coup plotters while working with the Tanzanian intelligence service monitoring the conspirators. Kambona hoped that the guerrilla fighters would team up with some members of the Tanzanian army to overthrow Nyerere.
One colonel, one captain, and one lieutenant of the Tanzanian army were among the leading conspirators who were arrested, tried and convicted of treason. Others were a former cabinet member; the former secretary-general of the only opposition party in the country, the African National Congress (ANC) which died out in the mid-sixties after being overwhelmed at the polls by the ruling Tanganyika African National Union (TANU); a former editor of the ruling party's newspaper; and one woman who was the leader of the women's movement in the country and who played a major role campaigning for independence with Nyerere.
Two of them, the army captain and the former secretary-general of the opposition ANC, were brothers and cousins of Oscar Kambona.
Leballo's testimony proved critical to the outcome of the trial. He was deeply involved in the coup plot in order to provide evidence against the conspirators later during the trial in the high court of Tanzania. He also mentioned the South African minister of foreign affairs, Hilgard Muller, as one of the people Kambona approached to help overthrow Nyerere. According to Colin Legum in Africa Contemporary Record, 1970 - 1971:
"The central prosecution witness was Potlako K. Leballo, a founder of the Pan-African Congress (Pan-Africanist Congress) of South Africa (PAC), which had its exile headquarters in Dar es Salaam.
The state maintained that seven defendants attempted to enlist Leballo in the plot but that he informed government officials and only appeared to go along with the plot in order to assist in capturing the conspirators.
Leballo testified that he frequently met with Kambona in London and that Kambona had shown him a cache of $500,000 and told him that he could 'get more where that came from' by contacting a U.S. Information Service 'friend' in London (The New York Times, 19 July 1970, 12).
Leballo further testified that Kambona had an agreement with the South African foreign minister, Hilgard Muller, that South Africa would support the coup." - (Colin Legum and John Drsydale, eds., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents 1970 - 1971, London: Africa Rsearch Limited, 1971, pp. 170 - 71).
The coup attempt is covered extensively in Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, in which the author uses transcripts of the court proceedings during the treason trial to document his work. As he states in his book:
"In spite of his immense popularity, President Nyerere was not immune from subversion. He became a target of a number of attempts, from within and without, to oust him from power. There were also many attempts to destabilize and weaken his government which his enemies and detractors hoped would eventually lead to his downfall.
He was fiercely independent, a stance that rankled Western powers as he went on to forge links with Eastern-bloc countries including the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, but especially with China, while maintaining ties with the West in pursuit of his policy of non-alignment. And his strong support for the African liberation movements was not endorsed by Western powers which wanted to perpetuate white minority rule in Africa for hegemonic control of the continent by the West.
So, Western powers wanted him out. Apartheid South Africa and other white minority regimes on the continent including Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonial governments - hence their mother country Portugal - also wanted him out. They did everything they could, including infiltrating and bombing Tanzania, to destabilize his government. One of the attempts to undermine his government involved the United States in the mid-sixties. As Nyerere himself stated in June 1966:
'We have twice quarrelled with the US Government, once when we believed it to be involved in a plot against us, and again when two of its officials misbehaved and were asked to leave Tanzania....The disagreements certainly induced an uncooperative coldness between us.'
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, in his book Dark Days in Ghana, also discusses attempts by the CIA and the American government to undermine and overthrow Nyerere. He himself was ousted from power in a coup engineered and masterminded by the CIA in February 1966.
The most dramatic attempt to overthrow Nyerere came to public attention in October 1969 when the accused conspirators were brought to court in Tanzania's most celebrated treason trial. There was another treason trial in 1983. But it was not as dramatic as the other one mainly because of the people involved, although the plot in 1982 to overthrow the government led to the arrest of 600 soldiers and about 1,000 civilians in January 1983 for their alleged involvement in and support of the coup attempt.
The 1969 treason case involved some of Tanzania's most prominent politicians, including luminaries in the independence movement and two former cabinet members. The leader of the treasonous coterie was Oscar Kambona, Tanzania's former minister of foreign affairs who earlier had also served as minister of home affairs and then as minister of defence. He was also one of the country's three most influential and powerful leaders, together with President Nyerere himself and Vice President Rashidi Kawawa, who spearheaded the independence movement in Tanganyika; Kawawa was vice president of Tanganyika until April 1964 when he became second vice president after Tanganyika united with Zanzibar, and the president of Zanzibar, Abeid Karume, became first vice president under the union constitution.
In July 1967, Kambona left Tanzania and went into self-imposed exile in London, Britain. He continued to exercise some influence on his supporters in Tanzania, disgruntled with Nyerere's socialist policies and one-party rule, but gradually faded into obscurity as a 'potent' force on the nation's political scene. His opposition to Nyerere's leadership and socialist policies reached a dramatic point towards the end of January in Arusha just before the adoption of the famous Arusha Declaration which became Tanzania's economic blueprint and political manifesto, covering all aspects of national life across the spectrum including foreign affairs and the liberation of Africa from colonialism and imperialism. Nyerere wrote the Declaration which, even years later just before he died, he said he would not change except for a few words here and there in its Swahili version. As Arthur Wille, a Catholic priest who knew Nyerere well and was close to him since the 1940s, stated:
'When the TANU National Executive Committee met in Arusha January 26 - 29 it turned out to be a stormy session. At this meeting Nyerere proposed that Ujamaa become the official policy of the government. Oscar Kambona objected strongly to this policy. Twice during these sessions, the Executive Committee adjourned in order to allow their three leaders, Nyerere, Kambona and Kawawa to go into private session. Each time that they returned to the Executive Committee it was apparent that Kawawa had supported Nyerere to defeat Kambona. The result was that the Arusha Declaration was adopted.'
The Arusha Declaration was adopted on February 5, 1967. It was the most ethical economic and political document ever written by an African leader. As Andrew Nyerere, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere's eldest son with whom I was in regular contact when I worked on the second edition of this book, stated in his comments in August 2003 when he looked at my work in progress:
'The Arusha Declaration forbade leaders to have two salaries. And there is one African businessman who told me that when Nyerere did this, when he restrained his colleagues from becoming rich, that is how we came to prominence; by that, he meant a whole generation of noveau rich people. The man who told me this has since died. He was suffering from a terminal illness. He spoke to me a few months before he died.'
Kambona left Tanzania about five months after the Arusha Declaration was adopted and continued to criticize Nyerere from Britain. And following Tanzania's recognition of Biafra in April 1968, a move that infuriated the Nigerian federal government, Nigerian leaders invited Kambona to Nigeria to lecture. He took this opportunity to denounce Nyerere and pursue his political ambitions. The Nigerian government also immediately broke off diplomatic relations with Tanzania because of her recognition of Biafra as an independent state, the first country to recognize the secessionist region of Eastern Nigeria as a sovereign entity.
Kambona left Tanzania via Kenya where some of his supporters lived and used Kenya's capital Nairobi as one of their operational bases in their conspiracy to overthrow Nyerere. But even in Kenya itself, a neighbouring country whose policies were different from Tanzania's - Kenya was capitalist and pro-Western, Tanzania socialist and non-aligned - there were many people who saw Kambona as a spent force fading into oblivion, although he could not be entirely dismissed as a non-entity. As the Kenya Weekly News stated on July 26, 1968, almost exactly one year after Kambona went into voluntary exile in Britain:
'Every lost turning, every sign of human weakness and failing will be exploited by people like Mr. Kambona. While this might be legitimate political opposition at home, it smacks of straw-clutching and opportunism coming from abroad. This is Mr. Kambona's problem; but it is unlikely to dissuade him from seeking to exploit every twist and turn in Tanzania's politics. It is the only way he can remain in business.'
One year and three months later, Kambona was accused of treason. The charges against him and his alleged conspirators were brought before the High Court of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam presided by Chief Justice Philip Telford Georges from Trinidad, who later served in the same capacity in newly independent Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe, himself with strong ties to Tanzania before and after he became the leader of his country. The prosecution team was led by Attorney-General Mark Bomani, and later by Senior State Attorney Nathaniel King, also from Trinidad, who almost single-handedly handled the case for the government.
I was a student then, at Tambaza High School in Dar es Salaam, in Form VI, or standard 14, and attended the treason trial with some of my schoolmates; the high court was only within walking distance from our school. I had just reached the age of 20 in October, the same month the treason charges became known to the public in 1969, four months after I was first hired as a reporter by the Standard, the country's largest English newspaper, in the nation's capital. But the trial did not start until June 1970. I went to the high court, not as a reporter, but simply as a spectator following the proceedings of the most important case in the history of Tanzania since independence in 1961. It was also the country's first treason trial, but not the last.
Kambona sought help from the CIA to overthrow Nyerere, just as Simon Kapwepwe did in his attempt to oust Zambian President and his childhood friend Kenneth Kaunda. But neither got the help they needed, at least not enough of it to carry out a coup. The immense popularity of both leaders, their high international stature as highly respected statesmen, and their incorruptible nature, made it highly unlikely that their ouster would be accepted domestically or internationally; thus making it very difficult for their would-be successors to win support and recognition. As Andrew Nyerere stated in his written remarks to me on what I said about the CIA in this chapter when he read my manuscript:
'We were discussing it at Msasani (where President Nyerere and his family lived on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam) one day, the supposed CIA infiltration of our government. We were talking about it with my mother, and Mwalimu Nyerere was present. And my mother said, there was much confusion nowadays. Everyday one hears of more government leaders who are on the payroll of the CIA. And I said that surely there is a misunderstanding concerning this, because the CIA argue with those whom they consider to be the enemies of the United States, and this had nothing to do with us. And I saw that this statement made my mother calm.'
Some observers have emphasized the integrity of the two leaders, as incorruptible individuals, as the prime factor in the refusal or unwillingness of the CIA to support coup attempts against them. As Ben Lawrence, a Nigerian, stated in his article, "Privatization: Nigeria's New Gold Rush":
'The survival of Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere for so long in power was because of their alliance with the masses. When Oscar Kambona of Tanzania and Kapwepwe of Zambia requested the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) help to overthrow their former friends, they were plainly told that those leaders were impregnable because they were incorruptible and had no loot stashed in foreign vaults.'
But none of this was enough to dissuade Kambona from pursuing his goal of trying to overthrow Nyerere. What I wrote about the CIA in this chapter inspired more remarks from Andrew Nyerere who said the following in his comments to me:
'One day Mwalimu Nyerere was speaking in praise of various US presidents, and then he lowered his voice and spoke in a very hushed tone referring to President Ronald Reagan, saying that, now they have elected this murderer, that is Ronald Reagan. Now that the American people have elected this murderer, there is much chaos in the world. But I do not think that Mwalimu Nyerere meant that he feared his life was in danger. I think he was just wondering how he was going to get aid from the United States now that there was a hostile government in power. Or maybe he was half-hoping that Jimmy Carter would be re-elected and that he would be able to make another visit to the White House. Because he had been very pleased with that visit he made to the White House, he put the picture on the wall at Msasani.'
In the treason trial which began in June 1970 before Chief Justice Philip Telford Georges, a Trinidadian, it was alleged that Kambona was the mastermind behind the coup attempt. The coup was to take place in October 1969. The conspirators wanted not only to overthrow the government but also to assassinate President Nyerere. I was in court and remember during the proceedings when Senior State Attorney Nathaniel King, also a Trinidadian, asked one of the accused, John Lifa Chipaka, what he meant when he said they wanted to 'eliminate' the president. Chipaka responded by saying that they wanted to 'eliminate him politically, not physically.' Nathaniel King looked at Chipaka and laughed when Chipaka said that. Chipaka's denial was not convincing and the evidence presented in court demonstrated otherwise. The plan to overthrow the government included a plot to assassinate the president.
The accused were Colonel William Makori Chacha, a senior army officer in the country's army, the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF), who, not long before the treason trial, was a military attache at the Tanzania embassy in Peking in the People's Republic of China; John Dustan Lifa Chipaka, 38, former secretary-general of the defunct African National Congress (ANC) led by Zuberi Mtemvu in the 1960s. In the 1990s, after he was released from prison, Chipaka was still active in politics and became one of the opposition leaders in Tanzania and once led a party founded by Oscar Kambona after Kambona returned to Tanzania from Britain where he had lived in self-imposed exile for 25 years.
Others who appeared before the court on treason charges were: Michael Kamaliza, 46, a polio victim and former secretary-general of the National Union of Tanganyika Workers (NUTA) who also once served as minister of labour; Bibi Titi Mohammed, 45, a fiery orator, once a junior minister of labour and community development in the sixties and Tanzania's most prominent female politician who was head of the ruling party's women's movement known in Kiswahili as Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT), translated as Women's Union of Tanzania; Gray Likungu Mataka, 34, a journalist; Captain Elia Dustan Lifa Chipaka, 32, of the Tanzanian army, the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF), and younger brother of one of the accused, John Dustan Lifa Chipaka; and Lieutenant Alfred Philip Milinga, 27, also of the Tanzania People's Defence Forces, and the youngest among the accused. They all denied all the charges brought against them.
One of the most remarkable things about this trial was the fact that some of the people involved in the coup attempt were once, or were supposed to be, some of the most loyal to the president. Before his departure from Tanzania in 1967, especially before 1966, the minister for foreign affairs, Oscar Kambona, was one of Nyerere's closest colleagues who even helped quell the army mutiny in 1964 when he went directly to speak to the mutinous soldiers and negotiate with them on their salary demands and insistence that the British army officers should be immediately replaced by indigenous ones. Nyerere also attended Kambona's wedding to Flora Moriyo on 19 November 1960 at St. Paul's Cathedral in London in 1960 and gave away the bride. Kambona asked Nyerere to be his best man; they were also very close and worked together campaigning for independence.
Oscar Kambona and Flora Moriyo were the first black couple to be married at the cathedral.
Kambona was also one of the founders of TANU, together with Nyerere and others, a party which led Tanganyika to independence. Another veteran politician and founding member of TANU, Bibi Titi Mohammed, also was known to be a close friend and very loyal supporter of Nyerere; so was former labour minister Michael Kamaliza, even if only by virtue of his position as a cabinet member under Nyerere. Colonel Chacha was also said to be a loyal supporter of President Nyerere.
Yet, they turned out to be the most prominent conspirators against him and his government. Ironically, not long before the treason trial, Nyerere himself had publicly stated in 1966 what turned out to be one of the most “prophetic' statements he had ever made during his presidency, unequivocally saying:
'I've been one of the luckiest presidents in Africa. My colleagues are very loyal to me.'
They proved him wrong; not all, but many of them, including those who lied to him throughout his tenure to promote their own interests. And others, of course, plotted to get rid of him right away, as the treason trial tragically demonstrated.
The most ominous sign of things yet to come was the abrupt resignation of Oscar Kambona from his ministerial post and other positions in June 1967. This came only about four months after the adoption of the Arusha Declaration in February, the country's economic and political manifesto he strongly opposed. In July, he left the country. And within two years or so, he was accused of treason and of being the mastermind behind the coup attempt to overthrow and assassinate Nyerere, his erstwhile compatriot.
His attempts to undermine and oust Nyerere from power gained momentum soon after he settled in London where he launched a blistering attack on the president and his government in a concerted effort to win support and turn the people of Tanzania against him, but to avail. Nyerere's popularity was immense, even if his socialist policies and one-party rule weren't among a significant number of people; a disenchantment Kambona tried to capitalize on and use as a lightning rod to galvanize the opposition against Nyerere within the country.
However, there are different opinions on how much, if any, opposition to Nyerere's economic policies were generated or fuelled by the Arusha Declaration. As Andrew Nyerere stated in some of his comments to me on this second edition which he read when I was working on it:
'No one opposed the Arusha Declaration. There was only one problem in that the young students of primary school accepted it more readily than the older students of secondary school. The young were more idealistic.'
Safe in London, Kambona was not arrested for his involvement in the coup plot. But six of his fellow conspirators were arrested in October 1969. They were all arrested in Tanzania, with the exception of Gray Likungu Mataka who once served as news editor of the TANU ruling party's daily newspaper, The Nationalist, a fiercely nationalistic and uncompromising publication whose managing editor, Benjamin Mkapa, became president of Tanzania from 1995 - 2005. Mataka was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, where he had been acting as a conduit between Kambona and the other conspirators in Tanzania. It was one of the ironies of this trial that Mataka was not only once editor of the ruling party's newspaper but of a paper that was fiercely loyal to the president.
I also remember when I was a news reporter of the Standard in Dar es Salaam that we had a sort of an adversarial relationship with The Nationalist whose reporters, and sometimes even editorials, now and then lambasted us for working for 'an imperialist newspaper.' The Standard was then owned by Lonrho, until it was nationalized in 1970 when it became a state-owned newspaper and rechristened Daily News. President Nyerere became editor-in-chief of the Daily News but only as a ceremonial head. It was the editor of the paper who exercised power over us. Coincidentally, the treason trial started in the same year in which the paper was nationalized.
And in spite of its reputation as an 'imperialist' newspaper before it was nationalized, the Standard adhered to the highest journalistic standards in covering the treason trial; so did The Nationalist, without slanting facts in favour of the government, despite its strong nationalist bias and unswerving loyalty to President Nyerere.
The first accused was Oscar Kambona. There was speculation that the government would seek extradition of the former foreign affairs minister. But nothing was done, and he was tried in absentia. Andrew Nyerere remembers Oscar Kambona well, as much as he does the early days of independence when our country was still called Tanganyika, and had the following to say in his remarks to me when he read this chapter:
'I remember the day when we went to State House. Mr. Kambona took over the house that we were staying in, the one at Sea View, the residence of the Chief Minister. I gazed at him for a long time as the car sped away. He was taking charge of the house which was to be his new home. It is a pity that he turned out to be such a traitor. If Nyerere knew that he would turn out to be such a heinous traitor, he would not have given him all those responsible positions in government. But I went to his funeral. I felt that all these evils of the past should be forgotten.'
When I asked Andrew what he thought about Kambona since the early days of Tanganyika's independence in the sixties, in terms of what type of person he was, he responded by saying:
'He was a good man. But there was misunderstanding, and what happened, happened. For example, he strongly disagreed with Mwalimu Nyerere about Kassim Hanga, the Zanzibar (cabinet) minister who was sent back and killed. And Kambona was right about this. He did not want Hanga sent back to Zanzibar. And Mwalimu Nyerere said that, concerning Hanga, he sent him back, but he did not know that they were going to kill him.'
During the 1970 treason trial involving Kambona, it was alleged by the prosecution team that the conspirators intended to launch a military coup between October 10 and 15, 1969. During that time, President Nyerere and a large number of high ranking government officials including cabinet members, as well as the head of the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF), Major-General Mrisho Sarakikya, were out of the country. The plotters felt that this was the perfect time for a coup. Some people in Zanzibar were also implicated in the coup plot.
The director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Geoffrey Sawaya, who was also an intelligence officer, told the high court that Oscar Kambona sent large sums of money to the people in Tanzania who were to take part in the coup; and that all the conspirators used aliases.
One key figure in uncovering the plot was a South African freedom fighter living in exile in Tanzania, Potlako Leballo, the leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a black nationalist group which was formed in 1959 by members who left the African National Congress (ANC) over policy differences. The first leader of the PAC was Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, a professor at Witwatersrand University and compatriot of Nelson Mandela. Mandela remained in the African National Congress and later became president of the organization which spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.
Leballo became head of the PAC after Sobukwe was sent to prison by the apartheid regime. And his testimony in Tanzania's first treason trial proved to be critical.
The coup plotters approached Leballo and enlisted his help in carrying out the coup, possibly with the help of his guerrilla fighters based in Tanzania, and he went along with the plan to gather intelligence for the government. Leballo met with the conspirators on a number of occasions. He had already informed the government and the conspirators were now under surveillance, with all their meetings being monitored by Tanzania's intelligence officers. Leballo became the government's key witness who unlocked all the secrets of the coup plotters. He also testified in court that Kambona had been given a lot of money to finance the coup.
When Tanzania's Attorney-General Mark Bomani asked Tanzania's head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) how he knew for sure that Leballo met the conspirators, Sawaya said whenever he knew in advance that there would be a meeting, he would assign his intelligence officers to monitor the proceedings in a clandestine operation the coup plotters never knew about. He also testified before the court that Leballo told him, in advance, about a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, on March 25, 1969; and that Leballo did go on that trip and returned to Dar es Salaam on April 1st .
Leballo told the director of the Criminal Investigation Department the purpose of the trip was to meet with Gray Likungu Mataka, who then lived in Nairobi which was one of the operational bases for the coup plotters, to get confirmation of the coup plot as Mataka had explained to him earlier.
Sawaya went on to say that he already knew that Leballo and Colonel Chacha had a meeting and that Leballo had been introduced to Prisca (one of the code names used by one of the conspirators) and Bibi Titi Mohammed. Chacha and Leballo met at Twiga Hotel in Dar es Salaam. Leballo also met with Bibi Titi Mohammed at an Islamic Centre at Chang'ombe in Dar es Salaam and discussed how President Nyerere and other senior government officials including some cabinet members would be assassinated.
The director of the Criminal Investigation Department further testified that on March 24, 1969, Leballo went to him and told him about the meeting he (Leballo) had with Chacha at Twiga Hotel. When Attorney-General Mark Bomani asked him how he knew the meeting had taken place, Sawaya said he sent his intelligence officers to Twiga Hotel on a surveillance mission after he was told about the meeting in advance. And they observed the meeting taking place.
On the following day, March 25, Leballo left for Nairobi, the intelligence director said, and was 'escorted' by some intelligence officers who had been assigned by the director to accompany him.
Sawaya went on to tell the court that in April 1969, he went on a trip overseas. He said he met again with Leballo on May 2, 1969, and that Leballo told him that the plan for the coup as explained by Gray Mataka in Nairobi was very well received by Colonel Chacha, Michael Kamaliza and Bibi Titi Mohammed in a jovial mood. He also said Mataka had promised to ask for some money from Kambona to facilitate the operation. The intelligence chief further stated that Leballo produced a letter written to Prisca by Mataka, and that Mataka himself copied the letter in his own handwriting and gave the copy to Leballo:
'Mark Bomani: Can you recognise the copy of this letter if you see it?
CID director: Yes, I can.
Bomani: How can you recognise this letter?
CID director: I can recognise it by the name of Chaima.
Leballo: He (the CID director) told me that after I met with Mataka for the first time, the accused changed his name and gave himself the code name of Chaima.
Chief Justice: Was the letter translated?
CID director: Soon after the copy of the letter was made, it was translated so that I could understand what it said.
Bomani: Did you know the letter was delivered?
CID director: I was informed that it was being delivered.'
The CID director went on to say that according to the information he got from Leballo, Chipaka, Titi, Kamaliza, Leballo and Prisca were going to have a meeting to discuss what they would be doing when they were waiting for some money from Kambona.
At that meeting, Kamaliza asked Leballo to go to London and ask Kambona to send more money. Kamaliza also asked Chipaka to write Kambona a letter and send him a 10-shilling note for Kambona to sign it. With Kambona's signature on the 10-shilling note, Kamaliza said the note would be passed around to convince some cabinet members and members of parliament to support Kambona in overthrowing the government.
It was also expected that the note would be used to raise more funds for the coup and get support from TANU leaders and workers and from the leaders and members of the country's labour union, the National Union of Tanganyika Workers (NUTA), to oppose the government; thus encouraging others to overthrow it.
Kamaliza told Leballo there was no doubt that the workers of Tanzania would support the coup because the president had removed him (Kamaliza) from the leadership of NUTA against the wishes of the workers.
