By Saumu Jumanne
IN SUMMARY
It was because people felt it was not a Wanjiku constitution or the people’s constitution, rather it was what leaders wanted.
Top of everything, Tanzanians want a chance to live a decent life,something one can say for decades, has not been a right for the poor of the poor but only for the leaders, elite, business class and their children. The majority, who are farmers and livestock keepers, live in sordid and squalid conditions.
When we talk about living in sordid poverty, members of parliament (MPs), civil servants and leaders are not in the group.
The MPs who constitute the majority of Constituent Assembly members are all rich folks according to the common mwananchi. Even the other group appointed by President Kikwete are leaders in their own right and not among the poor of the poor in Tanzania.
We don’t hear of MPs going to public hospitals like penniless members of the public. They can go to the Muhimbili National Hospital, but at the private wing where they get special attention.
Members of the public who have been admitted to the hospital’s referral public wards, know the sordid conditions there. When the President formed the Warioba Commission to collect views from the public on the constitution they want, the citizens were happy.
There was hope that finally Tanzania would get a mother law that would give every Tanzanian a chance to live a decent life.
They want the new Katiba to end corruption, ensure we get leaders with integrity, ensure fair access to land, control over state decisions, equal rights for women, and bright future for children. If only wishes, were horses……!
I am usually a very optimistic person but on the issue of the ongoing constitution-making process in Dodoma, I am pessimistic. We might end up getting no new constitution and more divisions as a nation.
With the sideshows dominating the process and the ruling party supremacy in full force as led by the Speaker of the Constituency Assembly, Honourable Samuel Sitta, a people- led constitution seems to be impossible.
The Citizen’s sister paper Mwananchi front page story on March 25 said it all. “CCM hijacks Constituent Assembly.” All important leadership positions in the body, were taken over by the ruling party.
It is no secret what the ruling party wants and it is getting it. So one wonders whether it really was necessary to waste so much public money with Warioba’s Commission and setting up the constituency assembly.
CCM has a wide majority in the parliament and they could as well have decided to come up with a new constitution from Bunge.
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