Prof PLO Lumumba, Kenya School of Law chief executive officer. PHOTO | FILE
The noose is tightening, the light is dimming and the death knells are getting louder with every passing week.
The
shaky semblance of a democratic society some people may have dreamt of
in Tanzania is being shut down before our very eyes, and very few people
seem to be able to raise the alarm.
In the early
1990s, when the whole world was awakening to a renewed quest for better
and more inclusive governance dispensations in the wake of the fall of
the Berlin Wall, we had reason to hope that Tanzania, alongside many
African countries, was opening a new page of greater people
participation in the running of their country’s affairs.
The
re-establishment of multiparty politics, long forbidden under the
single-party hegemony that covered the whole continent, seemed to herald
that new era where multiple voices would be heard. It almost felt like
the old adage of letting a thousand flowers blossom and a thousand
thoughts contend.
Today all that looks like a chimera,
something fashioned out of a waking dream with no connection to reality.
Tanzania has steadfastly slid back into tyranny and the worst type of
the Big Man syndrome we have ever experienced, even we who are of a
certain age.
A district governor visits a school and
subjects the teachers to an impromptu quiz. He asks teachers to mention
his name, among other nonsensical questions. A teacher refuses — or
fails — to answer, and he gets remanded in custody for this
transgression.
Another governor pursues an unruly
schoolboy who is accused of damaging his car. At the boy’s home he finds
the boy’s father and proceeds to beat up the old man thoroughly, just
to teach him something about parenting.
In another
district, a governor is unhappy with the answers given by a citizen, and
what does she do? She boxes the ears of the peasant to make him a
better citizen. In yet another district, a governor takes it upon
himself to uproot expensive irrigation equipment servicing the modern
farm of the leader of the opposition.
Lock up
An
opposition MP is arrested on charges of attending a rally outside her
constituency, which has become a “crime” in Tanzania since President
John Magufuli issued a fiat requiring politicians to hold rallies only
in their constituencies and nowhere else, no matter that the rally
attended by this particular woman was organised by a fellow MP from her
party.
There is an endless parade of opposition leaders
entering and exiting police stations to answer to laughable charges,
and the police show no qualms about arresting legislators and keeping
them incommunicado for as long as they, the police, wish. Somebody has
suggested that at this rate the opposition might as well establish
sub-offices at police stations.
Tundu Lissu, that
nemesis of President Magufuli, has been arrested again and his house has
been searched for the nth time. For what? He is accused of accusing
Magufuli of having occasioned the loss of many billions of shillings by
his actions when he was a cabinet minister.
President
Magufuli will have to bear the blame for the actions of those serving
under him. He has publicly encouraged local governors to lock up people
who disagree with them; now they are caning them into the bargain.
The
preventive detention law is an anachronistic piece of legislation
dating from the days of the authoritarian regimes of Kwame Nkrumah and
Julius Nyerere. President Magufuli has made that a central activity of
his officers in the districts.
PLO Lumumba praises
It
is bound to get even tougher in a country that has gone eight months
without a Chief Justice, something never heard of before. The man who
has been “acting” as CJ must be wondering what he needs to do to get
confirmed.
Parliament is a caricature of itself as
President Magufuli takes pleasure in giving instructions to the Speaker
on how to deal with “troublesome” MPs and the Speaker does as he is
told.
The media, traditionally tame and timid, has
been taken to the gallows with the new fangled Media Services Act which
criminalises libel and imposes stiff prison terms for media
misdemeanours. A Gulag has installed itself in Tanzania.
That
is something Prof PLO Lumumba does not know and isn’t interested in
knowing. As he continues to sing his praises of the Tanzanian president,
Lumumba speaks out of ignorance and does us grievous injury.
Jenerali
Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an
advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com
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