Geoffrey Sawaya, the CID director, went on to say that Leballo met Titi (Bibi Titi Mohammed) at her house on June 23, 1969. She told him that she had been to Nairobi where she stayed for four days and made a telephone call to Kambona asking him to send one million shillings for overthrowing the government within two weeks.
Titi gave Leballo 400 shillings and said she had received 2,000 shillings, $1,000 for Colonel Chacha, for incidental expenses. Titi told Leballo she would give him 600 shillings in a few days, and did so on June 26. The money was presented in court as evidence.
On June 28, Colonel Chacha made arrangements to meet with Leballo on June 30 in order to introduce him to Major Herman. Chacha and Lieutenant-Colonel Marwa went to Leballo's residence at 3 a.m. on June 30. Chacha and Leballo went into the bedroom, leaving Marwa in the sitting room. There in the bedroom, Chacha told Leballo that he was ready to overthrow the government if he was paid 20 million shillings, and wanted Leballo to tell Kambona to send the money right away.
On July 3, Chacha and Leballo met again at the army headquarters at Chacha's request. Chacha told Leballo he was disappointed because the money was being delayed. And he wanted Leballo to go to the officers' mess at Lugalo Barracks where Captain Elia Dustan Lifa Chipaka would introduce him to Major Herman.
Leballo went there and found Captain Chipaka waiting for him. Captain Chipaka told Leballo that he did not trust Major Herman as someone who would be involved in overthrowing the government because he was a half-caste from Iringa (in the Southern Highlands of southwestern Tanzania); and that he would give him a list of army officers which would include the name of one officer from Zanzibar. From that list would be chosen a person who would lead the coup.
Afterwards, Captain Chipaka introduced Leballo to Major Herman.
After this meeting, Leballo met with John Chipaka and Michael Kamaliza in the main office of NUTA in Dar es Salaam. They had a discussion and agreed that Leballo should go to London and ask Kambona to send more money.
Around 4.15 p.m. on the same day, Leballo was again asked to go to the same office. He went and found Kamaliza alone in the office. Kamaliza told Leballo that he had sent someone to Kambona to get and bring the money. He also told Leballo that he personally would like Major Herman, and not Colonel Chacha, to lead the coup.
There were conspirators in Zanzibar but, because the former island nation was an autonomous entity with its own legal system even after uniting with Tanganyika to form Tanzania, the authorities in the isles dispensed swift justice against them. So, it was only the ones on the mainland who had to appear before the Tanzania High Court in Dar es Salaam presided over by the Trinidadian jurist Philip Telford Georges.
The head of the Criminal Investigation Department, Geoffrey Sawaya, told the court that the coup did not take place because some of the conspirators were arrested and detained before the scheduled date for the takeover. He said some of them made statements after their arrest admitting most of the allegations about their involvement in the abortive coup attempt. And he produced evidence showing instructions on how strategic locations would be taken over. He also presented to the court lists of prominent people who were to be detained by the coup makers.
There were moonlight trips by dhow between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, made by the conspirators and their couriers. Secret meetings were held in expensive hotels in Nairobi, Kenya, in London, and in Dar es Salaam. Nightclubs were another hot spot where the coup plotters met to discuss their nefarious scheme which included a plot to assassinate President Nyerere. There was even a plan, for whatever reason they deemed appropriate, to bomb the University of Dar es Salaam; probably to cause panic while they executed the coup, or simply to wreak havoc and cause mayhem.
One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against the coup plotters presented in court was the 'wedding guest list' found at the residence of Captain Elia Dustan Lifa Chipaka.
All 37 'guests' named on the list were army officers. Captain Chipaka told the court that the names were part of a list of the names of guests he was going to invite to his wedding. But, as Chief Justice Philip Telford Georges said at the end of the trial, the list contained comments which an average person would consider to be totally irrelevant to preparation for a wedding. For example, against the name of one colonel was this comment:
'Dissatisfied, but his stand is not known.'
Other evidence included letters from Oscar Kambona written to the conspirators.
What the coup plotters did not know was that Potlako Leballo, the South African political exile and president of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) was already working for the Tanzania intelligence service but gained their confidence. The outlandish claim by the that Leballo had manufactured the whole thing and was really a spy for the South African apartheid regime was dismissed as nonsense by the court.
In delivering the verdicts, the chief justice denied pleas for clemency made by the defence lawyers and made it clear that overthrowing governments was not an acceptable way to change leadership, emphasizing that the young African nations needed peace and stability to consolidate their independence and serve their people.
The trial lasted 127 days, the longest in the country's history. Chief Justice Philip Telfer Georges did not sentence the conspirators to death as he could have under the law, but nonetheless gave them stiff sentences as follows:
- Bibi Titi Mohammed: life imprisonment for treason.
- Gray Likungu Mataka: life imprisonment for treason.
- Elia Dustan Lifa Chipaka: life imprisonment for treason.
- John Lifa Chipaka: life imprisonment for treason.
- Michael Kamaliza: ten years' imprisonment for misprision of treason.
- William Makori Chacha: ten years' imprisonment for misprision of treason.
Alfred Philip Milinga was acquitted of all charges, but after spending 16 months in detention under the Preventive Detention Act during the investigation and trial of the treason case. The act was passed by parliament to allow the government to detain people if they posed a threat to national security but was criticized by the chief justice during the treason trial for detaining people for too long before they were brought to court.
The ringleader and mastermind of the treasonous coterie, former foreign affairs minister Oscar Kambona, was tried in absentia. Only three years earlier, President Nyerere had said of his cabinet colleague and close political aide:
'Oscar is extremely loyal - to the party, to me, and to the people.'
President Nyerere could be extremely tough when you encroach on his authority. Yet he also had a reputation for being very tolerant, kind, and forgiving. And he lived up to both. About seven years after the treason trial, Bibi Titi Mohammed received a presidential pardon in 1977 and walked out of prison in Dodoma, central Tanzania. She had written the president asking for forgiveness, but had no hope that she would get it.
On 5 February 1978, Otini Kambona, former education and information minister under Nyerere in the first independence cabinet, and Mattiya Kambona, the younger brothers of Oscar Kambona, were released from detention together with 22 other detainees and 7,000 petty criminals. They were all pardoned by President Nyerere. They were freed on the first anniversary of the founding of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CMM), formed from a merger of the mainland TANU and its sister counterpart in Zanzibar, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). February 5, 1978, was also the eleventh anniversary of the Arusha Declaration.
Otini and Mattiya Kambona were detained for more than 10 years. They were arrested and detained in December 1967 for supporting their brother's political activities and using a Kiswahili newspaper Otini Kambona published to help further his political ambitions, even if by making oblique references to his brother's agenda.
But more often than not, the newspaper Ulimwengu (The World) was explicit in its condemnation of the government. It published articles written by Oscar Kambona highly critical of the government. After the two brothers were arrested, the paper also immediately ceased publication.
Also released in 1972, like Bibi Titi Mohammed, was Eli Anangisye, former secretary-general of the TANU Youth League, who had been detained for his involvement in another plot to overthrow the government by trying to enlist the help of some army officers to carry out the coup. He was the alleged mastermind of the plot.
Why Nyerere freed all these people, despite their attempts to undermine his government, remained a mystery. And he gave no reason for setting them free, in spite of the overwhelming evidence implicating them in the plots. He was not ruthless but took a firm stand against his enemies. And he could have let them rot in prison, instead of pardoning them. Yet, he set them free, demonstrating one of his qualities as a compassionate man.
Kambona, of course, was never arrested. No extradition proceedings took place and he remained in Britain until he willingly returned to Tanzania in April 1992 after the country adopted the multiparty system which enabled him to form a political party and challenge the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Revolutionary Party) which had been in power since independence, first as TANU. Ironically, multiparty democracy was introduced with the full support of former President Nyerere when he started questioning the functional utility of the one-party state of which he was the architect and which was officially adopted in 1965. But it had become corrupt, he said, and needed to be replaced. Yet his position on the multi-party system was not fully understood. As Andrew Nyerere stated in his written comments on my work in August 2003 when I was writing this expanded edition:
'Mwalimu Nyerere was chairman of the party. And he said, we have been discussing this multi-party democracy at the CCM meeting in Dodoma (Tanzania's new capital). We notice that in many countries there is much talk about the multi-party form of government. After discussing this, we have decided that there is no reason why this country should not follow this kind of multi-party democracy. So we invite everyone to discuss this.
In connection with this, I would like to make a comment about the notes which Mwalimu had been making for a speech which he was going to make, but which he never made, because death overtook him.
He wrote that he hoped he had made a good decision when he spoke in favour of multi-party democracy. This is good, in so far as Mwalimu hoped that all the decisions he had made during his life were good decisions.
But the mere fact that he wrote this meant that he did not see any necessity for a multi-party state, even as he did not see any necessity for a single party state. The only thing that mattered was that the government should serve the people well.'
Twelve years after the treason trial, Oscar Kambona spoke in an interview with Drum magazine in April 1982 in which he explained why he was highly critical of Nyerere, and by implication tried to justify his attempt to overthrow the government. He blamed Nyerere for destroying the economy with his socialist policies and for instituting a dictatorship....
But even after multiparty politics was introduced, Kambona was still not able to get significant support among the people after he returned to Tanzania in April 1992 from 25 years of exile in Britain...
Questions were also raised about his citizenship....
When I attended Songea Secondary School in his home region, Ruvuma, in southern Tanzania, all we heard was that Oscar Kambona was a member of the Nyasa tribe from that region. In fact, two of his nephews attended the same school when I was there....
Kambona faded into obscurity and died discredited in his own country he helped lead to independence; yet whose government, of which he once was a prominent member, he tried to overthrow." - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, New Africa Press, 2010, pp. 361 - 375, 375 - 377, and 379 - 380).
There was another coup attempt against Nyerere in 1983 which almost succeeded. Godfrey Mwakikagile interviewed one of the army officers who was involved in planning the coup – he was introduced to him by Andrew Nyerere – and was told by the army officer that planning for the coup started in November 1982 and the coup was to take place on 9 January 1983.
When he asked him if there was any foreign power involved in the plot, the army officer denied there was any. But he admitted there was foreign funding for the coup, yet did not name the source. According to Professor Horace Campbell, a Jamaican who once taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the coup was backed by the apartheid regime of South Africa. As he stated in his article, "The Military Defeat of the South Africans in Angola" published in Monthly Review Press:
"South Africa supported a coup in Lesotho in 1986 and backed an unsuccessful mercenary intervention in the Seychelles in 1981. It was behind a coup attempt in Tanzania in 1983 and has provided continuous support for armed elements in Zimbabwe since independence. The South Africans have carried out raids on Maputo (Mozambique), Harare (Zimbabwe), and Gaberone (Botswana), and attacked refugees in Swaziland."
And according to Mwakikagile in his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era:
"Appendix VI also contains some details on another coup attempt from one of the coup plotters who was introduced to me by Andrew Nyerere. I got in touch with him and he gave me the information directly, but asked me not to use his name in the book. And I have honoured that request.
But he also made it clear that I could disclose his name if I had to. As he put it in writing:
'I only request that you don't put my name anywhere, although if it comes to litigation or a situation which demands that you reveal your source, then you can do so. If you want anymore clarification or explanation, just contact me.'
I also knew about his father back in 1972, as I explain in Appendix VI, long before Andrew introduced me to the son years later in 2003 when I was working on this expanded edition. And, besides the information about the coup plot in which he was involved, he also gave me some information on other coup plots against President Julius Nyerere.
When I was discussing my work with Andrew, especially after he read the chapter on coup attempts, he felt that it was important to include all this information in the book for the sake of truth. That is why he contacted one of the coup plotters whom he knew to get this material on his own initiative without being prompted by me.
The information I got was in response to the questions I asked this former army officer after I was introduced to him. As Andrew said to me after he talked to him:
'There are certain universal principles that must be adhered to. This is just about wanting to know the truth; it is not about wanting to please anyone....He was arrested for a coup attempt. He will write to say what happened. He is not going to defend anything or not defend anything. Let him decide how he wants to write. Do not come to this with pre-conceived ideas of what you want him to write....One thing I want to tell you is that I know (name withheld) because we were together in basic military training at the Tanzania Military Academy (TMA), Mgulani.'
Andrew is now a retired army captain who served in the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF) and fought in the six-month war against Idi Amin when the Ugandan military dictator invaded Tanzania at the end of October 1978 and annexed 710 square miles of its territory in the northwestern part of the country, Kagera Region, bordering Uganda. The coup plotter Andrew introduced me to, was also a captain at the time of the coup attempt in 1982 - 1983.
And he did write what he wanted to write. It is for the readers to decide what they think about it. And I am grateful for his contribution, hoping that it will shed more light on the political history of Tanzania and raise important questions about issues which are still important to Tanzanians today and which may continue to generate interest for many years as the country adjusts to the new era of multiparty politics and free market policies away from its socialist past under one-party rule instituted by the founding father of the nation Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.
I must also express my profound gratitude to Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, chairman of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation (MNF) in Dar es Salaam and former secretary-general of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), for reading portions of my manuscript which I sent to him, and for asking probing questions when I was working on the book after Andrew Nyerere told him about it. He also agreed to read the rest of the manuscript. Later on, I sent him my entire work before I submitted the final version to my publisher so that he and his staff at the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation could read it and, if necessary, make some suggestions or critically evaluate my work.
I am equally grateful to Joseph Butiku, executive director of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation and former private secretary and personal assistant to President Julius Nyerere, for inviting me to send them my manuscript. As with Dr. Salim, Andrew Nyerere talked to Butiku first about my book. And he was just as interested and asked me to send them my work after I said I would like to do so.
But they did not in any way try to influence my work or tell me what I should and should not write. I wrote what I wanted to write. And the final decision to include whatever I have included in the book was entirely mine. I am, nonetheless, grateful to them for their great interest in my work and for taking the time to read it.
This book has not, in any way, been censored by the Tanzanian authorities. Many Tanzanian leaders, including members of parliament, read it, or portions of it, before it was published.
I am also deeply grateful to many individuals and institutions who have served as a source of some of the material I have used to write this book.
While the analysis is mine, and a lot of the information I have used is also mine since I am the primary source because of my first-hand knowledge of Tanzania and Africa as a whole; I must also acknowledge that my work would not have been completed without the secondary sources I have cited to fortify my thesis....
The chapter on coup attempts against Nyerere prompted Andrew to seek comments on my work from one of the coup plotters mentioned in his letter above. His father was one of the first people killed by Idi Amin's forces on the Ugandan-Tanzanian border in 1972 when they made repeated incursions into our country. The pictures of some of these victims were published in our newspaper, the Daily News, to demonstrate the diabolical nature of Amin's blood-soaked regime; incursions into our country and the bombing and killing of innocent Tanzanians by his forces being only the tip of the iceberg. Earlier, Andrew had written this to me about (name withheld), whom he said he met when they underwent basic military training together at the Tanzania Military Academy (TMA), Mgulani, in Dar es Salaam, and about his attempts to get in touch with him in case he had any comments to make on my work:
'Dear Godfrey,
I would like to make a few comments about the interview (Appendix VI above). But I will do it tomorrow. There are many things which are not well-known. For example, that Nkrumah financed the Zanzibar Revolution, the one which overthrew the Arabs. I heard it on a tape of a speech by Sheikh Thabit Kombo.
(Name withheld) was one of the coup plotters. He is the son of (name withheld) you mentioned. I will try one more time to find him, to see if he is willing to write anything.
I am Andrew.'
That is how the coup plotter came into the picture. I asked him to describe the sequence of events which led to their arrest and conviction:
'It was Friday the 7th January 1983 at around 1500hrs local time. We were to assemble at a house in Kinondoni ( a ward in Dar es Salaam, the nation's capital) then proceed to another place for the final briefing as the coup was to take place the following night.
By this day we had already postponed the strike twice at the request of the mastermind Pius Lugangira or known at that time as Father Tom or Uncle Tom. Apparently, his reason was that he was expecting some ships with essential commodities in big shortage at that time. We had planned for the previous Monday but put it forward to Wednesday; then, again, he said he wasn't ready. We did warn him of the dangers of putting it forward as the number of people in the conspiracy always increases towards the culmination and the chances of leaks increase. So, on that Friday we had decided to go ahead whether he was ready or not.
I was close to the RV (the assembling place) when I saw Tamim running while being chased by three people. Shortly after that, I heard shots and Tamim fell from the pickup that he had jumped into in his attempt to get away. He was taken to MMC (Muhimbili) in a car that was waiting for them. I followed them up to MMC to see what would be next. I saw the body being taken to the mortuary and after a few minutes the pursuers who happened to be from the state security came out looking quite excited about something. I went to the attendant and gave him some money and requested to see the body, which I did, and satisfied myself that Tamim was already dead. From the wounds, I knew that he couldn't have said anything as death must have been immediate. But what the attendant revealed to me scared me. He said those guys had taken a piece of paper from Tamim's pocket that had a list of names with military ranks.
I tried to look for my colleagues at their homes but couldn't find any. I knew it would be futile to as the plan was no one was to return home that day but go somewhere until H-hour (the hour that the actual action starts). I went back to that house in Kinondoni only to find it surrounded by both uniformed and plain-clothed police. I could recognise some of them and, to my utter dismay, I saw some of my colleagues already under arrest. I knew then that the whole thing was abortive as three of those arrested were from the tank unit whose success in the mission was of paramount importance. I spotted a few of us hovering around the perimeter of that house. So, I went to them and informed them of what had taken place. It was already 2000hrs and there was nothing that we could do to salvage the situation and it was everyone for himself.
Some decided to flee to Kenya where they were given refuge; only to be returned at a later date in exchange for Ochuka and Okumu who had fled from Kenya to Tanzania after their attempt to overthrow Moi failed in August 1982. I was married and had a one-year old daughter, not knowing what would happen to them. I decided to remain and ride out the storm.
I was arrested the same night around 0300hrs and taken straight to the Central Police Station where I found my brother (name withheld), who was a captain and pilot, already arrested; two captains in the company of a good number of armed soldiers. They said to me that they were arresting me on the orders of the Chief of Defence Forces, but they did not say on what charge although I did ask them.
What I found out later was that my name was also on that list of paper but appeared as Captain (name withheld). And since in the army we are addressed by our surnames, there were two of us by that name. So, they arrested my brother first, as he was staying in the air-wing barracks, and they didn't know where I was staying in town until they asked my brother.
On my arrest, the whole of my family was taken out and the house was locked. The following morning my house was searched in my presence by the police, the military and the state security, but nothing of significance was found. We then went to my office. And, again, nothing was found.
I was not tortured physically, although there were a lot of threats to do just that or bring harm to my family. In my opinion, we were not tortured due to an issue that had occurred in the previous year. What happened then was that there were interrogations that were conducted by the state security guys among prisoners who were under the care of the police and the prisons department. Something went wrong and some of those prisoners died. One of them was connected to a person in power. So, an inquiry was initiated which culminated in the resignation of the then minister of home affairs, Mwinyi, who later on became president, and of Siyovelwa who was the minister in the president's office dealing with security. As for the operatives, the Regional Police Commander and his counterpart in Prisons and some police officers were charged and received prison terms of between 3 and 8 years. But the guys from the state security were left scot-free. It is this background that made the police protect us from any kind of torture.
I vividly remember the 5th day of my arrest when a security guy came to take me for interrogation but was refused permission by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mwamakusa under whom I was placed for investigation. The security guy angrily went away and came back later with other top officials from the State House. But the SSP stood his ground. There were no interrogations for the following two days after this episode. We later found out that a meeting was held by all the security organs and it was agreed that all questions were to be asked in the presence of police officers and they should follow regulations. We were to remain under police custody. And that we did, until we were taken to court and thereafter to the prisons department.
We weren't allowed to get visits from relatives until a strong rumour started circulating that some of us were dead. To prove that we were still alive, they had no option but to allow relatives to visit us and bring us some food. Identification parades were held and, three weeks after our arrest, we were formally charged and taken to prison remand. Thirty people were initially charged and all the military people were remanded at Ukonga while the civilian elements were put at Keko.
Every two weeks we were taken to court, and another mention would be requested and, of course, granted. By the seventh mention, Father Tom and Mcghee, who were the first and the second accused respectively, escaped from Keko and fled to Kenya. The case was withdrawn and we were all put in detention.
There was no harsh treatment while in remand but, as soon as we were detained, conditions changed and we were mostly held incommunicado and dispersed to different prisons. I was always segregated from the others and and was always in leg shackles apparently for being accused of being the mastermind of the Keko escape.
Almost a year later, Kenya and Tanzania settled their differences and exchanaged fugitives. Mcghee and a few others who had escaped during the first arrests were brought back, while Tanzania sent back Ochuka and his friend. These two were later hanged by Moi. After a long trial, almost a year, nine of us were sentenced to life imprisonment and the others were set free. Altogether this time, 18 brought back to court while the others remained in detention until four months after we were sentenced when they were released. And that included my brother whose only mistake was to have a similar (the same last) name. He spent a total of three and a half years.
As a prisoner, conditions changed again but this time slightly for the better as we were treated as political prisoners. Food was better; we were given beds, mattresses, mosquito nets, radio and newspapers. We were also allowed visits from relatives and friends. It is standard procedure for any person in detention, or sentenced to life, to write a letter for clemency to the head of state. And I believe all of us did. I was again put alone and changed prisons from time to time. I stayed at Ukonga, Maweni, Tanga, Mtwara, Lindi, Mwanza, and again Ukonga where I was released on presidential pardon in 1995 in the wake of the first multiparty elections. In total, I spent 13 years in prison.
In the beginning, a lot of people used to avoid me. But gradually, as the freedom of speech increased in the country and the people became more bold, things began to change until now where I am leading a normal life. My wife waited for 10 years, then despaired and divorced me. She is married with two children and lives in (name withheld) with our daughter who was one year old when I was arrested; she is now 22. I own several trucks.... I married again in 2001 and have a six month-old son (in 2003) from this marriage.'
Besides the questions to which he provided the answers in the preceding statement, I also asked him the following:
Why did the coup plotters want to overthrow the government? What did they have against Nyerere? Why did the coup not succeed? Was there a foreign power, such as the United States, involved in trying to overthrow Nyerere? Didn't the coup plotters worry that they would not get support from most Tanzanians and the international community for overthrowing such a popular president? Did the plot include assassinating President Nyerere and other leaders? Did the plotters anticipate massive resistance from other members of the armed forces and from the general public? What kind of government and political and economic system did they want to replace Nyerere's? Who was the coup leader or leaders?
Was the coup attempt very close to being successful? What was your rank in the army when you got involved in the plot? When was the attempted coup and when was it planned to take place? Was Oscar Kambona involved in this one as well? How many army officers or air force officers were involved?
He gave me these answers:
WHY THE COUP
In 1982 the country was going through a very difficult economic period and shortages of essential commodities was an everyday thing. To the dismay of many, the blame was always put on our imaginary enemies, external and internal, without mentioning who these enemies are. If you are bold enough to ask about the situation, then you are from there branded a fifth columnist, a name coined by the Nazis in Hitler's time to refer to anyone in their ranks who opposed them. Some of us got fed up and decided to look for change. But since there was no way one could achieve that in a totalitarian regime like that, the only option viable at that time was the use of force.
WHAT DID WE HAVE AGAINST MWALIMU
Nothing personal. The only thing was that he was already surrounded by hypocrites whose survival depended solely on the system continuing as it was. And instead of telling the president the truth, they would tell him what he wanted to hear. Very unfortunately, Mwalimu had reached a stage where he believed them and would listen to no one esle. And if one wanted to get into his bad books, then he only had to point out an anomaly and that would have been the end of him. That is when people baptized Mwalimu haambiliki (Kiswahili word meaning, can't be told or won't listen, depending on the context - definition and clarification by the author, Godfrey Mwakikagile). He believed the path he had chosen for this country was the only one and there was no alternative. I remember one of his speeches where he said we should not look back lest we turn into stone. As such, what was the alternative? Well, some of us were young and impatient, so we went for the shortcut.
WHY DID THE COUP NOT SUCCEED
Rather complex, and it would take a lot of time to explain the sequence of events. But in short, I can say bad luck on our side and good luck on them. What really happened is that one of the plotters, Captain Tamim, was wanted for having had defected to Kenya when Ugandan interim president, Yusuf Lule, was ousted and had fallen out of favour with Nyerere. Tamim was then heading Lule's security unit. So he joined him in Kenya. It is said, though, that Tamim was sent there by General Msuguri who was the Task Force Commander in Uganda. General Msuguri later on denied that, as this would have put him in trouble for having exceeded his authority. Be it as it may, Tamim could not return as he would have faced a court martial although two of his colleagues were arrested, tried, and acquitted, thus giving credence to Msuguri's complicity. So, (just) a day before the coup was to take place, the security guys decided to pick him up for questioning but in the process, Tamim resisted and fought back. This culminated in gunning Tamim to death. Unfortunately, he had a list of (some) army officers' names on a slip of paper found in his pocket. And these officers were arrested the same day. Some of them confessed and this led to more arrests. This is how it failed.
WAS THERE A FOREIGN POWER?
Not one that I know of, although there was foreign financing. But that could have been done by individuals and not necessarily by a government.
DID WE WORRY ABOUT NOT GETTING SUPPORT?
Not at all. In fact, there were a lot disappointments in different quarters when the whole thing failed. It was very surprising that, in the wake of such an incidence, the normal procedure would have been rallies to condemn us, choirs would have been sung and all such razzmatazz. But there was no such thing. And this really helped to get Mwalimu out of the dreamland to reality as he realized how unpopular his government had become. History will be the judge of that, but one thing I can say for sure is that any meaningful change that has taken place in the country started soon after that.
DID THE PLOT INCLUDE ASSASSINATION?
No. The issue was discussed at length as there were worries that if the coup succeeds but Mwalimu slips away, then he may be an obstacle to us. This argument was discarded on the grounds that there was no neighbouring country that would have risked having him there as they all had plenty of trouble internally and we could have reciprocated by escalating those problems by aiding their opposition. For example, if (Mozambican President) Samora gave us problems, then we would have welcomed RENAMO; in Uganda we would have aided Museveni who was against Obote; Zambia, we would simply have choked them by closing the (oil) pipeline and the port. There was agreement that there was no need to kill anyone without a strong reason to do that.
WAS RESISTANCE ANTICIPATED?
Yes. There is no way that one can take power from another and expect to get it on a silver platter. But you have to know one thing in military planning: surprise is the main thing that plays an important role in determining the kind of resistance that you may get. In our case, there would have been some resistance mainly from areas of strategic importance and that would have been overcome easily. We didn't think there would have been a long-term and consistent resistance, given the unpopularity of the government at that time. But should one have arisen, then it would have been dealt with accordingly by the new government.
KIND OF GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMIC POLICIES
Ironically, we are now having the type of government that we wanted then. We would have installed an interim government that would have prepared the country for a multiparty election within one year. And this interim government would have been totally civilian. A liberalized economic policy is what we advocated And after surviving the coup, Mwalimu borrowed a chapter from us and put it into practice, albeit with a few items, the list of which kept on expanding until now where we can trade freely.
THE COUP LEADERS
There was one person who masterminded the whole thing. And if there was someone behind him, then I don't know. The mastermind is dead now, and his name is Pius Mtakubwa Lugangira. He was a chemistry teacher in secondary schools but had long quit that job. At the time of this plot, he was a businessman supplying different manufacturing industries with chemicals. On the operational part, I cannot reveal their names as it may jeopardize their position.
WAS IT CLOSE TO SUCCESS?
I think yes, because it was (only) a few hours away, with the security guys still in the dark. According to Mr. Apiyo, now retired but at that time the Principal Secretary in the president's office, this was the closest of all the attempts ( to overthrow the government), and it did speed up Mwalimu's retirement.
WHAT WAS MY RANK?
I was a captain.
WHEN WAS IT?
The plot was planned from November 1982 and was to take place on 9th January 1983. We were arrested on the eve of the 8th.
WAS KAMBONA INVOLVED?
No, he was not, as he was already a spent force by then.
HOW MANY WERE INVOLVED?
I can say many, because it was already in the implementation stage. But the ringleaders were about 14."
I communicated with him further and asked him a few more questions: 'You say this was the third coup attempt. Which one was the second, by Eli Anangisye? And when was Anangisye's attempt? Who else was involved in Anangisye's coup attempt? Was Kambona one of them?'
He answered this way:
"I have never heard of Anangisye as having attempted a coup. But if I can recall right, I think he was like what the Soviets used to call dissident; someone who differs with the authorities and makes noise about it. They are usually detained without trial, and this is what I think happened to Anangisye.
The coup attempts that were known are the Chipaka and Bibi Titi one which involved Kambona. These were tried in court. The second one was in 1974 when I was in Officer Cadet School. This was said to be rather tribal by officers mainly from the Chagga group. No one was tried but more than 50 officers were removed from the army and given insignificant posts in parastatals. Then came ours.
But, in between, there were other incidents that you cannot call coup attempts; for instance, during the ten years of independence celebrations leaflets castigating Mwalimu were dropped at the National Stadium and in a few other regions. This was Kambona's job, as his picture was in the leaflets. He again made the same attempt in 1973 but his timing was not good, as Mwalimu was at the peak of his popularity.
There were a few other hiccups but, to the best of my knowledge, it is only the three that I have mentioned that are of any significance in so far as coups are concerned. One other item is that during Mwalimu's era, they were very keen to conceal any news of coups, as that would indicate the truth that the regime was not all that popular. So, there may have been other hidden ones that I never learnt about."
I thought about including the government version of what happened but decided not to. The High Court of Tanzania found the accused guilty and sent them to prison. The conviction summed up the government case. As Andrew Nyerere said, when we discussed the matter, regarding the government version of the coup attempt:
'I don't see why there should be any reason to give a different point of view. Facts can be twisted, but they cannot be changed. And besides, here are people who had the wrong view. They thought they would go to State House but, instead, they went to Ukonga Prison. What more proof do you need to know that these people were wrong and the government was right?'" - (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 8 – 9, 680 - 688).
At least 30 people were involved in the plot to overthrow the government in January 1983. According to a report in the Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by Charles Kizigha:
Treason case investigations 'nearly ready'
Charles Kizigha, Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
4 – July – 1983
INVESTIGATIONS into the treason case in which 30 armymen and civilians are charged of conspiring to cause death to the President of Tanzania, depose him and overthrow the government, were in advanced stage.
This was said by Senior Superintendent of Police Tatu Omari, prosecuting, before a packed court at Kisutu Resident Magistrates court in Dares Salaam yesterday.
SSP. Omari asked Chief Resident Magistrate Joseph Masanche to set the next mention on June 16, adding that the prosecution needed only two more mentions before moving to the preliminary inquiry (PI) stage.
"I will be in a better position to say exactly how far the investigations had proceeded during the next mention", she told the court.
Chief Magistrate Masanche fixed June 17 as the next mention date because the defence counsels for some of the accused pleaded commitments at the High Court and other courts on the date suggested by the prosecution.
All the accused persons, excepting 9th accused Lt. Col. Martin Ngalomba (40) who was absent on "health grounds", were in court when the case came up for the 10th mention yesterday.
Accused Number Three Capt. Suleiman Metusela Kamando claimed in court that he was subjected to sufferings for reasons that he did not know. "For the three weeks that I spent at the Central Police Station , I was sleeping on the floor without a blanket. We get one meal a day at Ukonga Prison ... That is where I am now'', he said.
Capt. Kamando said his employer - Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF) – had stopped paying his salary and had evicted his family from a TPDF house.
He asked the court to ensure that investigations were completed soonest so that the PI should start. He also asked for an advocate. Ndugu Masanche assured him that he would get one at a certain stage of the court proceedings.
The treason case involves 21 armymen and nine civilians. The 21 armymen include Three Lt. Cols.; one Major; eight Capts.; eight Lts. and one sergeant.
The three Lt. Cols. are Martin Peter Msami (36) of TPDF, Songea; Martin· Ngalomba (40) of TPDF Kisarawe and Protas Bachumbila Mchwampaka (40) of TPDF headquarters.
The only Major in the trials is Reverian Bubelwa (32) of TPDF Mgulani.
The captains are: Suleiman Metusela Kamando (36) a TPDF pilot; Vitalis Gabnel Mapunda (35); Dietrich Oswald Mbogoro (28); Rodric Roshan Roberts ·(39) ali of TPDF, Airwing; Zacharia Hans Poppe (26).
Others are Abdul Feshi Mketto (31) of TPDF Airwing; Harry Hans Poppe, (31) of TPDF Airwing and Manyama Athumani Kazukamwe (30) of Navy.
The Lts. include Badru Rwechungura Kajaja (32) of TPDF Infantry School in Nachingwea; Pascal Christian Chaika (29); John Alphonce Chitunguii (26) of TPDF Lugalo; Mark Augustine Mkude (28) of TPDF Dar es Salaam; John Simon Mbelwa Mzimba (33) of TPDF Kibaha.
Others are: Gervas B. Rweyongeza (36) of TPDF Kibaha; Othar Thomas Haule (33) of TPDF Kawe and Nimrod Theophil Faraji of TPDF Arusha.
The sergeant is Michael Mwigulu (32) of Kawe.
The civilians include a businessman, Pius Mtakubwa Lugangila alias Father Tom orUncle Tom (40) with the following addresses – l09A Golders/Green Road, London NW 11 UK; 4 Muguga Green, Westlands Nairobi; 51 Manor Drive, Wembley Park Middlesex UK/4 Roland Gardens South Kensington. He is the first accused.
Others are Hatty Magbee alias Hatibu Ghandi MacGhee (37) a pilot with Air Tanzania Corporation (ATC); Christopher Pastor Ngaiza (52) Personal Assistant to the President responsible for the Kagera Basin Affairs; Dar es Salaam Businessman Jayantilal Pragji Rajan (53); Robert Bayona (29), Sales Manager of Tanzania Shoes Company (Bora).
Others are Thadeo Boniface Mutakyawa Bugingo (37) of the University of Dar es Salaam; Ramadhani Otto (46), a mechanic at Bungoni Area in the city; George Banyikwa (38), a businessman resident at Drive-In Cinema area and Seleman Seif Nassoro, a Dar es Salaam businessman.
All the accused persons have been remanded in custody until June 17, when the case comes up for the eleventh mention.
Source: Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
In the earlier coup attempt in 1969, Kambona attempted to overthrow Nyerere at the wrong time. The Tanzanian leader, who was the founding father of the nation and was affectionately called Mwalimu, meaning '"teacher," since he was once a teacher, was at the peak of his popularity, only a few years after independence. The country also had a robust economy. There was no widespread discontent among the people of all social strata over living conditions. All those factors militated against any attempt to depose him.
He was not infallible. But his integrity was unimpeachable even with all the mistakes he made as a mere mortal with frailties. And the CIA as well as other foreign intelligence agencies on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War knew that. A coup against him could have resulted in chaos and even retaliation against the coup makers probably in a form of a counter-coup and civil protests and disobedience even if muted. It would have been unpopular.
Resistance to the coup from some segments of the security forces would have made things worse because of Nyerere's popularity across the nation especially among the workers and peasants. Even when he made mistakes, they believed he did so with the best of intentions because he had their best interests at heart. It would have been very hard to justify a coup against him.
Also, it would have been hard to justify his ouster even in a geopolitical context where he was an anchor of stability because of his genuine commitment to non-alignment in the ideological rivalry between the East and the West during the Cold War and because of the enormous influence he had on other leaders in the region.
His popularity and commitment to the well-being of his people was even acknowledged by American diplomats accredited to Tanganyika, later Tanzania, even when they disagreed with him on a number of issues including his socialist policies. They still acknowledged that he was a man of high moral integrity, highly principled and selfless. As US Deputy Ambassador Robert Hennemeyer who was in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, from 1961 - 1964, stated:
"(He was) a great leader of his people. I don't believe for a moment that he meant anything but to do the best he could for the well-being of his people....He was so revered as the great father." - (Robert Hennemeyer, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Why Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2014, pp. 56, 113).
But that did not stop the CIA from conducting its espionage activities in Tanzania. It is part of the agency's mandate to have agents in every country. The CIA even recruits foreign students in the United States to work for it. For example, there was a report in The Detroit News in 1975 stating that the agency was busy on college campuses recruiting foreign students. It named the University of Michigan and Michigan State University as some of the fertile grounds for recruitment by the CIA. The report stated:
"The emphasis is on the emerging nations of Africa."
Even the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania was infiltrated by the CIA. One American lecturer, Dr. Stephen Andrew Lucas who taught sociology at the university for seven years in the 1960s, was a CIA agent. He also worked as a CIA agent in Madagascar, Angola and Mozambique. Some students at the university were suspicious of some faculty members from western countries including the United States whom they accused of being spies.
It was a suspicion that could have been misconstrued as a form of xenophobia. But it was subsequently justified, although a blanket condemnation of all Westerners as infiltrators or saboteurs could not be justified and was even criticised by President Nyerere who described the students as "petty nationalists."
Still, there could have been other agents from other countries, and may be even from the United States besides Dr. Lucas, even if not all expatriates teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam were spies. The students were perceptive enough to know that not all foreigners teaching at the university cared about Tanzania or were sympathetic to the county's socialist policies. As Professor Ronald Aminzade states in his book, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania:
"The exclusion of foreigners from university-level education proved more contentious. Marxist-Leninist students at the university, who organized the United African Students Revolutionary Federation (USARF) in 1967 following the Arusha Declaration, regarded the presence of expatriate faculty from Western capitalist countries as imperialist infiltration.
Angered by the presence of U.S. professors in the law school, they occupied the Faculty of Law in March 1969 and demanded the East Africanization of the faculty, the appointment of a Tanzanian to dean of the Faculty of Law, and the hiring of teaching staff from socialist countries.
Radical students claims that some foreign faculty members at the university might be spying on left-wing activists were supported by subsequent revelations, years later, that a visiting U.S. lecturer in sociology, Stephen Lucas, was, in fact, a CIA agent.
When the students confronted President Nyerere, who was also Chancellor of the university, with their demand to remove expatriate faculty from the campus, he responded by asking them where Che Guevara was born (Argentina), where he fought (Cuba), and where he died (Bolivia). He chastised the students for being 'petty nationalists' rather than 'internationalists.'
There were few highly educated Tanzanians to replace the foreign faculty, and the university was necessary for training high-ranking government officials and of, course, future faculty. in this way, foreign faculty remained a vital resource for the socialist project.
Interestingly, government officials were not averse to appealing to antiforeign sentiments to justify their actions in confrontations with Marxist-Leninist students and faculty at the university. They claimed that the Marxist-Leninist rhetoric of radical students was an unwelcome foreign influence in a country trying to build its own distinctive national brand of socialism.
In November 1970, the government banned the USARF and shut down its Marxist-Leninist magazine Cheche, which means 'the spark' in Swahili and was a reference to the Leninist journal of the Russian Bolsheviks. In government administrators' view, the organization violated the principle of self-reliance because it was borrowing a foreign ideology and because it gave the false impression that Tanzania was building a 'Russian socialism.'
Student editors Karim Hirji and Naijuka Kasihwaki responded by arguing:
'If people think we are building 'Russian Socialism' because of the name Cheche, then will they not also think we are building 'American Socialism' since our nationalized institutions get advice from American management consultancy agencies?'" - (Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 187 - 188).
But the students were right on target in the case of Dr. Stephen Lucas when they said there were some faculty members who were spying for governments hostile to Tanzania even if they did not specifically identify him as an agent or conclusively say he was one but may have suspected that he was. It was years later, after he left the University of Dar es Salaam, that he was identified as a CIA agent. KGB agents in Tanzania probably knew he was one when he was teaching at the university as much as they probably did when he was in Congo-Leopoldville and elsewhere.
Some of the information has come from former CIA agents who have turned against the agency for different reasons and have exposed their colleagues working in different parts of the world.
Before going to Tanzania, Stephen Andrew Lucas was an agent in Congo-Leopoldville and worked under Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in that country when Patrice Lumumba was arrested and assassinated; so was Frank Carlucci, a senior CIA agent under diplomatic cover, who even befriended Lumumba and was involved in his assassination.
Lumumba's arrest was orchestrated by the CIA, probably by Carlucci himself. Joseph Mobutu who was the head of the army was already on the CIA payroll when he served as Lumumba's secretary before Lumumba promoted him. He ousted Lumumba, in collaboration with the CIA, and sent him to Katanga to be executed. In fact, when Mobutu was president of Zaire (formerly Congo-Leopoldville), the largest CIA station in Africa was in the capital Kinshasa, before then known as Leopoldville.
There were CIA agents in Elisabethville, the capital of Katanga Province, where Lumumba was sent to his arch-enemy, Moise Tshombe, to be assassinated. And there was probably more than one CIA agent on the scene when Lumumba and his colleagues, Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, were shot to death on the outskirts of Elisabethville on 17 January 1961. They were brutally beaten on their flight from Leopoldvile to Elisabethville, and even when they landed at the airport, before they met their fate. Okito, who once served as vice president of the senate, was shot first; he was also the oldest of the three.
Even President Nkrumah blamed Frank Carlucci for being directly responsible for Lumumba's death, as Carlucci himself said then and years later, although he consistently denied any involvement in the assassination of the Congolese leader:
"I arrived (in Congo) 15 days before independence. We had a Consul General who was leaving and an ambassador had been designated, Clare Timberlake. The situation was one of considerable confusion....
I set about to get to know the political figures....I persuaded the DCM (deputy chief of mission), Rob Mcllvaine, a marvelous man, to allow me to rent a Volkswagen so I had my own car and didn't go around in an embassy chauffeured car. I then got myself some press credentials because the press moved around more freely than anybody else could. Lumumba tended to hold a press conference a day and I figured it was important to get into those. Then I got myself a pass to the Parliament which was in formation. And basically spent all day outside the embassy. Just floating in from time to time....
I'd sit in the bar in the Parliament and go up and shake hands with them and strike up a conversation. I got to know Lumumba....
We developed a relationship (with Mobutu)....Larry Devlin and I went to see him shortly after he took over....
There wasn't a lot to be obtained in Leopoldville. Most of the action had taken place in Katanga and we had to depend on our consul in Elisabethville to report on what had transpired there. Our best assessment was that he (Lumumba) had been killed after he arrived in Katanga...., probably in the presence of (Godefroid) Munongo....
When this happened, as I recall, I was in Stanleyville. This was shortly after they had arrested all the Europeans in Stanleyville and thrown them out. Timberlake asked me if I'd go up there, back and forth, and act as consul for Stanleyville. They announced on Stanleyville radio that Lumumba had been murdered and that I was the man who had done it. They claimed I was a paratroop captain or colonel, I guess. I had made it up to the rank of colonel. They were going to see that justice was done.
And as I recall, Kwame Nkrumah sent a cable to Dag Hammarskjold about me killing Lumumba and a few other things like that. So we had to worry a little bit about survival. I had to find my way out of Stanleville. I did that by hitchhiking. In fact, I hitchhiked in a UN plane to Bukavu and then to Elisabethville and then back to Leopoldville.
I went back up to Stanleyville a couple of weeks later and they arrested me....They put me under house arrest. They declared me persona non grata....It was a breakaway government in Stanleyville, headed by Antoine Gizenga. Kabila was a member of that government. I didn't know him well....
We had Gizenga, Gbenye, Weregemere, and a number of other Lumumba supporters in Stanleyville. They had broken away when - I guess after Lovanium - I can't recall the exact sequence, certainly when Mobutu had taken over. They declared their own government. I had been going back and forth, meeting with them, when they declared me persona non grata.
About then, I wanted to introduce my successor, Tom Cassilly, (who later himself got arrested), so I said I'd go up one more time. I flew up and at the airport, they arrested me." - (Ambassador Frank Charles Carlucci III interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, 1 April 1997, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Oral History Project, copyright 2000, pp. 7, 8, 20 - 21).
Three years after Lumumba's assassination, Carlucci was sent to Zanzibar where he became head of the American consulate. He was there during the revolution in January 1964.
Three months after the revolution, Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Carlucci was later expelled from the country. As he himself stated in an interview in 1997:
"I arrived in 1964...in early '64 and...I was expelled in January 1965." - (Ibid., p. 28).
When he was in Zanzibar, he befriended the leader of the new revolutionary government, Abeid Karume, who did not know English and spoke to him in Swahili:
"One of the reasons that I think I got kicked out was that I managed to develop a good relationship with Karume. Karume spoke very little English....I was the only senior diplomat on the island who could converse with him in Swahili and he loved that. So we had a very good relationship....
One of my neighbors, a minister named Jumbe, who later became vice president, had a tendency to drink a bit and one night he came over to my house. No sooner did he come in than the police arrived and essentially told him to get out. We were pretty much isolated. We were socially ostracized. Virtually every Sunday there would be a demonstration against me. I would get my tear gas [mask] and my beer and I'd go to the embassy and watch the demonstrators....
(It was) anti-American. It got serious when the Belgians sent paratroopers into Stanleyville....
The only people at ceremonies I could talk to were the Brit, the Israeli, and the Soviet. I'd have to listen to all the diatribes. In one of the more humorous incidents, I decided to visit the neighboring island of Pemba, which was being run by a Commissar, named Ali Sultan Issa, a man who was trained in Beijing. He was so indoctrinated that he insisted we even share the same bed. 'This is the way we do it in the People's democracy.'
He took me around the island with people chanting and singing since it was in the 'workers' paradise.' Then he had a rally and meeting and I could see during the rally, this was in the early stages of my stay, that he would point at me and the crowd would applaud and yell and scream. So I asked someone what he was saying and he told me he was saying, 'There's the enemy. Why don't you applaud or don't you think we ought to throw the Americans out?'
Right then and there, I decided that learning Swahili was essential....
There was one other African that I could talk to. He was the Chairman of the Afro-Shirazi Party, Thabit Kombo, who was probably in his 70s or 80s at the time, and was such a revered figure in Zanzibar that he could talk to me without fear of retaliation. He and the President were essentially the only two that I could talk to." - (Ibid., pp. 29, 31, 34, 35).
Carlucci also was the first American diplomat to establish informal ties with the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of South Africa.
The CIA had already infiltrated both organisations and other groups in South Africa including the South African Communist Party (SACP). Donald Rickard, a CIA agent working under diplomatic cover in Durban, South Africa, and who was responsible for Nelson Mandela's arrest when Mandela returned from Tanganyika in 1962 after secretly leaving his home country to seek support for the ANC in the struggle against apartheid, had informers in the upper echelons of the ANC. They provided him with information on Mandela's return to South Africa and he tipped off the authorities who arrested Mandela on 5 August 1962 when he was driving a car from Durban to Johannesburg disguised as a chauffeur.
But it was Carlucci who openly, even if surreptitiously, interacted with some members and leaders of the ANC and the PAC when it was not official policy of the United States to do so. As he stated in an interview:
"I became personally interested in the evolution of apartheid and while I was a commercial officer in essentially an economic and consulate-post in Johannesburg (1957 - 1959), I undertook on my own initiative to go to a number of ANC [African National Congress] meetings.
They were allowed to meet. There was surveillance on me when I went to the meetings. And after I had gone to a certain number of them, the South African Government complained to our ambassador, Ambassador Byroade, at the time about my activities. So although I wasn't doing anything illegal, they thought it was suspect activity....
I got a sense of what their politics were, how militant they were. Frankly, I felt they were less militant than they'd been described. I got to know some of the splinter groups. I was the first person, for example, to talk to Robert Sobukwe, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress. He later died.
But I got acquainted with the movement, which, interestingly, nobody in Pretoria had been able to do. Our embassy was constrained from attending the meetings. The meetings were in Johannesburg. So I established a relationship, a personal relationship, with some of the political officers in Pretoria and reported to them.
I wrote a number of political - what in those days were airgrams you may recall - political airgrams on these meetings on the ANC. They were well-received in Washington and I think were basically responsible for my subsequent assignment to the Congo as a political officer." - (Ibid., pp. 5, 6).
Carlucci was adept at forging ties with national leaders, very quickly, wherever he was assigned and was linked to dramatic events which took place when he was there or soon after he left. Whenever he left a station where he was assigned, trouble followed. His colleagues even joked about that.
Donald Petterson who was a consular officer in Zanzibar from 1963 to 1965 and once served as United States ambassador to Tanzania (1986 - 1989) had the following to say about Carlucci and some of the experiences he himself had in Zanzibar during and after the revolution:
"A phone call from the rebels finally came. It was from Aboud Jumbe, one of the ministers in the new government, who said he wanted to come over and take Picard to the revolutionary headquarters. In due course he arrived in an open Land Rover with armed people in it. Jumbe himself was heavily armed. Fritz (Frederick "Fritz" Picard, the consul) and I, along with Jim Ruchti and the executive officer, got into the Land Rover and were driven to Raha Leo, the site of the radio station and the African community center.
Raha Leo was now the command headquarters of the revolution. There was electricity in the air when we neared Raha Leo. Hundreds of Africans who were in a very fierce mood ringed the place, many or most armed with everything from sticks to old swords; an occasional rifle was seen. As we approached the headquarters, better-armed revolutionaries came into sight. They carried police rifles, and a few had automatic weapons. We saw Arab prisoners, some of them bloodied, some lying near the entrance to the revolutionary headquarters, all looking despondent. The crowd was so excited because they knew at that moment, or soon thereafter, Ali Muhsin, whom they hated, would be brought in....
The air was so tense as they began to swarm toward the Land Rover that Aboud Jumbe yelled at them in Swahili - he had a bullhorn - to get back or he would open fire. They obliged, and a way was cleared for us. We got out of the Land Rover and waited for somebody to come out of revolutionary headquarters.
After a while, a figure emerged , a man dressed in a semi-military uniform. He had on dark shorts and a dark blue shirt, a peaked cap, knee socks in the British style. He approached us, went up to the executive officer, pulled out a revolver out of his holster, stuck it right at the exec, either in his ribs as I remember it, or in his face as Jim Ruchti remembered it, and said, 'How do you do? I am John Okello.'
With that, he put his revolver back in the holster and said there was going to be some target practice behind revolutionary headquarters. Would we like to join in? Well, figuring that the targets might well be some of the captured Arabs, we declined.
He escorted us into Raha Leo. We went up the stairs into a meeting room, where after another wait we were ushered into the room. Sitting there behind a table with Okello were Abaid Karume, leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party and now president of the new government, Babu, Hanga, and several others....Karume had come back to Zanzibar...from Dar es Salaam...by boat early that morning with Babu and Hanga.
The British high commissioner had met with them just before we did, and as he left we entered. The discussion began. Fritz, first of all, told Okello - who had put his revolver on the table with the barrel pointing at Fritz - that we would not negotiate at gunpoint. Okello made no reply, but picked up and reholstered his weapon. He didn't say much during the ensuing discussion, in which Fritz made the request for an evacuation (of Americans from Zanzibar).
Babu replied angrily, so did Hanga; Karume was uncomfortable. They were angry that the Americans had brought in this warship. And it seemed to us, as we thought about it a bit later, that they didn't know whether the Manley might open fire. in any case, they really didn't care for the evacuation. They didn't want to see it happen, but they agreed to it, fearing there might be consequences otherwise.
Finally, Karume indicated that he would not oppose the request. Then he turned to Okello and said, 'It's your decision.'
Okello sort of shrugged and said, 'All right.'
This made it clear to us there that Okello was indeed of great importance. I say this because later on there were those who belittled Okello's role in the revolution. In fact, the official history of the revolution barely mentions him. But he was the force that pulled it off. Weeks later, others with more political sagacity took control....
My Swahili...was very useful. I formed a friendship with Karume as a result, because I was the only American who spoke Swahili and my Swahili was getting better and better all of the time. We carried out our conversations in Swahili. I was very deferential to him; Fritz was not. Fritz, unfortunately, was a bit patronizing with Karume, and that came back to haunt him, as I'll explain.
On the morning of January 16, four days after the revolution...(there) were American, British and Canadian newspapermen - reporters for Time, Newsweek, The New York Herald Tribune, a Canadian paper and a British paper - and an Indian photographer for Life magazine....They had sailed from in the dhow from the mainland (Tanganyika), arriving in Zanzibar the previous night.
They started asking me questions. Foolishly I answered. At that point a rifle was pointed right in my face, and I was told to 'Shut up!' So I stopped talking, [laughter] the better part of valor! Some authorities from the revolutionary government joined these armed people at the dockside. They said that the men in the boat were spies and we were going to be taken to revolutionary headquarters. Off we went. I tried to explain to the rebels who I was. They couldn't care less, nor did they accept that these were just newspaper people....
I formed a relationship with Karume, and also with Babu, who was a very charming guy, a militant left-winger, to say the least, and very shrewd, very intelligent. Karume was a stolid man, not nearly as bright as Babu, but a man of very real native intelligence. I don't mean to use that term in a derogatory sense at all. He was a very able man in many ways, but impressionable and unsophisticated. As time would go by the results of that would be harmful to Zanzibar....
Frank (Carlucci) was well-regarded by Joe Palmer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and by Charlie Whitehouse, and by everybody else. It had been decided that Frank would be the new chargé d'affaires in Zanzibar. He came with a letter from President Johnson that indicated recognition (of the new revolutionary government that had replaced the sultan) would be coming soon.
Frank and Leonhart (the American ambassador to Tanganyika, William Leonhart) tried to convince Karume that with recognition just around the corner, it would be much better if he didn't throw me off the island.
By the way, the whole Revolutionary Council, which included all the wild men along with some of the more able and moderate Zanzibari Africans who were in the cabinet, were at this meeting. The discussion went on for a couple of hours, but in the end Karume and the Council rejected the American proposal. Karume, when he said goodbye, said, 'If you come back, if recognition takes place, and you come back, Mr. Carlucci, we'll have a parade in your honor.'
So with that, Frank and Ambassador Leonhart returned to Dar es Salaam.
I went back to the embassy to finish burning the classified materials. I had just started when there was a pounding on the front door. Ali Mahfoudh, the head of the newly created special police force, demanded to come into the embassy. When I refused him entry, he said he would have to take me in custody. He drove me to State House, the seat of the government. An official there told Mahfoudh to take me back to the embassy and not to interfere with me.
After I did some burning, I went home for a quick lunch. When I returned, the officer in charge of the soldiers who had surrounded the building said I could not reenter it. When I argued with him, he told me a government official wanted to see me and he drove me to a government office. I was taken to the office of Abdul Aziz Twala, one of the more militant members of the cabinet. Unbeknownst to me, an argument had preceded my arrival. some of the people there wanted to kill me.
At least that's what a man named Mohammed Ali Foum, who was there at the time and later became a diplomat in Tanzanian diplomatic service, told me years afterward. We met at the United Nations one day, and he told me this. I don't know if it's true but he swore it was. He said that after some argument, it was decided that killing me would cause too many problems.
At any rate, when I got there, Twala simply told me to return to the embassy, then go home and get ready to leave later that day....
Frank had been in the Congo, where he acquired a reputation as an exceptionally able Foreign Service officer. He was the embassy's trouble shooter in the Congo....
He was an excellent reporter. He got out, beat the bushes, met the people. He was charming. He got people to trust him. He dealt with people who were essentially hostile to us at that time, befriended them, and got a lot out of it. He knew what was going on in Zanzibar before he'd been there very long....
He had extraordinary intelligence, coupled with very good common sense, and outgoing nature. He knew how to get along with Africans. He was sensitive to their culture. He had no false pretensions. He was an excellent writer, had superior analytical skills....Somebody who's willing to get out of the office, travel around the country, to do whatever is necessary to get information, to establish rapport with people so they will talk to you. You collect intelligence from people whom you meet and process it through whatever abilities you have. You learn to sift out good information from bad....
Frank set out to meet and establish a relationship with as many people as possible in the government and other areas....(He) worked long, hard hours and gave a great deal of thought to his work....He had all the qualities that would later propel him to high offices in the U.S. government, including secretary of defense." - (Ambassador Donald Petterson interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, 13 December 1996, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, copyright 2002, pp. 37 - 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47).
It is those qualities which also helped him pave the way for Lumumba's elimination although he strenuously denied that, in spite of the fact that he served with distinction - in the field, outdoors - as a foreign service officer in Congo during that period and, at the very least, collected invaluable information for the CIA because of the close ties he had with the Congolese leaders including Lumumba's enemies.
He later served as deputy director of the CIA under President Jimmy Carter and as secretary of defence and national security advisor under President Ronald Reagan, among other high-level positions in the federal government through the years.
Stephen Lucas, who like Carlucci learned Swahili in his role as a CIA agent in Congo-Leopoldville and Tanzania, was awarded the Defense Intelligence Director's Award, the Retirement Medallion and Certificate of Distinction from the Central Intelligence Agency after he retired. He went to teach at Louisiana State University where he became head of international programmes. He also founded a Swahili programme at the school and taught Swahili among other subjects including contemporary Africa, intelligence, globalisation and regionalisation as well as others in the area of international studies.
He is still remembered for the role he played as a CIA agent in Africa, working for an agency that has in many ways determined the course of events in many African countries, thus partly determining the destiny of the continent.
Many leaders who led their countries to independence, including Jomo Kenyatta who was revered as one of the fathers of the African independence movement, were on the CIA payroll; so was Kenyatta's heir apparent Tom Mboya.
They were the founding fathers, yet sellouts, bought by the CIA.
Even Emperor Haile Selassie, a revered figure and symbol of African independence and resistance to foreign rule - best exemplified by his dignified resistance to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia - who played a major role in the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963 and presided over its formation, was on the CIA payroll.
Those who came after them - not all but most of them - were no better than their predecessors. And that is still the case today. The CIA operates with impunity in many countries across the continent often in collaboration with the leaders of those countries; so do intelligence services of other powers, as they always have since the sixties when most African countries emerged from colonial rule; only to be ruled again as neo-colonies, controlled and manipulated by their former colonial masters and other powers including the United States, the most powerful country in the world.
But there were exceptions such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Patrice Lumumba, Modibo Keita, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Ben Bella, Milton Obote, Kenneth Kaunda, Muammar Gaddafi and Marien Ngouabi; and later, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel, Agostinho Neto, Jerry Rawlings, Murtala Mohammed, and Thomas Sankara. They did not succumb to CIA temptations. They were not, and could not, be bought by the CIA and other foreign agencies.
One of the best examples of CIA interference in African affairs to the detriment of Africa's well-being was the military coup against President Nkrumah in the sixties.
The coup would not have been carried out when it was, and would not have succeeded, without CIA involvement. The agency had already infiltrated the government and the military as well as security services including the police in preparation for the coup. The subject has been addressed by Godfrey Mwakikagile in his book, Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall. Other researchers and analysts have also written about it.
Before the 1966 military coup, the United States had, at least since 1962 if not 1960, been working on plans to remove Nkrumah from office. His book, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, also played a role in his ouster. As Robert P. Smith, former United States ambassador to Ghana, stated in an interview years later:
"While Nkrumah was in the air flying to Red China, he was met on the ground in Peking by his Chinese host and it fell to them to inform him that he was no longer Head of State in the Republic of Ghana. So that was a fascinating time in a fascinating country....
Nkrumah dropped the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, in that he published a new book called Neo-Colonialism (The Last State of Imperialism)...which was simply outrageous. It accused the United States of every sin imaginable to man. We were blamed for everything in the world.
The book was so bad that I remember the then Assistant Secretary (of state for African affairs), G. Mennen Williams, called me up and gave me that book and said, 'Bob, I know this is bad. I don't know how bad. I want you to take it home tonight and read it. You're not going to get any sleep and I apologize for that, but on my desk, by eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I've got to have a written summary of this because I have called the Ghanaian ambassador in at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. We're going to protest this book.'
There had already been advance publicity so we knew it was bad, but we hadn't had our hands on a copy. And it was everything we feared it would be. It was awful.
And the next morning – of course, he had me in on this meeting as the note taker – a lovely, old man, Michael Ribiero, was the Ghanaian ambassador. Hated Nkrumah privately, but was a good soldier trying to put the best face on this, a career officer in their foreign service and very respected here and in Ghana.
Governor Williams, of course, was a relatively mild-mannered man. I had never heard Soapy Williams raise his voice until that conversation. Neither have I ever heard an ambassador get a tongue lashing like Ribiero got from Assistant Secretary Williams that morning. He, unfortunately, tried a couple times to interrupt the governor when he was making a point. He had my notes in front of him. And at one point, when Ribiero interrupted him, he said, 'Just a minute, Mr. Ambassador, don't interrupt me. I'm not through.' And he continued to go on.
He was raising his voice. He was shaking his finger in the ambassador's face. And it was a very painful, hour-long interview. To put it mildly, he protested vigorously the contents and publication of this book.
I think the publication of that book might also have contributed in a material way to his overthrow shortly thereafter." - (Ambassador Robert P. Smith, quoted by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall, New Africa Press, 2015, pp. 134 – 136; Robert P. Smith, interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, 28 February 1989, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, pp. 12 – 15).
Even President Felix Houphouet Boigny of the Ivory Coast who was Nkrumah's political and ideological rival - as well as Sekou Toure's foe - acknowledged that the military coup against Nkrumah was externally engineered. As he stated in an interview with Jeune Afrique, 4 February 1981:
"Destabilisation is not a new thing. Did you know why Idi Amin made his coup in 1971? It was not he who did it, but the British. He did not even know what he wanted himself.
It was the same in Ghana when the military overthrew Nkrumah. They [the coup makers] came to see me. I asked them why. They replied: 'All is not well anymore.' 'Is that all?' [I asked them]. I also asked them what they were going to do; they did not know. People outside knew it for them."
An indefatigable champion of African unity and independence, Nkrumah was a great inspiration to freedom fighters across the continent. President Nyerere strongly condemned the coup against Nkrumah. As he stated at a press conference in Dar es Salaam soon after Nkrumah was overthrown on 24 February 1966:
"What is happening in Africa? What are the coups about? The last few months have seen changes of governments in many African countries. The latest has been in Ghana. What is behind all this? Are these 'revolutions' intended to remove humiliation and oppresion from Africa?
Let us take the latest in Ghana. The enemies of Africa are now jubilant. There is jubilation in Salisbury and Johannesburg. Even a fool could begin to wonder whether these 'revolutions' would help Africa.
What was Kwame trying to do? He stood for the liberation of Africa. There is not a single leader in Africa more committed to this than Kwame. Whom did he anger with his commitment to freedom? Certainly not Africa. He was committed to true independence. He was not merely against ordinary colonialism; he was against neocolonialism - against a colonial power going out through the political door and controlling the country through the economic door." - (Julius K. Nyerere, quoted by Kwame Nkrumah, Dark Days in Ghana, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968, p. 137; Opoku Agyeman, Nkrumah's Ghana and East Africa: Pan-Africanism and Interstate Relations, Madison, New Jersey, USA: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992, p. 152).
Nyerere offered Nkrumah asylum. Sekou Toure, Nasser and Modibo Keita also offered Nkrumah asylum. They were ideological compatriots. Nkrumah finally decided to go to Guinea.
A bitter foe of neocolonialism like Nkrumah, Nyerere also maintained until the end of his life that economic inequalities in the international system existed because underdeveloped or developing countries were being treated unfairly; they were at the mercy of the industrialised nations. The poor are poor, and are getting poorer, because they are being exploited by the rich and powerful. Their natural resources do not benefit them but instead benefit powerful nations.
Even racial inequalities and injustices in the countries of southern Africa which were under white minority rule continued to exist because rich and powerful nations - almost all of therm white - supported and sustained white minority regimes for political, economic and racist reasons. Leaders of Western countries disagreed with him. But he continued to maintain his position. As The Washington Post reported when he was about to step down as president of Tanzania:
"After 23 years in office, Africa's senior statesman and one of the Third World's most eloquent spokesmen is planning to step down. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, 63, says he will retire from office next year, become one of the few rulers in the short history of independent black Africa to relinquish his post voluntarily.
He does not intend to depart quietly. Last month (November 1984) Nyerere accepted the chairmanship of the Organization of African Unity with a blistering attack on U.S. policy toward white-ruled South Africa, and he later urged African nations to withhold payments on their debts to force western governments and financial institutions to negotiate reforms in the international economic order.
The statements were vintage Nyerere, a leader who has forged a reputation as Africa's most vocal critic of the economic inequality between the First World and the Third.
He is also a man of irrepressible intellect and consummate charm who manages to impress even those western diplomats who find his foreign policies unpalatable and his socialist domestic policies unworkable.
'He is a humane, decent person with an extraordinary mind and considerable charm,' said a senior western diplomat here (in Dar es Salaam), 'but he clings to notions that are wrong'....
Nyerere's Tanzania has been...Africa's leader in the struggle for social equity...(and) Nyerere has been sub-Saharan Africa's leading socialist visionary....
Tanzania boasts black Africa's highest adult literacy rate -- 70 percent -- thanks to his unswerving commitment to public education. Average life expectancy has increased by 10 years during the last generation through improvements in health care and clean water supplies....
He is famous for the learned treatises he has written on underdevelopment and for periodic bursts of self-criticism....
By stressing national institutions and a nationwide public school system, by eschewing favoritism in dealing with Tanzania's 100-plus tribes, and by imposing Swahili as a national language, Nyerere has helped construct one of Africa's rarest entities: a true nation.
By stressing socialist equality, he has given his country a sense of mission, and by invading neighboring Uganda and overthrowing dictator Idi Amin in 1979, he has given Tanzania an epochal moment of moral triumph that may be enshrined in African history as the defeat of Hitler is cherished in Europe.
'For all its problems, this a remarkably stable country, with dignified, intelligent people, a high degree of religious and ethnic tolerance and many of the attributes of nationhood,' said a Western diplomat here.
Nyerere has blamed most of Tanzania's economic woes on outside forces beyond his control. Alternate years of droughts and crippling floods, the 1977 collapse of the East African Community, forcing the country into expensive capital investments for railways and power lines, and the $500 million price tag for the war against Amin are all cited as major contributors to Tanzania's plight.
Most of all, Nyerere see inequities in a world trade system in which exportable commodities of poor nations such as Tanzania have steadily lost value during the past decade while oil, and vital imports from the industrial West, have increased sharply.
In 1972, Tanzania spent 5 percent of its foreign exchange earnings on imported oil. Last year (1983) it spent nearly 60 percent, even though it has cut oil consumption by nearly one-third.
'It is as if we had been robbed,' Nyerere has said. 'To buy a seven-ton truck in 1981, we had to produce and sell abroad about four times as much cotton, or three times as much cashew, or three times as much coffee, or 10 times as much tobacco as we had to produce and sell in 1976.'
He has also said,' It it true internationally that the rich are rich because the poor are poor. The inevitable oversimplification of that statement does not invalidate it.'
Nyerere's supporters dismiss the idea that his socialist policies have contributed to Tanzania's problems, pointing out that capitalist countries such as Kenya and the Ivory Coast are also suffering from extreme economic shocks.
'Other countries don't have our policies and they are suffering too,' said a top presidential aide....
Nyerere's relations with the United States, which improved dramatically during the Carter administration, have deteriorated under President Reagan. Nyerere has been harshly critical of U.S. support for South Africa and has accused the Reagan administration of encouraging South African aggression against its black-ruled neighbors.
Some of his top aides say that they believe that the United States is encouraging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to coerce Tanzania into politically risky austerity measures and that the Americans are quietly gloating over the failure of Nyerere's socialist experiment.
American officials have insisted that such views are mistaken....
'Julius has been in charge for too long, but people love him...,' said a senior diplomat." - (Glenn Frankel, "Nyerere Resignation to End 23-Year Era in East Africa," The Washington Post, 9 December 1984).
He stepped down from the presidency in November 1985 when white minority rule was coming to an end in southern Africa. Only apartheid South Africa, and Namibia which was ruled by South Africa, remained under white minority governments.
He was one of the greatest leaders Africa has ever produced. As Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said when assessing Nyerere' role in the liberation of Africa:
"He was the greatest black man that ever lived. There are other black men such as Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah, but Nyerere was the greatest." - (Yoweri Museveni, New Vision, Kampala, Uganda, 4 April 2012).
They all will be remembered for the role they played in liberating Africa from colonial rule and racial oppression. However, unity on a continental scale has remained elusive as much as it was in the sixties when most African countries won independence. But as Nyerere warned in his Accra speech, "Without unity, there is no future for Africa."
And in what amounted to a farewell speech to Africa not long before he died, Nyerere said the following at a conference at the University of Dar es Salaam - the speech was informal and conversational in style, sprinkled with personal anecdotes, and was given before a diverse audience of politicians, academicians, students and diplomats:
"You wanted me to reflect. I told you I had very little time to reflect. I am not an engineer (reference to the vice-chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam who identified himself as an engineer in his introductory remarks) and therefore what I am going to say might sound messy, unstructured and possibly irrelevant to what you intend to do; but I thought that if by reflecting, you wanted me to go back and relive the political life that I have lived for the last 30, 40 years, that I cannot do.
And in any case, in spite of the fact that it’s useful to go back in history, what you are talking about is what might be of use to Africa in the 21st century. History’s important, obviously, but I think we should concentrate and see what might be of use to our continent in the coming century.
What I want to do is share with you some thoughts on two issues concerning Africa. One, an obvious one; when I speak, you will realise how obvious it is. Another one, less obvious, and I’ll spend a little more time on the less obvious one, because I think this will put Africa in what is going to be Africa’s context in the 21st century. And the new leadership of Africa will have to concern itself with the situation in which it finds itself in the world tomorrow - in the world of the 21st century. And the Africa I’m going to be talking about, is Africa south of the Sahara, sub-Saharan Africa. I’ll explain later the reason why I chose to concentrate on Africa south of the Sahara. It is because of the point I want to emphasise.
It appears today that in the world tomorrow, there are going to be three centres of power: some, political power; some, economic power, but three centres of real power in the world. One centre is the United States of America and Canada; what you call North America. That is going to be a huge economic power, and probably for a long time the only military power, but a huge economic power. The other one is going to be Western Europe, another huge economic power. I think Europe is choosing deliberately not to be a military power. I think they deliberately want to leave that to the United States. The other one is Japan. Japan is in a different category but it is better to say Japan, because the power of Japan is quite clear, the economic power of Japan is obvious.
The three powers are going to affect the countries near them. I was speaking in South Africa recently and I referred to Mexico. A former president of Mexico, I think it must have been after the revolution in 1935, no, after the revolution; a former president of Mexico is reported to have complained about his country or lamented about his country. 'Poor Mexico,' said the president, 'so far from God yet so near the United States.' He was complaining about the disadvantages of being a neighbour of a giant.
Today, Mexico has decided not simply to suffer the disadvantages of being so close to the United States. And the United States itself has realised the importance of trying to accommodate Mexico. In the past there were huge attempts by the United States to prevent people from moving from Mexico into the United States; people seeking work, seeking jobs. So you had police, a border very well policed in order to prevent Mexicans who seek, who look for jobs, to move into the United States. The United States discovered that it was not working. It can’t work.
There is a kind of economic osmosis where whatever you do, if you are rich, you are attractive to the poor. They will come, they’ll even risk their own lives in order to come. So the United States tried very hard to prevent Mexicans going into the United States; they’ve given up, and the result was NAFTA. It is in the interest of the United States to try and create jobs in Mexico because, if you don’t, the Mexicans will simply come, to the United States; so they’re doing that.
Europe, Western Europe, is very wealthy. It has two Mexicos. One is Eastern Europe. If you want to prevent those Eastern Europeans to come to Western Europe, you jolly will have to create jobs in Eastern Europe, and Western Europe is actually doing that. They are doing that. They’ll help Eastern Europe to develop. The whole of Western Europe will be doing it, the Germans are doing it. The Germans basically started first of all with the East Germans but they are spending lots of money also helping the other countries of Eastern Europe to develop, including unfortunately, or fortunately for them, including Russia. Because they realise, Europeans realise including the Germans, if you don’t help Russia to develop, one of these days you are going to be in trouble. So it is in the interest of Western Europe, to help Eastern Europe including Russia. They are pouring a lot of money in that part of the world, in that part of Europe, to try and help it to develop.
I said Western Europe has two Mexicos. I have mentioned one. I’ll jump the other. I jump Europe’s second Mexico. I’ll go to Asia. I’ll go to Japan. Japan - a wealthy island, very wealthy indeed, but an island. I don’t think they’re very keen on the unemployed of Asia to go to Japan. They’d rather help them where they are, and Japan is spending a lot of money in Asia, to help create jobs in Asia, prevent those Asians dreaming about going to Japan to look for jobs. In any case, Japan is too small, they can’t find wealth there.
But apart from what Japan is doing, of course Asia is Asia; Asia has China! Asia has India, and the small countries of Asia are not very small. The population of Indonesia is twice the population of Nigeria, your biggest. So Asia is virtually in a category, of the Third World countries, of the Southern countries; Asia is almost in a category of its own. It is developing as a power, and Europe knows it, and the United States knows it. And in spite of the huge Atlantic, now they are talking about the Atlantic Rim. That is in recognition of the importance of Asia.
I go back to Europe. Europe has a second Mexico. And Europe’s second Mexico is North Africa. North Africa is to Europe what Mexico is to the United States. North Africans who have no jobs will not go to Nigeria; they’ll be thinking of Europe or the Middle East, because of the imperatives of geography and history and religion and language. North Africa is part of Europe and the Middle East.
Nasser was a great leader and a great African leader. I got on extremely well with him. Once he sent me a minister, and I had a long discussion with his minister at the State House here, and in the course of the discussion, the minister says to me, 'Mr. President, this is my first visit to Africa.' North Africa, because of the pull of the Mediterranean, and I say, history and culture, and religion, North Africa is pulled towards the North. When North Africans look for jobs, they go to Western Europe and southern Western Europe, or they go to the Middle East. And Europe has a specific policy for North Africa, specific policy for North Africa. It’s not only about development; it’s also about security. Because of you don’t do something about North Africa, they’ll come.
Africa, south of the Sahara, is different; totally different. If you have no jobs here in Tanzania, where do you go? The Japanese have no fear that you people will flock to Japan. The North Americans have no fear that you people will flock to North America. Not even from West Africa. The Atlantic, the Atlantic as an ocean, like the Mediterranean, it has its own logic. But links North America and Western Europe, not North America and West Africa.
Africa south of the Sahara is isolated. That is the first point I want to make. South of the Sahara is totally isolated in terms of that configuration of developing power in the world in the 21st century - on its own. There is no centre of power in whose self-interest it’s important to develop Africa, no centre. Not North America, not Japan, not Western Europe. There’s no self-interest to bother about Africa south of the Sahara. Africa south of the Sahara is on its own. Na sijambo baya. Those of you who don’t know Kiswahili, I just whispered, 'Not necessarily bad.'
That’s the first thing I wanted to say about Africa south of the Sahara. African leadership, the coming African leadership, will have to bear that in mind. You are on your own, Mr. Vice President. You mentioned, you know, in the past, there was some Cold War competition in Africa and some Africans may have exploited it. I never did. I never succeeded in exploiting the Cold War in Africa. We suffered, we suffered through the Cold War. Look at Africa south of the Sahara. I’ll be talking about it later. Southern Africa, I mean, look at southern Africa; devastated because of the combination of the Cold War and apartheid. Devastated part of Africa. It could have been very different. But the Cold War is gone, thank God. But thank God the Cold War is gone, the chances of the Mobutus also is gone.
So that’s the first thing I wanted to say about Africa south of the Sahara. Africa south of the Sahara in those terms is isolated. That is the point I said was not obvious and I had to explain it in terms in which I have tried to explain it. The other one, the second point I want to raise is completely obvious. Africa has 53 nation-states, most of them in Africa south of the Sahara. If numbers were power, Africa would be the most powerful continent on earth. It is the weakest; so it’s obvious numbers are not power.
So the second point about Africa, and again I am talking about Africa south of the Sahara; it is fragmented, fragmented. From the very beginning of independence 40 years ago, we were against that idea, that the continent is so fragmented. We called it the Balkanisation of Africa. Today, I think the Balkans are talking about the Africanisation of Europe. Africa’s states are too many, too small, some make no logic, whether political logic or ethnic logic or anything. They are non-viable. It is not a confession.
The OAU was founded in 1963. In 1964 we went to Cairo to hold, in a sense, our first summit after the inaugural summit. I was responsible for moving that resolution that Africa must accept the borders, which we inherited from colonialism; accept them as they are. That resolution was passed by the organisation (OAU) with two reservations: one from Morocco, another from Somalia. Let me say why I moved that resolution.
In 1960, just before this country became independent, I think I was then chief minister; I received a delegation of Masai elders from Kenya, led by an American missionary. And they came to persuade me to let the Masai invoke something called the Anglo-Masai Agreement so that that section of the Masai in Kenya should become part of Tanganyika; so that when Tanganyika becomes independent, it includes part of Masai, from Kenya. I suspected the American missionary was responsible for that idea. I don’t remember that I was particularly polite to him. Kenyatta was then in detention, and here somebody comes to me, that we should break up Kenya and make part of Kenya part of Tanganyika. But why shouldn’t Kenyatta demand that the Masai part of Tanganyika should become Masai of Kenya? It’s the same logic. That was in 1960.
In 1961 we became independent. In 1962, early 1962, I resigned as prime minister and then a few weeks later I received Dr. Banda. Mungu amuweke mahali pema (May God rest his soul in peace). I received Dr. Banda. We had just, FRELIMO had just been established here and we were now in the process of starting the armed struggle.
So Banda comes to me with a big old book, with lots and lots of maps in it, and tells me, 'Mwalimu, what is this, what is Mozambique? There is no such thing as Mozambique.' I said, 'What do you mean there is no such thing as Mozambique?' So he showed me this map, and he said: 'That part is part of Nyasaland (it was still Nyasaland, not Malawi, at that time). That part is part of Southern Rhodesia, That part is Swaziland, and this part, which is the northern part, Makonde part, that is your part.'
So Banda disposed of Mozambique just like that. I ridiculed the idea, and Banda never liked anybody to ridicule his ideas. So he left and went to Lisbon to talk to Salazar about this wonderful idea. I don’t know what Salazar told him. That was ‘62.
In ‘63 we go to Addis Ababa for the inauguration of the OAU, and Ethiopia and Somalia are at war over the Ogaden. We had to send a special delegation to bring the president of Somalia to attend that inaugural summit, because the two countries were at war. Why? Because Somalia wanted the Ogaden, a whole province of Ethiopia, saying, 'That is part of Somalia.' And Ethiopia was quietly, the Emperor quietly saying to us that 'the whole of Somalia is part of Ethiopia.'
So those three, the delegation of the Masai, led by the American missionary; Banda’s old book of maps; and the Ogaden, caused me to move that resolution, in Cairo 1964. And I say, the resolution was accepted, two countries with reservations, and one was Somalia because Somalia wanted the Ogaden; Somalia wanted northern Kenya; Somalia wanted Djibouti.
Throw away all our ideas about socialism. Throw them away, give them to the Americans, give them to the Japanese, give them, so that they can, I don’t know, they can do whatever they like with them. Embrace capitalism, fine! But you have to be self-reliant. You here in Tanzania don’t dream that if you privatise every blessed thing, including the prison, then foreign investors will come rushing. No! No! Your are dreaming! Hawaji! They won’t come! (hawaji!). You just try it.
There is more to privatise in Eastern Europe than here. Norman Manley, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, in those days the vogue was nationalisation, not privatisation. In those days the vogue was nationalisation. So Norman Manley was asked as Jamaica was moving towards independence: 'Mr. Prime Minister, are you going to nationalise the economy?' His answer was: 'You can’t nationalise nothing.'
You people here are busy privatising not nothing, we did build something, we built something to privatise. But quite frankly, for the appetite of Europe, and the appetite of North America, this is privatising nothing. The people with a really good appetite will go to Eastern Europe, they’ll go to Russia, they’ll not come rushing to Tanzania! Your blessed National Bank of Commerce, it’s a branch of some major bank somewhere, and in Tanzania you say, 'It’s so big we must divide it into pieces,' which is nonsense.
Africa south of the Sahara is isolated. Therefore, to develop, it will have to depend upon its own resources basically. Internal resources, nationally; and Africa will have to depend upon Africa. The leadership of the future will have to devise, try to carry out policies of maximum national self-reliance and maximum collective self-reliance. They have no other choice. Hamna! (You don’t have it!) And this, this need to organise collective self-reliance is what moves me to the second part.
The small countries in Africa must move towards either unity or co-operation, unity of Africa. The leadership of the future, of the 21st century, should have less respect, less respect for this thing called 'national sovereignty.' I’m not saying take up arms and destroy the state, no! This idea that we must preserve the Tanganyika, then preserve the Kenya as they are, is nonsensical!
The nation-states we in Africa, have inherited from Europe. They are the builders of the nation-states par excellence. For centuries they fought wars! The history of Europe, the history of the building of Europe is a history of war. And sometimes their wars when they get hotter although they’re European wars, they call them world wars. And we all get involved. We fight even in Tanganyika here, we fought here, one world war.
These Europeans, powerful, where little Belgium is more powerful than the whole of Africa south of the Sahara put together; these powerful European states are moving towards unity, and you people are talking about the atavism of the tribe, this is nonsense! I am telling you people. How can anybody think of the tribe as the unity of the future? Hakuna! (There’s nothing!).
Europe now, you can take it almost as God-given, Europe is not going to fight with Europe anymore. The Europeans are not going to take up arms against Europeans. They are moving towards unity - even the little, the little countries of the Balkans which are breaking up, Yugoslavia breaking up, but they are breaking up at the same time the building up is taking place. They break up and say we want to come into the bigger unity.
So there’s a building movement, there’s a building of Europe. These countries which have old, old sovereignties, countries of hundreds of years old; they are forgetting this, they are moving towards unity. And you people, you think Tanzania is sacred? What is Tanzania!
You have to move towards unity. If these powerful countries see that they have no future in the nation-states - ninyi mnafikiri mna future katika nini? (what future do you think you have?). So, if we can’t move, if our leadership, our future leadership cannot move us to bigger nation-states, which I hope they are going to try; we tried and failed. I tried and failed. One of my biggest failures was actually that. I tried in East Africa and failed.
But don’t give up because we, the first leadership, failed, no! Unajaribu tena! (You try again!). We failed, but the idea is a good idea. That these countries should come together. Don’t leave Rwanda and Burundi on their own. Hawawezi kusurvive (They cannot survive). They can’t. They’re locked up into a form of prejudice. If we can’t move towards bigger nation-states, at least let’s move towards greater co-operation. This is beginning to happen. And the new leadership in Africa should encourage it.
I want to say only one or two things about what is happening in southern Africa. Please accept the logic of coming together. South Africa, small; South Africa is very small. Their per capita income now is, I think $2,000 a year or something around that. Compared with Tanzanians, of course, it is very big, but it’s poor. If South Africa begins to tackle the problems of the legacy of apartheid, they have no money!
But compared with the rest of us, they are rich. And so, in southern Africa, there, there is also a kind of osmosis, also an economic osmosis. South Africa’s neighbours send their job seekers into South Africa. And South Africa will simply have to accept the logic of that, that they are big, they are attractive. They attract the unemployed from Mozambique, and from Lesotho and from the rest. They have to accept that fact of life. It’s a problem, but they have to accept it.
South Africa, and I am talking about post-apartheid South Africa. Post-apartheid South Africa has the most developed and the most dynamic private sector on the continent. It is white, so what? So forget it is white. It is South African, dynamic, highly developed. If the investors of South Africa begin a new form of trekking, you have to accept it.
It will be ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, for Africans to go out seeking investment from North America, from Japan, from Europe, from Russia, and then, when these investors come from South Africa to invest in your own country, you say, 'a! a! These fellows now want to take over our economy' - this is nonsense. You can’t have it both ways. You want foreign investors or you don’t want foreign investors. Now, the most available foreign investors for you are those from South Africa.
And let me tell you, when Europe think in terms of investing, they might go to South Africa. When North America think in terms of investing, they might go to South Africa. Even Asia, if they want to invest, the first country they may think of in Africa may be South Africa. So, if your South Africa is going to be your engine of development, accept the reality, accept the reality. Don’t accept this sovereignty, South Africa will reduce your sovereignty. What sovereignty do you have?
Many of these debt-ridden countries in Africa now have no sovereignty, they’ve lost it. Imekwenda (It’s gone). Iko mikononi mwa IMF na World Bank (It’s in the hands of the IMF and the World Bank). Unafikiri kuna sovereignty gani? (What kind of sovereignty do you think there is?)
So, southern Africa has an opportunity, southern Africa, the SADC group, because of South Africa.
Because South Africa now is no longer a destabiliser of the region, but a partner in development, southern Africa has a tremendous opportunity. But you need leadership, because if you get proper leadership there, within the next 10, 15 years, that region is going to be the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) of Africa. And it is possible. But forget the protection of your sovereignties. I believe the South Africans will be sensitive enough to know that if they are not careful, there is going to be this resentment of big brother, but that big brother, frankly, is not very big.
West Africa. Another bloc is developing there, but that depends very much upon Nigeria my brother (looking at the Nigerian High Commissioner - Ambassador), very much so. Without Nigeria, the future of West Africa is a problem. West Africa is more balkanised than Eastern Africa. More balkanised, tiny little states.
The leadership will have to come from Nigeria. It came from Nigeria in Liberia; it has come from Nigeria in the case of Sierra Leone; it will have to come from Nigeria in galvanising ECOWAS.
But the military in Nigeria must allow the Nigerians to exercise that vitality in freedom. And it is my hope that they will do it.
I told you I was going to ramble and it was going to be messy, but thank you very much." - (Julius K. Nyerere in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, New Africa Press, 2010, pp. 553 - 560. Source: Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Site: Written Speeches, South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001. This is an abridged version of Nyerere’s speech at an international conference at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, December 15, 1997. The transcription of the non-written speech came from Mrs. Magombe of the Nyerere Foundation, Dar es Salaam. Translation of Swahili words, phrases and sentences in Nyerere’s speech into English in the preceding text, done by the author, Godfrey Mwakikagile).
Professor Haroub Othman of the University of Dar es Salaam said that was Nyerere at his best; it was one of his best speeches if not the best, he said.
It was a fitting farewell to Africa. Nyerere died almost two years later after warning his fellow Africans as an elder statesman in that speech: "Africa south of the Sahara is on its own."
And as Nkrumah stated years earlier in the sixties: "Africa Must Unite." That was also the title of his book published to coincide with the first meeting of the 32 African heads of state and government who met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 22 - 25 May 1963 and formed the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on the last day of the conference.
The countries which were the founding members of the OAU were Algeria, Burundi, Cameroun, Central African republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Leopoldville, Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Republic, and Upper Volta.
The rest joined in the following years after they became independent.
Although African leaders failed to unite their countries under one government in the sixties, as urged by Nkrumah, they were at least united in their goal to liberate the countries which were still under white minority rule and eventually succeeded in doing so.
In his seminal work, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written extensively about the liberation struggle, and the liberation movements, in southern Africa in what is probably one of the best accounts of that critical phase in the history of Africa. He has also, in the same book, written an excellent analysis of the Congo Crisis during the turbulent sixties.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has also written a book about the struggle against apartheid and the end of white minority rule in South Africa and on the prospects and challenges the country faces in the post-apartheid era. The work is entitled, South Africa in Contemporary Times.
The years he spent on the editorial staff at the Standard and the Daily News were critical to his future career as a writer. Those were his formative years, and had he not become a news reporter, his life, and his career as an author, might have taken a different turn. As he states in Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, he was first hired by renowned British journalist David Martin who was the deputy managing and news editor of the Tanganyika Standard. The managing editor was Brendon Grimshaw, also British who, in the seventies, bought Moyenne Island in the Seychelles and became its only permanent inhabitant. Brendon Grimshaw also played a major role in recruiting Godfrey Mwakikagile as a member of the editorial staff at the Standard.32
It was a turning point in Godfrey Mwakikagile's life.
That was in June 1969 when he was a student at Tambaza High School in Dar es Salaam. He was 19 years old and probably the youngest reporter on the editorial staff at the Standard during that time.
The Standard which was nationalised in 1970 and was renamed Daily News in 1972 was the largest English newspaper in Tanzania and one of the largest and most influential in East Africa. And it served Godfrey Mwakikagile well, not only in terms of providing him with an opportunity to sharpen his writing skills but also - after it became the Daily News - in helping him to go to school in the United States where he became an author many years after he graduated from college.
David Martin, when he worked at the Tanganyika Standard and at the Daily News, and thereafter, was the most prominent foreign journalist in Eastern and Southern Africa in the sixties and seventies. And he wrote extensively about the liberation struggle in the region for the London Observer and for BBC.
He went to the combat zone with FRELIMO guerrilla fighters in Mozambique and also covered the Angolan civil war for BBC and for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
He knew and worked closely with all the leaders of the liberation movements including Robert Mugabe, Dr. Eduardo Mondlane, president of FRELIMO, who was assassinated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in February 1969; and Mondlane's successor Samora Machel who died in a "mysterious" plane crash in 1986 when he was president of Mozambique.
The plane crashed on the South African side of the border with Mozambique and the apartheid regime was suspected of having caused the "accident." He was succeeded by Mozambique's foreign affairs minister, Joaquim Chissano, as president.
David Martin was also very close to many Tanzanian leaders including President Julius Nyerere, and President Benjamin Mkapa who was also his close friend for many years since the sixties when they worked together in the media.
He also interviewed President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia during the liberation struggle when many freedom fighters were based in that country and used it as an operational base as they did Tanzania.
He wrote more than 20 books. He died at his home in Harare, Zimbabwe, in August 2007, where he went to live after Zimbabwe won independence in April 1980.
President Mugabe delivered an official condolence message and David Martin was accorded a state-assisted funeral in recognition of his works exposing apartheid South Africa's destabalisation campaign in neighbouring countries, racial brutalities and injustices under white minority regimes throughout Southern Africa and for his outstanding role as a champion of racial equality.
The report of his death which included President Robert Mugabe's long message of condolence on behalf of the government and the ruling party ZANU-PF was published in the Zimbabwean government-owned newspaper, The Herald, 22 August 2007, headlined, "President Mourns David Martin."33
Another report on David Martin's contributions as a journalist when he reported extensively on the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, and on his support for regional integration of the countries in that part of the continent after the end of white minority rule, was published in the same paper on August 24, headlined, "Martin - Man of Many Talents."34
He was buried in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa were some of the African leaders who sent condolence messages.
Zimbabwean government leaders including cabinet members, Tanzanian officials, war veterans who fought for Zimbabwe's independence during the liberation struggle in the sixties and seventies, and diplomats, attended the funeral, according to The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 August 2007, in a report headlined, "Martin Laid to Rest."35
David Martin often said he credited his education to the 10 years he spent working as a journalist in Tanzania and was inspired by President Nyerere and by the liberation leaders and movements based there. He interviewed many of those leaders many times during the liberation struggle and thereafter.
In his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about David Martin and the role he played as a journalist during the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. But David Martin was also instrumental in opening the door for Godfrey Mwakikagile into the world of journalism, writing everyday, after which both became successful writers.36
Godfrey Mwakikagile himself has stated in his books - Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Africa after Independence: Realities of Nationhood, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation,Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done - that his background as a news reporter which included meeting deadlines when writing news articles prepared him for the rigorous task of writing books.37
Godfrey Mwakikagile lived and grew up under the leadership of Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, a legendary figure, liberation icon and staunch Pan-Africanist and one of the most influential and most respected leaders Africa has ever produced, whose socialist policies he has also defended in his writings because of the egalitarian ideals they instilled in the people of Tanzania enabling them to build a peaceful, cohesive nation in which they saw themselves as one people and equal in terms of rights and dignity as fellow human beings in spite of the poverty they endured under ujamaa, Nyerere's African version of socialism.
Yet, in spite of his admiration for liberation icons, he also is highly critical of African leaders from the same generation who led their countries to independence, contending that most of them did not care about the well-being of their people; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings.38
He gives them a lot of credit for leading the struggle for independence and contends that they were very successful in mobilising the masses and the elite and in fuelling nationalist sentiments to end colonial rule. But he also bluntly states that they were, in most cases, a tragic failure in terms of nation building and national development during the post-colonial era.
They fostered divided loyalties along ethnic and regional lines, practised tribalism, and pursued wrong policies. They embraced and adopted imported -isms especially Marxism and other alien ideologies while ignoring indigenous knowledge, institutions and systems of thought - which are relevant to African conditions, local circumstances and historical experience - in the quest for development. They formulated unrealistic development plans and programmes, launched unnecessary capital-intensive projects just for demonstration effect, and underutilised human capital including abundant labour for labour-intensive projects.
They mismanaged the economy, squandered resources, stole from the people, raided national coffers, bankrupted the treasury, enriched themselves, institutionalised corruption, instituted the highly centralised state as an oppressive apparatus for mass regimentation although it also served as an effective instrument of mobilisation of resources and manpower that was unfortunately misused or wasted in most cases. And they tortured, imprisoned and killed their critics and opponents, muzzled the opposition and stifled dissent instead of encouraging cross-fertilisation of ideas across the spectrum which could have led to formulation of better policies critical to nation building and economic development, as he clearly states in his books, Economic Development in Africa, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, and Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done.
It is an assessment, and a disillusionment with African leadership, that is shared by his fellow Africans. As Wole Soyinka stated when he saw Nigerian leaders assume power in October 1960 after the end of colonial rule, with pomp and ceremony, he became apprehensive about the future and knew, from then onwards, the enemy was now within, not without. The enemy was the new African leaders who went against everything they had fought for, totally ignoring the well-being of their people. Assumption of power was only a means to enrich themselves and trample on the rights of their fellow countrymen.
Godfrey Mwakikagile belongs to a generation that preceded independence and was partly brought up under colonial rule. He even wrote a book, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, about those years.
Independence meant a lot to him as much as it did to his fellow Africans. He even attended the independence celebrations when Tanganyika attained sovereign status under the leadership of Julius Nyerere. He witnessed the flags changing at midnight when the Union Jack was lowered and the flag of the newly independent nation of Tanganyika went up. As he states in his autobiographical writings, he vividly remembers attending the independence celebrations with his uncle Johan Chonde Mwambapa, popularly known as Chonde, in the town of Tukuyu. His uncle took him on a bicycle to Tukuyu, four miles north of their home area, to witness the historic occasion. The celebrations were held on a football (soccer) field. He was 12 years old.
Early in his life when he was a teenager, he developed strong Pan-Africanist views under the influence of Julius Nyerere and other Pan-Africanist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Toure. He still holds those views today, crystallised into an ideology for a new African liberation and forcefully articulated in his writings.
He writes as an African more than anything else, not just as a Tanzanian. As Professor Guy Martin states in his book African Political Thought about Godfrey Mwakikagile and other Pan-Africanist theorists and thinkers, their individual national identities are secondary to their primary identity as Africans and even irrelevant when they articulate their position from a Pan-African perspective:
"Note that all these scholars are dedicated Pan-Africanists and many would shun the reference to their nationality, preferring to be simply called 'Africans'.... Some of the most prominent Africanist-populist scholars include... Godfrey Mwakikagile.... Chapter 4 is a survey of Pan-Africanism as a political and cultural ideal and movement eventually leading to African unity.... The chapter first shows how the Pan-Africanist leaders' dream for immediate political and economic integration in the form of a 'United States of Africa' was deferred in favor of a gradualist-functionalist approach....
The chapter then analyzes the reasons for the failure of the Pan-Africanist leaders' dream of unity... and surveys past and current proposals for a revision of the map of Africa and a reconfiguration of the African states put forward by various authors such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Marc-Louis Ropivia, Makau wa Mutua, Arthur Gakwandi, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Daniel Osabu-Kle, Godfrey Mwakikagile, Pelle Danabo, and Mueni wa Muiu....
Chapter eight reviews the ideas and values for a new, free, and self-reliant Africa put forth by African academics who have the best interest of the people at heart and thus advocate a popular type of democracy and development. However, unlike the populist-socialist scholars, these African-populist scholars refuse to operate within the parameters of Western ideologies - whether of the socialist, Marxist-Leninist, or liberal-democratic persuasion - and call on Africans to get rid of their economic, technological, and cultural dependency syndrome.
These scholars are also convinced that the solutions to African problems lie within Africans themselves. Thus they refuse to remain passive victims of a perceived or preordained fate and call on all Africans to become the initiators and agents of their own development.... For the reasons stated previously, the chapter will focus exclusively on the last four scholars mentioned: namely, Osabu-Kle, Ake, Mwakikagile, and Muiu." - (Guy Martin, African Political Thought, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 8, 6).
One of Godfrey Mwakikagile's critics has described him as "a shrewd intellectual in defence of liberation icons" and accuses him of not being intellectually honest about leaders such as Nyerere, Nkrumahand Sekou Toure for not criticising them harshly for their failures because he admires them so much as staunch Pan-Africanists.39
In a way, some people may see him as a complex character not always easy to understand, although he articulates his position clearly and forcefully.
Some of the confusion among his readers about his position on African leaders of the independence generation has to do with his own background since he was an integral part of that generation in the sense that he witnessed the end of colonial rule and the emergence of the newly independent African states although he was not old enough to have participated in the independence struggle himself.40
He admires the leaders who led their countries to independence, yet he is highly critical of them in most cases for their failures during the post-colonial period. He became disillusioned with the leadership on the continent through the years, filled with broken promises, and not long after the countries won independence. He admires many aspects of Nyerere's socialist policies in Tanzania, yet concedes the policies were also a failure in many cases. And he strongly favours fundamental change in African countries, yet he is nostalgic about the past.41
His advocacy for fundamental change is articulated in many of his writings including The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, which was published in 2001 and which is also one of his most well-known books.
In his review of the book, Ronald Taylor-Lewis [born of a Sierra Leonean father], editor of Mano Vision magazine, London, described it as "a masterpiece of fact and analysis."42
The book has also been reviewed in other publications. Tana Worku Anglana reviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile's Modern African State: Quest for Transformation in Articolo and described it as "unbiased literature."43
Other people have also cited the book in their different analyses of the African condition. They include Dr. Elavie Ndura, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, who used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, among other works, in supporting her central thesis in her study, "Transcending The Majority Rights and Minority Protection Dichotomy Through Multicultural Reflective Citizenship in The African Great Lakes Region," in Intercultural Education, Vol. 17, No. 2, published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, in May 2006.
Professor Elavie Ndura, a Hutu from Burundi where her family experienced genocide, taught for many years at a number of schools in the United States, including the University of Nevada-Reno and George Mason University.
Others who have used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, together with the works of other scholars, in their academic pursuits include Ole Frahm when he wrote his dissertation to earn a Ph.D. from The Humbold University of Berlin in Germany. His doctoral thesis was "How a state is made: Statebuilding and nationbuilding in South Sudan in the light of its African peers," in which he quotes Mwakikagile stating:
"Godfrey Mwakikagile delivers a harsh indictment of colonial boundary-making in the case of Sudan: 'The creation of Sudan from colonial boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the imperial powers was a colossal mistake, and a monstrosity, considering what it has spawned: a cauldron of intense racial hatred which has led to genocide against blacks.' - Mwakikagile (2001), p. 215."
Ethnic conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi between the Hutu and the Tutsi is one of the subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed extensively in his books, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study, Burundi: The Hutu and the Tutsi: Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise, Peace and Stability in Rwanda and Burundi: The Road Not Taken, and Civil Wars in Rwanda and Burundi: Conflict Resolution in Africa.
In many of his writings, Godfrey Mwakikagile focuses on internal factors - including corruption, tribalism and tyranny by African leaders - as the main cause of Africa's predicament, but not to the total exclusion of external forces.
And the position he articulates in his writings on many issues is cited by other people to support their arguments in their works. One of the works in which Godfrey Mwakikagile is cited and quoted is a compiled study by Professor Robert H. Bates of Harvard University, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa: Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in February 2008.
Godfrey Mwakikagile is also quoted by Professors Robert Elgie and Sophie Moestrup in their book, Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe: A Comparative Study - Routledge Research in Comparative Politics, Routledge, 2007; Mueni wa Muiu and Guy Martin in A New Paradigm of the African State: Fundi wa Afrika, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Minabere Ibelema, The African Press, Civic Cynicism, and Democracy - The PalgraveMacmillan Series in International Political Communication, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; James Crawford and Vaughan Lowe in British Yearbook of International Law 2005: Volume 76, Oxford University Press, 2007, and in other works.
Others who have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile and his works include Professor Robert I. Rotberg, director at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation. He used Godfrey Mwakikagle's book Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, among other works, to document his study, Crafting The New Nigeria: Confronting The Challenges, a book that was published in 2004.
Other researchers and scholars who have cited and quoted Godfrey Mwakikagile in their works include Gabi Hesselbein, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, and James Putzel in their study, "Economic and Political Foundations of State-making in Africa: Understanding State Reconstruction", Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2006; E.M. Poff, "Liberal Democracy and Multiethnic States: A Case Study of Ethnic Politics in Kenya," Ohio University, 2008; PJ McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," Armed Forces and Society, Sage Publications, 2006; Martin P. Mathews, in his book, Nigeria: Current Issues and Historical Background, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2002; Isidore Okpewho and N Nzegwu, in their book, The New African Diaspora, Indiana University Press, 2009; C.M. Brown, S. Reader and G. Lober, "US National Security Interests in Africa and The Future Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA, 2005.
Nigerian scholar Adaobi Chiamaka Iheduru of Wright State University also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Relations between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, and Africans and African Americans: Complex Relations, Prospects and Challenges, to complement her research for her doctorate in psychology. Her dissertation was "Examining the Social Distance between Africans and African Americans: The Role of Internalized Racism."
Lessie B. Tate used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, among other works by other scholars, to earn a PhD in history from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Her dissertation was "The Power of Pan-Africanism: Tanzania/African Americans Linkages, 1947 – 1997."
Angellar Manguvo also used the same book by Mwakikagile, Relations Between Africans and African Americans..., together with other works, for her doctoral thesis, "The Relationship Between Ethnic Identity, Perceived Acceptance and Sociocultural Adjustment of African Students in the US," at the University of Missouri to get her her PhD.
Another Nigerian scholar, Rotimi T. Suberu, a political science lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, among different works by other scholars, in his analysis, "Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria," published in the African Studies Review 46, No. 2, September 2003, pp. 93–98.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria was also used by Dickson Onwuka Uduma, a Nigerian, who earned a master's degree in development and international relations from Aalborg University in Denmark. He wrote a thesis on Nigerian federalism and how it attempts to accommodate ethnicity and nationalism, at the same time, entitled, "Ethnic Identity Politics: Nigeria as a Case Study," and drew on the work of Godfrey Mwakikagile and other scholars.
Joseph Kuria Nyiri also used Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria by Godfrey Mwakikagile, together with other works by different scholars, to document his thesis and earn a master's degree in international studies when he submitted it to The Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. His thesis was "The Impact of Ethnic Conflict on Economic Development: The Case of Post-Election Violence in Kenya, 2007 - 2008."
Jimmy Ssentongo, a Ugandan, used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda, among other works by other scholars, to write his doctoral dissertation, “Ethnicity and Socio-Economic Exclusion in Uganda: Perceptions, Indicators and Spaces for Pluralism with Specific Reference to Cosmopolitan Kampala,” which he completed at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Professor Michael Vickers, University of Oxford, in his book Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria: Movement for a Mid-West State (Oxford, UK: WorldView Publishing, 2001), also cited Godfrey Mwakikagile, among other scholars, to document and support the central thesis of his book.
Gerald Anietie Ignatius Akata, a Nigerian, used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Military Coups in West Africa Since the Sixties, together with the works of other scholars, to complete his PhD dissertation in education, "Leadership in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Study of the Perceptions of Its Impact on the Acquired Leadership Skills of Expatriate Nigerian Postgraduates," at East Tennessee State University.
Michael Kweku Addison also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's work, Military Coups in West Africa Since the Sixties, together with others, to write his thesis and earn a master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. His thesis was "Preventing military intervention in West Africa: A case study of Ghana."
Joakim Kreutz used the same book by Mwakikagile, Military Coups in West Africa Since the Sixties, together with other works, to support his thesis for a doctoral degree from Uppsala University in Sweden. His dissertation was "Dismantling the Conflict Trap: Essays on Civil War Resolution and Relapse."
Daniel Eric Esser also used Military Coups in West Africa Africa Since the Sixties by Godfrey Mwakikagile, and other works by other scholars, to complete his dissertation and earn a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His dissertation was "How Local is Urban Governance in Fragile States? Theory and Practice of Capital City Politics in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan."
Nathan Wolcott Black also used Mwakikagile's Military Coups in West Africa Africa Since the Sixties, among other works, to write his PhD thesis in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His dissertation was "The Spread of Violent Civil Conflict: Rare, State-Driven, and Preventable."
Another scholar, Paul K. Bjerk, an American, used some of Godfrey Mwakikagile's works, including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, in his research for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation was "Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanganyika." Professor Bjerk also taught at Tumaini University in Tanzania for three years before he went to teach at Texas Tech University.
Thomas Molony, a lecturer in African studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and author of Nyerere: The Early Years, also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's work, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, among others, to complement his research.
Katrina Demulling of Boston University also relied on Godfrey Mwakikagile's work, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, together with the works of other scholars, to write her doctoral thesis, "We are One: The Emergence and Development of National Consciousness in Tanzania." As she stated:
"The primary works included in this discussion are: Godfrey Mwakikagile's Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, William Smith's We Must run While Others Walk: A Portrait of Africa's Julius Nyerere, A.B. Assensoh's African Political Leadership: Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius Nyerere, Juma Aley's Twenty One Years of Leadership Contrasts and Similarities, and John Charles Hatch's Two African Statesmen: Kaunda of Zambia and Nyerere of Tanzania. A number of other articles and books will also be referenced." - (Katrina Demulling, "We are One: The Emergence and Development of National Consciousness in Tanzania," Boston University Theses and Dissertations, 2015, p. 212).
Tanzanian scholar Mrisho Mbegu Malipula who became a university lecturer in his home country also used the same work by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, among others, to complete his doctoral degree at Ghent University. His dissertation is entitled "Ethnicity, Voting and Promises of the Independence Movement in Tanzania: The Case of the 2010 General Elections in Mwanza."
Prince Kwasi Bediako Frimpong, a Ghanaian, also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Africa: End of an Era, to complement his research for his thesis, "Nrumahism and Neo-Nkrumahism," to earn an M.A. degree from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
Christopher Richard Kilford used Godfrey Mwakikagile's works Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and Military Coups in West Africa since the Sixties, together with the works of other scholars, to complete his dissertation and earn a doctoral degree from Queen's University in Canada. His dissertation was "The Other Cold War: Canadian Military Assistance in the Developing World."
Alicia N. Altorfer-Ong also used Mwakikagile's books, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Product of the Cold War? among other works by different scholars and researchers, for her PhD thesis, "Old Comrades and New Brothers: A Historical Re-Examination of the Sino-Zanzibari and Sino-Tanzanian Bilateral Relationships in the 1960s," at the National University of Singapore.
Others who have used the same work by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, as well as other works by other scholars, include Thomas Fisher of the University of Edinburgh to earn a Ph.D. when he wrote his dissertation, "Chaga Elites and the Politics of Ethnicity in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania."
Many other scholars have used Mwakikagile's works in their studies including Katherine Kelter who earned her master's degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA, when she wrote her thesis, "Development in Tanzania: From Foreign Aid Dependency to Impact Investment." She used Mwakikagile's book, Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman," among other works by other scholars, to complete her research and earn her degree.
Professor Ronald Aminzade of the University of Minnesota also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, and The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Product of The Cold War?, among other works by other scholars, in his research for his book, Race, Nation and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013. As he states in his book concerning the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed extensively and which is also one of the subjects he has tackled in his work Race, Nation and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania:
"There is considerable disagreement among scholars about why Tanganyika chose to unite with the residents of a relatively small island off its coast. One compelling account highlights the role of foreign powers, especially the United States, which was worried about communists in Zanzibar's government and feared a 'Cuba off the coast of Africa' would spread revolution throughout the African continent. The Union did take place at the height of the Cold War, amid rumors of a Cuban presence on Zanzibar....
An alternative account of the creation of the Union was that it was a victory for African unity and pan-African solidarity. This view is forcefully argued by Godfrey Mwakikagile, who contends that the Union was an African initiative and an expression of Nyerere's pan-African commitment rather than a product of Cold War pressures....When Nyerere urged the Tanganyikan Parliament to approve the Union, he emphasized it was a first step toward a united Africa. It demonstrated that 'a single Government in Africa is not an impossible dream, but something which can be realized....If two countries can unite, then three can; if three can, then thirty can' (Nyerere, “The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar,” Freedom and Unity, p 292).
In justifying the Union as part of an effort to promote Pan-Africanism, Nyerere emphasized the commonalities between the mainland and the islands, including a common language and historical and cultural ties.... Nyerere further portrayed the Union as a product of 'the overall desire for African unity,' arguing that 'those who welcome unity on our continent must welcome this small move toward it.' 'It is an insult to Africa,' he said, 'to read cold war politics into every move toward African unity' (ibid)....
Support for the merger with the mainland from Abdulrahman Babu and Kassim Hanga, the two Marxist-Leninists who generated the most concern on the part of Western governments, suggests that the union was also not simply the product of a Western anticommunist conspiracy engineered by the United States and Great Britain." - (Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania, pp. 99 – 100, 101, 102).
Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Product of the Cold War? cited by Professor Ronald Aminzade, is a strong rebuttal to the argument that Cold War politics provided probably the only context in which the merger of the two East African countries took – and could have taken - place as if union of African countries is impossible unless it is externally engineered.
The union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and the Zanzibar revolution are subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has also addressed in detail in two of his other books: Why Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania and Africa in The Sixties.
Mwakikagile's books have been used by other scholars in their research in different academic disciplines.
German scholar Christa Deiwiks of ETH Zurich, a university in Zurich, Switzerland, where she also earned a master's degree in comparative and international studies, used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, a comparative study, in her research for her doctoral degree which she obtained from the same university. Her dissertation was "Ethnofederalism - A Slippery Slope Towards Secessionist Conflict?"
Godfrey Mwakikagile is also cited in the work of Dr. Stephen Macharia Magu, Political Economy, Social Development and Conflict in Africa.
Richard L. Whitehead used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman, together with the works of other scholars, to write a dissertation for his PhD at Temple University, USA. His dissertation was "Single-Party Rule in a Multiparty Age: Tanzania in Comparative Perspective."
Another book by Godfrey Mwakikagile that has been used extensively in post-graduate studies is Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis.
Scholars who have used the book, among many other works by other researchers, include Hannah Marie Vidmar when she wrote her thesis, "The East African Community: Questions of Sovereignty, Regionalism, and Identity," to earn her master's degree from Ohio State University; Kevin Keasbey Frank who used the same book, as well as others, to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi when he wrote his dissertation, "Strategic Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Divergent Paths of Uganda and Tanzania."
David O. Munyua also used the same book, Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis, when he wrote his thesis, "Evading the Endgame in an Insurgency Undertaking: The Case of the Lord's Resistance Army and Beyond," to earn his master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California; so did Vick Lukwago Ssali when he wrote his dissertation, "Ethnicity and Federalism in Uganda: Grassroots Perceptions," to earn a Ph.D. from Doshisha University in Japan.
Jane Ayeko-Kummeth also used the same work by Mwakikagile, Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis, when she wrote her doctoral thesis, "The Politics of Public Policy Decisions in Local Government in Uganda," to earn her degree from the University of Bayreuth in Germany; so did Bryn Higgs for his dissertation, "The International Criminal Court's Intervention in the Lord's Resistance Army war: impacts and Implications," to earn his doctorate from the University of Bradford in England.
Many others have used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis, to complete their studies.
Other scholars have also used other works by Godfrey Mwakikagile to pursue their studies in different fields. They include Andrew C. Dickens who used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnic Diversity and Integration in The Gambia, together with other works by other scholars, to earn his Ph.D. in economics from York University, Toronto, Canada, when he wrote his dissertation, "Essays on the Economics of Ethnolinguistic Differences"; so did Chutima Tontarawongsa who used Mwakikagile's work, The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa, among others by other scholars, to write her dissertation and earn a doctorate in economics from Duke University in North Carolina, USA. Her doctoral thesis was "Essays on Social Networks in Development."
Another book by Godfrey Mwakikagile, Burundi: The Hutu and the Tutsi: Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise, was used by Emily Katherine Maiden, together with other works, to earn her master's degree from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, USA. Her thesis was "Girls with Guns: The Disamarment and Demobilization of Female Ex-combatants in Africa."
Dickson Kanakulya, a Ugandan scholar, used several of Mwakikagile's works, together with others by other scholars, to earn his Ph.D. from Linkoping University in Sweden. Mwakikagile's books which Kanakulya used were Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman, Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda: The Land and its People, My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings, Why Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania, and Restructing the African State and Quest for Regional Integration: New Approaches. His doctoral thesis was "Governance and Development of the East African Community: The Ethical Sustainability Framework."
In pursuit of his doctoral degree at the University of Cape Town, Peter Haussler used one of Mwakikagile's works, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, among others by other scholars, to write his dissertation, "Leadership in Africa: A Hermeneutic Dialogue with Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere on Equality and Human Development."
Chandra R. Dunn earned a doctorate from The American University in Washington, D.C., after completing a dissertation based on the works of many scholars including Mwakikagile's Africa and America in The Sixties: A Decade that Changed the Nation and the Destiny of a Continent. Dunn's doctoral thesis was "Africa and Liberia in World Politics: An Analysis of Liberian Foreign Policy During the 20th Century."
Other people, not just academicians and students, have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile's works in different analyses across the ideological spectrum. They include Tom Hayden, a prominent American radical of the sixties who wrote the political manifesto of the New Left, the Port Huron Statement. He was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War, a leading supporter of the civil rights movement and a relentless social activist for decades. He used Godfrey Mwakikagile's works including Congo in The Sixties, among others by different scholars and political analysts, to complement his research and analysis when he wrote his book, Listen, Yankee!: Why Cuba Matters.
Others who also have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile in their studies in different analytical contexts include Rajend Methrie, "South Africa: The Rocky Road to National Building," in a book, Andrew Simpson,Language and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2008; Valéria Cristina Salles, "Social Representations Informing Discourse of Young Leaders: A Case Study of Tanzania," University of Cape Town, 2005; L.B. Inniss, "A Domestic Right of Return? Race, Rights, and Residency in New Orleans in the Aftermath of Katrina," in the Boston College Third World Law Journal, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2007; Eric M. Edi, in his book, Globalization and Politics in the Economic Community of West African States (Carolina Academic Press Studies on Globalization and Society), Carolina Academic Press, 2007; James John Chikago, in his book, Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Analysis and Solutions to Poverty Reduction, 2003; James Kwesi Anquandah, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, and Michel R. Doortmont, in their book, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Landmarks, Legacies, Expectations, Sub-Saharan Publishers, Accra, Ghana, 2007; Luciana Ricciutelli, Angela Rose Miles, Margaret McFadden in their book, Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges, Zed Books, London, 2005; Emmanuel Ike Udogu, in his book, African Renaissance in the Millennium: The Political, Social, and Economic Discourses on the Way Forward, Lexington Books, New York, 2007; and others.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books have been used by many other scholars in different analytical contexts in a number of countries in the Third World and in industrialised nations.
And his diagnosis of - and prescription for - Africa's ailments has also been cited by scholars and other people for its relevance in other parts of the Third World. As Dr. Hengene Payani, a political scientist at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, stated in his review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Africa is in A Mess on amazon.com, "the book is excellent, honest and thought-provoking and is relevant even in the context of Papua New Guinea, a country which has been ruined by greedy politicians." He also contacted Godfrey Mwakikagile to congratulate him for his work.
Although he has written mostly about Africa, and as a political scientist or as a political analyst, his works cover a wide range of scholarship including American studies.
One of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Black Conservatives in The United States, was cited by Christopher Alan Bracey, a professor of law and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, in support of his research when he also wrote a book about black conservatives entitled Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice, published in February 2008. Dr. Michael L. Ondaatje, a lecturer at The University of New Castle, Australia, also used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book on black conservatives, among other works by other scholars, for his doctoral dissertation on the rise of black conservative intellectuals in the United States. He earned his PhD from the University of Western Australia and wrote a book, Black Conservative Intellectuals in Modern America (University of Pennsylvania Press 2009) in which he cited Godfrey Mwakikagile's work to complement his research. The book is based on his doctoral dissertation.
Others who have used the same book, Black Conservatives in The United States by Godfrey Mwakikagile to complement their research include Professor Angela Lewis of the University of Alabama when she wrote her book, Conservatism in the Black Community: To the Right and Misunderstood; Robbin Shipp and Nicole Chiles in their work, Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice System, and Professor Cathy Schlund-Vials of the University of Connecticut in her book, Modeling Citizenship, among other scholars and researchers.
But there are limitations to the role played by people like Godfrey Mwakikagile in their quest for fundamental change in African countries. Their contribution is limited in one fundamental respect: They are not actively involved with the masses at the grassroots level precisely because of what they are. They belong to an elite class, and the concepts they expound as well as the solutions they propose are discussed mainly by fellow elites but rarely implemented.
This should not be misconstrued as unwarranted criticism of Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings or the role he plays in the quest for fundamental change in Africa. It is mere acknowledgement of the limitations he faces in his attempt to accomplish this task in conjunction with his brethren across the continent.
Still, there is no question that in many cases, only a few members of the African elite have played and continue to play the role of intellectual activists like Dr. Walter Rodney who wrote his best-selling book,How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, in the early 1970s when he was teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; coincidentally during the same period when Godfrey Mwakikagile was a member of the editorial staff at the Daily News in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam. In fact, it was one of his colleagues at the Daily News, renowned Kenyan journalist and socio-political analyst Philip Ochieng, who edited Walter Rodney's book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. The book was published by Tanzania Publishing House (TPH), Dar es Salaam, in 1973. Ochieng also wrote a feature article, "How Africa Developed Europe," in the Daily News in 1972, about Rodney's book, not long before the book was first published by Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London, that year.
In an interview with one of Kenya's leading newspapers, the Daily Nation, Nairobi, on 6 July 2013, where he worked as an editor and columnist, Philip Ochieng, who coincidentally was also a close friend of Barack Obama Sr., the father of US President Barack Obama, stated that it was he who edited Rodney's book when he was working at the Daily News in Dar es Salaam in 1972. As he stated:
"Walter Rodney was my friend and I even edited his seminal work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dar es Salaam was the world headquarters of intellectual debate those days."
One of the revolutionary thinkers who was drawn to Tanzania was Che Guevara who, a few years earlier, stayed in Dar es Salaam for many months from October 1965 to end of February 1966 after his attempts to help Lumumba's followers fight Western-backed forces in the former Belgian Congo failed. He also wrote his famous book, The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, when he was staying in Dar es Salaam during those months.
It was also in the same year Che Guevara left Tanzania that Walter Rodney, who strongly admired Che, first arrived in Dar es Salaam to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam. He taught there from 1966 to 1967. He then left Dar es Salaam and went to teach at his alma mater, the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, Kingston, Jamaica. In October 1968, the Jamaican government banned Rodney from teaching at the university. He was declared persona non grata and returned to Tanzania to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam from 1969 to 1974 before going back to Guyana, his home country, in the same year. He was actively involved in intellectual debates in Dar es Salaam, and at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, where he famously debated renowned Kenyan academic, Professor Ali Mazrui, whose ideological orientation sharply differed from Rodney's. Mazrui was teaching at Makerere during that period. He was the head of the political science department and dean of the faculty of arts and social sciences.
Walter Rodney also founded and led a discussion group at the University of Dar es Salaam whose members included Yoweri Museveni who was a student at the university during that period and who later became president of Uganda. Museveni was also one of Rodney's students.
Before returning to Tanzania from Jamaica in 1969, Walter Rodney was actively involved with the masses when he taught at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. He was expelled from Jamaica because of his political and intellectual activism and went to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam in a country where his views and his role as an activist intellectual found acceptance under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere who was a superb intellectual himself and who was acknowledged as one even by some of his critics such as Professor Ali Mazrui.
In his book, On Heroes and Uhuru-Worship: Essays on Independent Africa, and in some of his other writings, Professor Mazrui described Nyerere as "the most original thinker" among all the leaders in Anglophone Africa, and Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor in Francophone Africa. Mazrui also described Nyerere as the most intellectual of the East African presidents, an attribute which enabled Walter Rodney to thrive in Tanzania as an intellectual activist. As he stated in his lecture at the University of Nairobi, "Towards Re-Africanizing African Universities: Who Killed Intellectualism in Post-Colonial Africa?, in September 2003":
"The most intellectual of East Africa's Heads of State at the time was Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania - a true philosopher, president and original thinker."
And in an interview with The Gambia Echo in February 2008, Professor Mazrui, who on other occasions described Nyerere as Africa's most intellectual leader, also stated:
"The fact that Nkrumah had a greater positive impact on me than has any other leader does not necessarily mean that I admire Nkrumah the most. Intellectually, I admired Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania higher than most politicians anywhere in the world. Nyerere and I also met more often over the years from 1967 to 1997 approximately. I am also a great fan of Nelson Mandela. By ethical standards Mandela is greater than Nyerere; but by intellectual standards Nyerere is greater than Mandela."
Years before then, Professor Mazrui also stated the following:
"Julius Nyerere is the most enterprising of African political philosophers. He has philosophized extensively in both English and Kiswahili.
He has tried to tear down the language barriers between ancestral cultural philosophy and the new ideological tendency of the post-colonial era.
Nyerere is superbly eloquent in both English and Kiswahili. He has allowed the two languages to enrich each other as their ideas have passed through his intellect.
His concept of ujamaa as a basis of African socialism was itself a brilliant cross-cultural transition. Ujamaa traditionally implied ethnic solidarity. But Nyerere transformed it from a dangerous principle of ethnic nepotism into more than a mere equivalent of the European word 'socialism.'
In practice his socialist policies did not work - as much for global reasons as for domestic. But in intellectual terms Nyerere is a more original thinker than Kwame Nkrumah - and linguistically much more innovative.
Nkrumah tried to update Lenin - from Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism to Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Nyerere translated Shakespeare into Kiswahili instead - both Julius Ceasar and The Merchant of Venice.
Nkrumah's exercise in Leninism was a less impressive cross-cultural achievement than Nyerere's translation of Shakespeare into an African language.
Yet both these African thinkers will remain among the towering figures of the twentieth century in politics and thought." - (Ali A. Mazrui in Ali A. Mazrui, ed., General History of Africa VIII: Africa Since 1935, Berkeley, California, USA: University of California Press, 1993, p. 674; Ali A. Mazrui, African Thought in Comparative Perspective, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p. 22).
Jonathan Power, a British conservative who described Nyerere as "independent Africa's greatest leader" but who was critical of his socialist policies and one-party rule, stated the following in his article, "Lament for Independent Africa's Greatest Leader":
"Tanzania in East Africa has long been one of the 25 poorest countries in the world. But there was a time when it was described, in terms of its political influence, as one of the top 25. It punched far above its weight. That formidable achievement was the work of one man (Julius Nyerere), now lying close to death in a London hospital....
His extraordinary intelligence, verbal and literary originality...and apparent commitment to non-violence made him not just an icon in his own country but of a large part of the activist sixties' generation in the white world who, not all persuaded of the heroic virtues of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, desperately looked for a more sympathetic role model.
Measured against most of his peers, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, he towered above them. On the intellectual plane only the rather remote president of Senegal, the great poet and author of Negritude, Leopold Senghor, came close to him.
Not only was Nyerere financially open, modest and honest, he was uncorrupted by fame and position. He remained, throughout his life, self-effacing and unpretentious. Above all, he inspired his own people to resist the tugs of tribalism and pull together as one people. To this day Tanzania remains one of the very few African countries that has not experienced serious tribal division....
He was to become the eminence grise of the southern African liberation movements in Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa extending a wide open embrace to their operations. For this his country paid a heavy price, both in material terms but also because of Nyerere's role as interlocutor with the West demanded enormous amounts of time and energy. - (Jonathan Power, "Lament for Independent Africa's Greatest Leader," TFF Jonathan Power Columns, London, 6 October 1999).
Professor Ali Mazrui also paid glowing tribute to Nyerere when Nyerere died in October 1999. As he stated in his article "Nyerere and I":
"He was one of the giants of the 20th century.... He did bestride this narrow world like an African colossus....
'The two top Swahili-speaking intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century are Julius Nyerere and Ali Mazrui.' That is how I was introduced to an Africanist audience in 1986 when I was on a lecture-tour of the United States to promote my television series: The Africans: A Triple Heritage (BBC-PBS). I regarded the tribute as one of the best compliments I had ever been paid. In reality, Mwalimu Nyerere was much more eloquent as a Swahili orator than I although Kiswahili is my mother tongue and not his.
In the month of Nyerere's death (14 October 1999), the comparison between the Mwalimu and I took a sadder form. A number of organisations in South Africa had united to celebrate Africa's Human Rights Day on October 22. Long before he was admitted to hospital, they had invited him to be their high-profile banquet speaker.
When Nyerere was incapacitated with illness, and seemed to be terminally ill, the South Africans turned to Ali Mazrui as his replacement. I was again flattered to have been regarded as Nyerere's replacement. However, the notice was too short, and I was not able to accept the South African invitation....
Let me also refer to Walter Rodney. He was a Guyanese scholar who taught at the University of Dar es Salaam and became one of the most eloquent voices of the left on the campus in Tanzania. When Walter Rodney returned to Guyana, he was assassinated.
Chedi Jagan, on being elected president of Guyana, created a special chair in honour of Walter Rodney. Eventually I was offered the chair and became its first incumbent. My inaugural lecture was on the following topic: 'Comparative Leadership: Walter Rodney, Julius K. Nyerere and Martin Luther King Jr.'
After delivering the lecture, I subsequently met Nyerere one evening in Pennsylvania, USA. I gave him my Walter Rodney lecture. He read it overnight and commented on it the next morning at breakfast. He promised to send me a proper critique of my Rodney lecture on his return to Dar es Salaam. He never lived long enough to send me the critique....
Julius Nyerere was my Mwalimu too. It was a privilege to learn so much from so great a man." - (Ali A. Mazrui, "Nyerere and I," Africa Resource Center, October 1999; Daily Nation, Nairobi Kenya, 26 December 1999).
Professor Walter Rodney himself was a great admirer of Nyerere as a leader and as an intellectual even before he went to Tanzania to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam.
After Rodney left Tanzania in 1974 and returned to Guyana, he continued to be actively involved with the workers at the grassroots level until he was assassinated in June 1980 by a government agent when Guyana was under the leadership of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
Most African intellectuals don't do that. They don't work with the masses at the grassroots level. And that severely limits their role as agents of dynamic and fundamental change in Africa.44
African writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other intellectuals are also severely compromised in their mission because most African leaders don't want to change. Therefore they don't listen to them—in many cases the entire state apparatus needs to be dismantled to bring about meaningful change.45
But, in spite of the limitations and the obstacles they face, many African writers and other intellectuals still play a very important role in articulating a clear vision for the future of Africa. And Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings definitely fit this category because of his analysis of the African condition and the solutions he proposes, although he is not a political activist like other African writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in neighbouring Kenya or Wole Soyinka in Nigeria.
But even they had to flee their homelands, at different times, for their own safety, in spite of the courage they had to contend with the political establishment in their home countries, and sought sanctuary overseas although that has not been the case with Godfrey Mwakikagile and many other Africans who once lived, have lived or continue to live in other countries or outside Africa for different reasons.
Writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other members of the African elite have a major role to play in the development of Africa.46 They do have an impact on constructive dialogue involving national issues. But it is not the kind of impact that reverberates across the spectrum all the way down to the grassroots level precisely because they are not an integral part of the masses, and also because they are not actively involved with the masses to transform society.
So, while they generate ideas, they have not been able to effectively transmit those ideas to the masses without whose involvement fundamental change in Africa is impossible, except at the top, recycling the elite. And while they identify with the masses in terms of suffering and as fellow Africans, many of them - not all but many of them - have not and still don't make enough sacrifices in their quest for social and political transformation of African countries. And Godfrey Mwakikagile is fully aware of these shortcomings, and apparent contradictions, in the role played by the African elite. He's one himself.
Yet, he has not explicitly stated so in his writings concerning this problem of African intellectuals; a dilemma similar to the one faced by the black intelligentsia in the United States and which was addressed by Harold Cruse, an internationally renowned black American professor who taught at the University of Michigan for many years, in his monumental study, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual. The book was first published in 1967 at the peak of the civil rights movement, five years before Godfrey Mwakikagile went to the United States for the first time as a student.
But that does not really explain why Godfrey Mwakikagile has not fully addressed the subject, the dilemma African intellectuals face in their quest for fundamental change, especially in his books - The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Done, and Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood - which are almost exclusively devoted to such transformation in Africa in the post-colonial era.
African leaders have failed Africa. But African intellectuals themselves have not done enough to help transform Africa into a better society.
Still, Godfrey Mwakikagile belongs to a group of African writers and the African elite who believe that the primary responsibility of transforming Africa lies in the hands of the Africans themselves, and not foreigners, and that acknowledgement of mistakes by African leaders is one of the first steps towards bringing about much-needed change in African countries; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings.
Political Science Professor Claude E. Welch of the State University of New York-Buffalo, in his review of one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books - Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties - published in the African Studies Review (Vol. 45, No. 3, December 2002, p. 114) - described the author as merciless in his condemnation of African tyrants.
The same book was also cited by James C. Owens of the University of Virginia in his article, "Government failure in Sub-Saharan Africa: The International Community's Response," in the Virginia Journal of International Law, 2002. He used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, among other works, to document the failure of leadership in many African countries in the post-colonial era.
And that is valid criticism of African leadership in post-colonial Africa by Godfrey Mwakikagile and others. Corrupt and despotic rulers don't deserve mercy. They don't deserve sympathy. They are not entitled to it. They have destroyed Africa.
Mwakikagile advocates for a closer union within Africa in the form of an African confederation or African federal government starting with economic integration, leading to an African common market, and eventually, resulting in a political union. Concretely, he proposed the following plan for a Union of African states:
"If the future of Africa lies in federation, that federation could even be a giant federation of numerous autonomous units which have replaced the modern African state in order to build, on a continental or sub-continental scale, a common market, establish a common currency, a common defense and maybe even pursue a common foreign policy under some kind of central authority - including collective leadership on rotational basis - which Africans think is best for them."
Mkwakikagile identifies the type of government best suited for the African situation as a democracy by consensus, which, in his view, would allow all social, ethnic and regional factions to freely express themselves. Such a democracy should take the form of a government of national unity, inclusive of both the winners and the losers in the electoral process, and would entail a multiparty system approved by national referendum; it should also be based on extreme decentralization down to the lowest grassroots level to enable the masses, not just the leaders and the elite, to participate in formulating policies and making decisions which affect their lives. That is the only way it can be a people's government and federation that belongs to the masses and ordinary citizens instead of being a government and federation of only the elite and professional politicians. Let the people decide. He has elaborated on that in his other books, Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century: What Lies Ahead and Restructuring The African State and Quest for Regional Integration: New Approaches.
He also believes that in this democratic system the tenure of the president must be limited to one term (preferably five to six years), and the tenure of the members of the national legislatures to two three-year terms.
In what is probably his most controversial book, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done, Godfrey Mwakikagile strongly criticises most of the leaders of post-colonial Africa for tyranny and corruption, and for practising tribalism, a common theme in the works of many African writers and other people including well-known ones and many African scholars in and outside Africa. But his book stands out as one of the most blunt ever written about Africa's rotten leadership.
Unfortunately, because of its vitriolic condemnation of most African leaders during the post-colonial era, the book has been cited by some people, who obviously have not read it well if at all, as a clarion call for the re-colonisation of Africa (because things are so bad, colonial rule was better) although the author says exactly the opposite in his work.47
One of the people he has quoted in his book articulating a similar position is Moeletsi Mbeki, the younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who said in September 2004 that Africans were better off under colonial rule than they are today under African leadership in the post-colonial period.
Mbeki also said African leaders and bureaucrats were busy stealing money and keeping it in foreign countries while colonial rulers built and maintained the infrastructure and ran their African colonies efficiently. He was quoted by BBC in a report entitled "Africa 'Better Colonial Times'" published on 22 September 2004:
"The average African is worse off now than during the colonial era, the brother of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has said. Moeletsi Mbeki accused African elites of stealing money and keeping it abroad, while colonial rulers planted crops and built roads and cities. 'This is one of the depressing features of Africa, he said....
'The average African is poorer than during the age of colonialism. In the 1960s African elites/rulers, instead of focusing on development, took surplus for their own enormous entourages of civil servants without ploughing anything back into the country,' he said.
In July, a United Nations report said that Africa was the only continent where poverty had increased in the past 20 years.
Moeletsi Mbeki was addressing a meeting of the South African Institute of International Affairs, which he heads." (“Africa 'Better in Colonial Times,'" BBC, 22 September 2004).
Yet in spite of all that, Godfrey Mwakikagile unequivocally states in his book, Africa is in A Mess, that he does not support any attempt or scheme, by anybody, to recolonise Africa, but also bluntly states that African countries have lost their sovereignty to donor nations and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dominated by Western powers including those who once colonised Africa and are therefore virtual colonies already.
He also contends that African countries have really never been free in spite of the instruments of sovereignty they are supposed to have. He also warns about the dangers of the Second Scramble for Africa by the industrialised nations which are busy exploiting Africa's resources for their own benefit and contends that globalisation is in many ways a new form of imperialism.
Yet he has wrongly been portrayed, along with some prominent African and European scholars including Professor Ali Mazrui, Christoph Blocher, Mahmood Mamdani, Peter Niggli, and R. W. Johnson as someone who advocates the recolonisation of Africa.48
Godfrey Mwakikagile states exactly the opposite in his book Africa is in A Mess.
The premier of Western Cape province in South Africa, Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party in the country, also cited Godfrey Mwakikagile in her speech in parliament on 28 March 2017 in defence of what she wrote about colonialism in her Tweets. She also cited Nelson Mandela, Professor Ali Mazrui, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and former prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, saying they articulated the same position she did on the impact of colonialism on the colonised.
The tweets caused a political firestorm in South Africa where her critics contended that she defended colonial rule – she clearly did not – and called for her resignation as premier of Western Cape, although she also had a lot of support across racial lines for what she said; probably more support than criticism as was demonstrated by the comments on social media including South African newspapers and Al Jazeera. Her Tweets were also covered by BBC. Her speech was also posted on Tanzania's leading social media outlet, Jamiiforums.
Helen Zille was a leading political activist during the apartheid era and campaigned against racial oppression and discrimination, incurring the wrath of the white minority regime. She was the first news reporter to report that South African leading political activist, Steve Biko, had been killed in police custody. According to a report by BBC, "Helen Zille of South Africa's Democratic Alliance - A Profile," 25 April 2014:
"Long before pursuing a career in politics, Ms Zille was a journalist with the now-defunct liberal Rand Daily Mail newspaper. Her greatest scoop as a political reporter came in 1977 when she uncovered how Black Consciousness activist Steve Biko - Ms Ramphele's partner - had been tortured to death while in police custody."
And as she stated in her speech in the Western Cape parliament, which was reprinted in some South African newspapers including the Daily Maverick under the title “From the Inside: A debate of national importance” and on Times Live, “Why I raised the subject of colonialism on Twitter”:
“There is no question that colonialism was driven by greed and oppressive intent. The question for countries today is whether they are able, like Singapore, to leverage aspects of the legacy of an oppressive past to their advantage....
In online conversations I wanted to raise this question in a South African context. As we all now know, this caused a volcanic political eruption. In the process many untruths and fabrications were disseminated including false allegations that I defended, justified or praised colonialism or apartheid; failure to distinguish between an evil system and the question of what can be re-purposed from its legacy; outright fabrications that I have been charged "over racism"; no such charge exists.
If anyone genuinely (i.e., without animus or a private agenda) thought I was actually defending, justifying or praising colonialism, I apologised unreservedly and stressed that this was not so. Many prominent people have repeatedly made the same point as I, including Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Godfrey Mwakikagile and even a current matric history text book.
So why the mass hysteria when I made exactly the same point?...
I am glad we are having this debate today because South Africa needs it. Debate requires rational argument. I have no intention of settling scores, only setting out facts.
This debate is about a series of tweets relating to lessons learnt from my recent visit to Singapore and Japan.
None of them defended, justified or praised colonialism or apartheid. I can factually say that few in this house have put as much on the line to fight apartheid as I did.
Of course, colonialism had a diabolical impact worldwide, including South Africa. That was the very premise of my tweets. Anyone who read them without a personal or political agenda would have understood that. If you say the consequences of something were not ONLY negative, you are saying most WERE negative.
But if there was anyone who genuinely thought I was praising, defending or justifying colonialism, I apologised unreservedly and stressed that this was not so. I do so again.
In South Africa, colonialism and apartheid subjugated and oppressed a majority, and benefitted a minority, on the basis of race. This is indeed indefensible, and I have never supported, justified, praised or promoted it, as my life story attests.
My visit to Japan and Singapore, one a coloniser, the other colonised, was eye-opening. It seemed to me that the colonised has overtaken the coloniser on the world stage, and I thought it worthwhile asking why.
Let’s start with another question. If I were to state that a worldwide legacy of colonialism was causing on average 3,287 human deaths daily, people would justifiably be outraged if anyone suggested the benefits might outweigh the cost. I am talking about the motorcar. Today in South Africa, this colonial left-over is not only a means of transport but the ultimate status symbol.
Of course, you may argue that the intention of the motorcar was not conquest. It was convenience; People wanted cars.
Fair point.
So let me look at another example: if I said that zealots with a mission using colonialism’s methods of conflict and conquest had killed countless millions of people to impose their ideas on others, you would be appalled if anyone suggested the consequences were not only negative.
Of course, I am talking about most of the world’s dominant religions, Speaker.
To be consistent on the principle, if people believe the price was too high to acknowledge any advantage, then they mustn’t drive a car, or visit most houses of religious worship.
According to modern definitions, there are only 10 countries in the world that have never been colonised. And Africans have not only been the victims of conquest and genocide. They have also been its perpetrators.
Some countries that were brutally colonised in living memory have been spectacularly successful; many that have been free for decades, have not; the same can be said about the handful of countries that have never been colonised. Whether or not a country was colonised is not a predictor of success in the 21st century. In Singapore, they have discussed for decades what factors lead to their economic transformation. I wanted my series of tweets to initiate that debate here.
Many much more famous people have already expressed themselves on the subject and reached the same conclusions I did.
I have written before about how our own former President Nelson Mandela repeatedly discussed this issue. Today I quote from a speech he gave at Magdalene College, Cambridge, on 2 May 2001:
'Britain,' he said, 'was the main colonial power in our history, with all of the attendant problems and consequences of such a relationship.
Much of our traditional systems and institutions still carry the scars of the distortions inflicted by colonial rule. At the same time, so much of what we have to build on in the competitive modern world is also the result of what we could gain from that interaction and engagement with Britain. Our indigenous understanding of the rule of law, viz that not kings or chiefs but the institutions of law and democracy are supreme, was strengthened and enhanced by our reference to the British understanding of that concept. If there were one single positive aspect that I had to identify from the history of colonial contact between our two countries, it would be that of the educational benefits our country derived from it.'
Time does not permit me to quote so many others. Nigerian Nobel laureate Chinua Achebe’s later work, Ali Mazrui, Godfrey Mwakikagile, Manmohan Singh. I could go on and on.
But more than that, Speaker: we continue to teach exactly the same lesson to our own schoolchildren every day.
I have brought to this house today, Speaker, a history textbook, written in the 21st century, and used in our schools from 2004 to the present. Its lead author is prominent academic historian, Dr Maanda Mulaudzi. For 13 years, Speaker, many thousands of born-free South Africans have studied from this book, maybe even some honourable members here today.
It devotes a significant section to the devastating effects of colonialism in Africa and South Africa. And rightly so.
And then, it asks an interesting question:
'Did colonisation have any positive effects?'
And I quote:
'Although most historians emphasise the negative effects that colonisation had on Africa, some also show that it did have some positive effects. For example, the colonisation of East Africa at last put an end to the slave trade there, which had continued to exist long after it had come to an end in West Africa. Colonisation also brought with it Western education, medicine and technology as well as language, cultural, and sporting links that have enabled Africa to interact with the rest of the world. Part of the legacy of colonisation has been the development of Africa into a network of modern, independent states.' (In Search of History, sixth impression 2005, page 182).
Why have we tolerated this textbook in our schools for so long? Will we demand that Dr Mulaudzi be fired?
Of course not. So why the political tsunami over what I said?"
In his speech on the Motion for Ghana's Independence to the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly on 10 July 1953, Kwame Nkrumah stated:
“The strands of history have brought our two countries together. We have provided much material benefit to the British people, and they in turn have taught us many good things. We want to continue to learn from them the best they can give us and we hope that they will find in us qualities worthy of emulation.” – (Kwame Nkrumah, in George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism? The Coming Struggle for Africa, London: Dennis Dobson, 1956, p. 412).
Yet he was not accused of defending colonialism when he said the British had taught Africans many good things and Africans would continue to learn from them after the end of colonial rule. That is because he did not defend colonialism when he said that. It was a historical fact. Nkrumah was an uncompromising foe of colonialism who also had fierce pride in his African heritage and identity. He once said: "I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me." He would be the last person to be accused of being an apologist for colonial rule because of what he said in his speech to the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly about four years before he led his country to independence as the new nation of Ghana.
He blazed the trail for the African independence movement when he led his country to become the first in sub-Saharan Africa to emerge from colonial rule and is sometimes acknowledged as the father of African independence. Yet that did not stop him from assessing the impact of colonial rule in its proper historical context even if some people thought he was glorifying the colonial rulers when he said the British had taught Africans many good things.
An article about Helen Zille in Wikipedia provides the following details about her and her critics:
"In March 2017, after a trip to Singapore and Japan..., Zille commented on Twitter that the legacy of colonialism was not all bad because it had left a legacy of infrastructure and institutions, which South Africa could build upon....
Following accusations that she was defending colonialism, Zille noted that her views had been misconstrued.... Among those who disagreed with her were other DA members, such as Mbali Ntuli, who stated that colonialism was 'only' negative, and who herself faces a disciplinary hearing in 2017 for 'liking' in December 2016 a Facebook comment that characterised Zille as racist; Phumzile van Damme, who stated that there was not 'a single aspect of [colonialism] that can be said to be positive or beneficial to Africans'; and party leader Mmusi Maimane, who stated 'Colonialism‚ like Apartheid‚ was a system of oppression and subjugation. It can never be justified', but also said in the aftermath that Zille was not a racist and that she had 'consistently fought oppression.' DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia defended Zille as well-intentioned. He agreed with her that colonialism was not solely negative, and noted that many prominent intellectuals, including Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Godfrey Mwakikagile and Manmohan Singh, have expressed similar sentiments.
Kwame Nkrumah, who led the Gold Coast, renamed Ghana, to become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence, expressed similar sentiments in his speech on the Motion for Ghana's Independence to the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly on 10 July 1953....Nkrumah was an anti-colonialist of immense stature and was never accused of being an apologist for colonial rule. He was never subjected to vitriolic condemnation the way Helen Zille was when she articulated the same position he did; nor was Nelson Mandela who expressed the same view. Chinua Achebe and other African scholars, Ali Mazrui and Godfrey Mwakikagile, expressed similar views without incurring the wrath of other Africans the way Helen Zille did.
Moeletsi Mbeki, the younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, made similar remarks without causing a political firestorm when he said life for Africans was better during colonial times in terms of how governments discharged their responsibilities, according to a BBC report,'Africa 'better in colonial times'', 22 September 2004....Yet his remarks did not draw public condemnation as an endorsement of colonial rule the way Zille's comments did.
The ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters both demanded that Zille be removed from her position as Western Cape Premier.
As a result of her online comments, Zille was referred to the DA's federal legal commission for a disciplinary hearing on charges of bringing the party into disrepute and damaging the party. Following this news, Zille further defended herself by noting that Nelson Mandela had held the same opinion about colonialism." - (Helen Zille, Wikipedia, 17 September 2017).
Godfrey Mwakikagile has articulated the same position – Nkrumah, Helen Zille, Mandela, Ali Mazrui, Chinua Achebe and others have on the legacy of colonialism – in his book, Africa is in A Mess and in his other works including Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood.
In fact, the title of his book Africa is in A Mess, although not the sub-title, comes from President Julius Nyerere who said exactly the same words in 1985: "Africa is in a mess."
Godfrey Mwakikagile explicitly states that in his book, saying he got the title from Nyerere's statement and felt it was appropriate for his work, although the tone and content might be disturbing to some people. He is brutally frank about the continent's deplorable condition.
But the book echoes the sentiments of tens of millions of Africans across the continent who live in misery and those who are frustrated by lack of fundamental change in African leadership notorious for corruption and other vices including tribalism and tyranny as Godfrey Mwakikagile bluntly states in his work.
His fellow Africans who have reviewed the book on amazon.com and elsewhere in different publications and on the Internet strongly support the author and share his concerns about Africa's plight and the misguided leadership the continent has had to endure for decades since independence.49
One African reviewer, Khadija Mona Kabba, a member of Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabba's family, also contacted the author to congratulate him for writing such an honest book, as she stated in her review of the book on amazon.com. And she provided an additional perspective, as an insider, that shed more light on Africa's predicament in her review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Africa is in A Mess, and said she was going to work with him on a joint project about Africa.
And in the same book, Africa is in A Mess, Godfrey Mwakikagile is also highly critical of Western powers for ruthlessly exploiting Africa even today in collusion with many African leaders.
His harsh criticism of bad leadership on the African continent prompted Ghanaian columnist and political analyst Francis Kwarteng to put him in the same category with George Ayittey, a Ghanaian professor of economics at The American University, Washington, D.C., and author of Africa Betrayed and Africa in Chaos, among other books. As he stated in his article, "Great Lessons From Dr. Yaw Nyarko's Work," GhanaWeb, 8 January 2014: "Prof. Ayittey's intellectual assault on Africa is, probably, no different from Godfrey Mwakikagile's."
Yet there is a clear distinction between the two African scholars, reinforced by Godfrey Mwakikagile's ideological orientation and strong Pan-Africanist views which separate him from Professor George Ayittey who does not share the philosophical conceptions, in a Pan-African context, of prominent Pan-Africanist leaders such as Nkrumah and Nyerere the way Mwakikagile does.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books have also been reviewed in a number of academic publications, including the highly prestigious academic journal, African Studies Review, by leading scholars in their fields. They include Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties which was reviewed in that journal by Professor Claude E. Welch of the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York, Buffalo; and Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria reviewed by Nigerian Professor Khadijat K. Rashid of Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.50
His other books have also been reviewed in the African Studies Review and in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. They include Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation which were reviewed in the African Studies Review; and Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era which was also reviewed in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.
Another one of his books, Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall, was reviewed by Professor E. Ofori Bekoe in Africa Today, Vol. 62, no. 4, Summer 2016, an academic journal published by Indiana University Press.
See also an analysis of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, in A. Simpson and B. Akintunde Oyetade, "Nigeria: Ethno-linguistic Competition in the Giant of Africa," published inLanguage and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 172–198; and Godfrey Mwakikagile's Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties in P.J. McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," in Armed Forces & Society, Sage Publications, in 2006.
For more reviews of his books, see also Expo Times, Sierra Leone; The Mirror, Zimbabwe, and other publications including those featured on the Internet.51
He has also written about race relations in the United States and relations between continental Africans and people of African descent in the diaspora. His titles in these areas include Black Conservatives in The United States; Relations Between Africans and African Americans; and Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.
Professor Kwame Essien of Gettysburg College, later Lehigh University, a Ghanaian, reviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2011, an academic journal of Columbia University, New York, and described it as an "insightful and voluminous" work covering a wide range of subjects from a historical and contemporary perspective, addressing some of the most controversial issues in relations between the two. It is also one of the most important books on the subject of relations between Africans and African Americans.
The book has also been discussed on different forums on the Internet. It was also the subject of a radio talk show in the United States when it was first published. The talk show was on WCLM, Richmond, Virginia, and the book was discussed three different times in April and May 2006. It was the station's Book Club Choice and generated a lot of interest. The show was broadcast nationwide and could be heard on the Internet worldwide. Listeners were invited to call in and participate in the discussion. The main guests who discussed the book were Professor Adisa A. Alkebulan, an African American, of San Diego State University, and Professor Albion Mends, a Ghanaian, of Central Missouri State University, also known as the University of Central Missouri. The host of the show said she received hundreds of emails from different parts of the United States and other countries on the subject of relations between Africans and African Americans when the book was being discussed.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books are found in public and university libraries around the world and have been adopted for class use at many colleges and universities in the United States and other countries. Most college and university libraries in the United States have his books.
Titles by Godfrey Mwakikagile:
Economic Development in Africa, 1999
Africa and the West, 2000
The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, 2001
Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, 2001
Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, 2001
Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, 2002
Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done, 2004
Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman, 2004
Black Conservatives: Are They Right or Wrong?, 2004
Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era: Expanded Edition with Photos, 2005
Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, 2005
Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties: My Reflections and Narratives from The White Settler Community and Others, 2006
African Countries: An Introduction, 2006
Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, 2006
Life under Nyerere, 2006
Black Conservatives in The United States, 2006
Africa and America in The Sixties: A Decade That Changed The Nation and The Destiny of A Continent, 2006
Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans: Tensions, Indifference and Harmony, 2007
Investment Opportunities and Private Sector Growth in Africa, 2007
Kenya: Identity of A Nation, 2007
South Africa in Contemporary Times, 2008
South Africa and Its People,2008
African Immigrants in South Africa, 2008
The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Product of The Cold War?, 2008
Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda: The Land and Its People, 2009
My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings, 2009
Uganda: The Land and Its People, 2009
Botswana Since Independence, 2009
Congo in The Sixties, 2009
A Profile of African Countries, 2009
Africans and African Americans: Complex Relations - Prospects and Challenges, 2009
Africa 1960 - 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, 2009
Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Fifth Edition, 2010
Zambia: Life in an African Country, 2010
Belize and Its Identity: A Multicultural Perspective, 2010
Ethnic Diversity and Integration in The Gambia: The Land, The People and The Culture, 2010
Zambia: The Land and Its People, 2010
Belize and Its People: Life in A Multicultural Society, 2010
The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa, 2010
South Africa as a Multi-Ethnic Society, 2010
Life in Kenya: The Land and The People, Modern and Traditional Ways, 2010
Botswana: Profile of A Nation, 2010
Uganda: Cultures and Customs and National Identity, 2011
Burundi: The Hutu and The Tutsi: Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise, 2012
Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study, 2012
The People of Uganda: A Social Perspective, 2012
Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis, 2012
Obote to Museveni: Political Transformation in Uganda Since Independence, 2012
Uganda Since The Seventies, 2012
Civil Wars in Rwanda and Burundi: Conflict Resolution in Africa, 2013
Peace and Stability in Rwanda and Burundi: The Road Not Taken, 2013
Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century: What Lies Ahead, 2013
Statecraft and Nation Building in Africa: A Post-colonial Study, 2014
Africa in The Sixties, 2014
Remembering The Sixties: A Look at Africa, 2014
Restructuring The African State and Quest for Regional Integration: New Approaches, 2014
Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, Revised Edition, 2014
Post-colonial Africa: A General Study, 2014
British Honduras to Belize: Transformation of a Nation, 2014
Why Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania, 2014
Congo in The Sixties, Revised Edition, 2014
The People of Kenya and Uganda, 2014
Namibia: Conquest to Independence: Formation of a Nation, 2015
Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall, 2015
Africa: Dawn of a New Era, 2015
The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Formation of Tanzania and its Challenges, 2016
The People of Ghana: Ethnic Diversity and National Unity, 2017
Africa in Transition: Witness to Change, 2018
The African Liberation Struggle: Reflections, 2018
Life under British Colonial Rule: Recollections of an African and a British Administrator in Tanganyika and Southern Rhodesia, 2018
1. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, ISBN 9789987160129, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2009, p. 19. See also, G. Mwakikagile, My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings, ISBN 9789987160051, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2009, p. 21.
2. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, p. 20; My Life as an African, p. 367; The London Review of Politics, Society, Literature, Art & Science, Volume 9, 24 September 1864, p. 341: "To open up this central African plateau to a legitimate and profitable trade with England and to European colonization is the leading feature of Dr. Livingstone's scheme." See also Philemon A.K. Mushi, History and Development of Education in Tanzania, ISBN 9789976604948, Dar es Salaam University Press,Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2009, p. 64; Bella Walters, Zambia in Pictures, Lerner Publishing Group, September 2008, p. 77; Joseph F. Conley, Drumbeats That Changed The World: A History of The Regions and Beyond Missionary Union and the West Indies Mission, 1873 - 1999, ISBN 087808603-X,William Carey Library, Pasadena, California, 2000, p. 60; A. T. Dalfovo, et al.,eds., The Foundations of Social Life: Ugandan Philosophical Studies,ISBN 1565180070, The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 110.
3. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, p. 21-22. See also My Life as an African, p. 23; Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, p. 58.
4. My Life as an African, p. 87.
5. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, pp. 44, 77, 122; My Life as an African, pp. 47, 48, 78, 89, 92, 117, 119, 138, 154, 172, 175; Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman, ISBN 9780980253498, New Africa Press, Pretoria, South Africa, 2006, pp. 15 – 16.
6. "Newsman Leaves for America," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 7 November 1972, p. 3; Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, pp. 122 – 123; My Life as an African, p. 176.
7. My Life as an African, pp 89 – 90; "Newsman Leaves for America," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 7 November 1972, p. 3; Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, p. 56.
8. "Newsman Leaves for America," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 7 November 1972, p. 3; Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, p. 123; My Life as an African, p. 90.
9. Wayne State University Alumni, 1975; My Life as an African, pp. 76, 86, 120, 140, 164, 188, 190, 192, 246, 250, 266, 281; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, ISBN 0980253411, Fifth Edition, New Africa Press, 2010, Pretoria, South Africa, pp. 86, 491, 509-511, 658, 664-665.
10. My Life as an African, pp. 306, 328; Nyerere and Africa, p. 649.
11. "Former CUNA (Credit Union National Association) chairman Ken Marin dies," Credit Union Times, Hoboken, New Jersey, January 8, 2008. See also My Life as an African, p. 306; Nyerere and Africa, p. 649, 664.
12. My Life as an African, p. 328. Nyerere and Africa, p. 664; "Former CUNA (Credit Union National Association) chairman Ken Marin dies," Credit Union Times, Hoboken, New Jersey, January 8, 2008;Credit Union Times, December 4, 2012.
13. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Economic Development in Africa, ISBN 978-1560727088, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Huntington, New York, June 1999.
14. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Fifth Edition, ISBN 0980253411, New Africa Press, Pretoria, South Africa, 2010; Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala, "Three Years After Mwalimu Nyerere: Nyerere: True Pan-Africanist, Advocate of Unity," Daily News, Special Edition, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Monday, October 14, 2002, p. 19.
15. F. Ng'wanakilala, "Three Years After Mwalimu Nyerere: Nyerere: True Pan-Africanist, Advocate of Unity," Daily News, Special Edition, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Monday, October 14, 2002, p. 19; A.B. Assensoh, review of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, in African Studies Review, Journal of African Studies Association; Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, "Nyerere's Vision," in West Africa, 25 November - 1 December 2002, p. 41.
16. David Simon, ed., Fifty Key Thinkers on Development: Routledge Key Guides, ISBN 9780415337908, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York, 2005.
17. amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other book sellers.
18. Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, "Nyerere's Vision," in West Africa, 25 November - 1 December 2002, p. 41; K. Akosah-Sarpong, "Back to The Roots," in West Africa, 21–27 January 2002, p. 43.
19. F. Ng'wanakilala, "Nyerere: True pan-Africanist, advocate of unity," in "Three Years After Mwalimu Nyerere, " in the Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Monday, October 14, 2002, p. 19.
20. Godfrey Mwakikagile quoted by South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka in "Address Delivered by the Deputy President, Ms. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the Third Annual Julius Nyerere Memorial Lecture at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa." Issued by the Presidency through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, South Africa, 6 September 2006.
21. Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, "Back to The Roots," in West Africa, 21–27 January 2002, p. 43.
22. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and the West, ISBN 9781560728405, Huntington, New York, 2001, pp. 1–46, and 201-218.
23. Godfrey Mwakikagile Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, ISBN 0980253411, Fifth Edition, New Africa Press, 2010, Pretoria, South Africa. For Mwakikagile's Pan-Africanist views and perspectives, see also Professor Eric Edi of Temple University, in his paper, "Pan-West Africanism and Political Instability: Perspectives and Reflections," in which he cites Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation.
24. Kwesi Johnson-Taylor, "Author, a shrewd intellectual in defence of liberation icons," book review of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, amazon.com, February 21, 2006.
25. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
26. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, ISBN 9789987160143, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2006, pp. 86, 91, 168-171; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa 1960 - 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, ISBN 9789987160075, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,2009, p. 510; Roger Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States: From Pariah to Middle Power, 1961 - 1994, ISBN 1850436258, International Library of African Studies 14, Tauris Academic Studies, an imprint of I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London, New York, 2005, p. 40; Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa, ISBN 0852553072, James Currey Ltd., London, UK, and Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, 1986, p. 237; Mwesiga Baregu and Christopher Landsberg, eds., From Cape to Congo: Southern Africa's Evolving Security Challenges, ISBN 1588261026; ISBN 1588261271, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., London, UK, and Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003.
27. Jorge Castaneda, Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, ISBN 9780679759409, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1998, p. 277; Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 156, 158, 737.
28. In May 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The OAU chose Tanzania to be the headquarters of the African liberation movements under the auspices of the OAU Liberation Committee which was based in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam.
29. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 209, 223, 224, 252, 254, 255, 404, 487-489, 503.
30. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, pp. 92 – 93. See also Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 10 – 12, 65, 314, 363, 375, 484.
31. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 224, 487-488; "Newsman Leaves for America," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 7 November 1972, p. 3.
32. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 360, 486. See also, "Brendon Grimshaw Dead," Seychelles Nation, Victoria, Seychelles, Thursday, 7 July 2012; "Brendon Grimshaw is dead," Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 7 July 2012.
33. "President Mourns David Martin," The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 22 August 2007; David Martin (April 1936 - August 2007) – 40 years of service to African liberation," Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), Harare, Zimbabwe.
34. "Martin - Man of Many Talents," The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 August 2007.
35. "Martin Laid to Rest," The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 August 2007.
36. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, pp. 486, 500, 569; My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings, pp. 89, 156, 176, 375-376, 378.
37. Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa after Independence: Realities of Nationhood, ISBN 9789987160143, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2006; The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, ISBN 9781560729365, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Huntington, New York, 2001; Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, ISBN 9781560729457, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Huntington, New York, 2001; Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done, ISBN 0980253470, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2006.
38. Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done, ISBN 0980253470, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2006; Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, ISBN 9789987160143, New Africa Press, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2006; The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, ISBN 9781560729365, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Huntington, New York, 2001;Military Coups in West Africa Since the Sixties, ISBN 9781560729457, Huntington, New York, 2001; Military Coups in West Africa Since the Sixties, ISBN 9781560729457, Huntington, New York, 2001. George B. N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, ISBN 9780312104009, 1993, p. 294.
39. Kwesi Johnson-Taylor, "Author, a shrewd intellectual in defence of liberation icons," in his review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, on amazon.com, February 21, 2006.
40. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, pp. 7 – 8.
41. Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, pp. 31 – 32. See also Africa is in A Mess and Africa and the West.
42. Ronald Taylor-Lewis, in his review of Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, in Mano Vision, London, Issue 23, October 2001, pp. 34 – 35. See also Professor Catherine S.M. Duggan, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, in her paper, "Do Different Coups Have Different Implications for Investment? Some Intuitions and A Test With A New Set of Data," in which she cites Godfrey Mwakikagile on fundamental changes in African countries. See also Godfrey Mwakikagile, cited in Christopher E. Miller, A Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies, p. 87; and in Gabi Hesselbein, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, and James Putzel, "Economic and Political Foundations of State-Making in Africa: Understanding State Reconstruction," Working Paper No. 3, 2006.
43. The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, op.cit.; Wole Soyinka, The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of The Nigerian Crisis, ISBN 9780195119213, Oxford University Press, 1997; Chinua Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria, ISBN 9789781561474, Fourth Dimension Publishing Co., Enugu, Nigeria, 2000.
44. Henry Augustine Brown-Acquaye, African Developments in Doldrums, ArtHouse, 2008, p. 81; M.I.S. Gassama, in West Africa, March 21–27, 1994; G. B.N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed, p. 295; Peter Anassi,Corruption in Africa: The Kenyan Experience, Trafford Publishing, ISBN 9781412034791, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2006, p. 209.
45. Ibid. See also Ismail Rashid, a Sierra Leonian in exile in Canada, in the New African, London, May 1992, p. 10; Rashid Ismail in G.B.N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed, op.cit., p. 295. See also George B.N. Ayittey, Africa in Chaos: A Comparative History, ISBN ISBN 0312217870, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997; Wole Soyinka, in a speech at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, quoted by Zia Jaffrey, "The Writer in Exile as 'Opposition Diplomat,'" in the International Herald Tribune, May 2, 1997, p. 24; Africa is in A Mess, pp. 63 – 64; Peter Anassi, Corruption in Africa: The Kenyan Experience, p. 209; Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, in Popular Struggles for Democracy in Africa (London: Zed Books, 1987), pp. 14 – 25.
46. Ibid. Alfred A.R. Latigo, The Best Options for Africa: 11 Political, Economic and Divine Principles, ISBN 9781426907678, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2010, pp. 114 – 115; Senyo B-S.K. Adjibolosoo, The Human Factor in Developing Africa, ISBN 027595059-X, Praeger Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, USA, 1995, p. 64; John Mukum Mbaku, Institutions and Development in Africa, ISBN, Africa World Press, 2004, ISBN 1592212069, p. 236.
47. Dr. Kenday Samuel Kamara of Walden University in his abstract, "Considering the Enormity of Africa's Problems, is Re-Colonization an Option?" in which he cites Godfrey Mwakikagile's Africa is in A Mess and related works by other African leading academic authors including Professor Ali Mazrui, and Professor George Ayittey's Africa in Chaos. See Mwakikagile's book on the subject, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done. See also Tunde Obadina, "The Myth of Neo-Colonialism," in Africa Economic Analysis, 2000; and Timothy Murithi, in his book, The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development.
48. Professor Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, a Zimbambwean teaching international studies at Monash University, South Africa campus, in his abstract, "Gods of Development, Demons of Underdevelopment and Western Salvation: A Critique of Development Discourse as a Sequel to the CODESRIA and OSSREA International Conferences on Development in Africa," June 2006. Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni advances the same argument Godfrey Mwakikagile does and cites Mwakikagile's work, Africa is in A Mess, to support his thesis. See also Floyd Shivambu, "Floyd's Perspectives: Societal Tribalism in South Africa," September 1, 2005, who cites Godfrey Mwakikagile's Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, in his condemnation of tribalism in post-apartheid South Africa; Mary Elizabeth Flournoy of Agnes Scott College, in her paper, "Nigeria: Bounded by Ropes of Oil," citing Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings including Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria; Professor Eric Edi of Temple University, in his paper, "Pan West Africanism and Political Instability: Perspectives and Reflections," in which he cites Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation.
49. Professor Claude E. Welch, Jr., in African Studies Review, Vol. 45, No. 3, December 2002, pp. 124–125; and Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, reviewed by Nigerian Professor Khadijat K. Rashid of Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 2, September 2003, pp. 92 – 98).
50. Ibid.
51. Godfrey Mwakikagile in Expo Times, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and in The Mirror, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2002.
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