Ally Sykes’ courage that saw Tanzania gain independence

Ally Sykes (seated). File photo | NMG 

By DOUGLAS KIEREINI

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Summary

• Ally Sykes’ grandfather Sykes Mbuwane was a Zulu from South Africa and he came to German East Africa (later Tanganyika) in the 1800s as a mercenary.
• The Zulus had gained a reputation among the colonial powers as being tough warriors and the Germans, wanting to beef up their colonial army, had embarked on a recruiting exercise in Mozambique and South Africa to attract young members of the Zulu tribe into their ranks.
• Sykes Mbuwane found the colonial oppression in German East Africa to be milder than what he had experienced under the Boers in South Africa and he decided to stay, marrying a Nyaturu woman from the Singida Region of north-central Tanganyika.

I must start off with an apology to my readers for being MIA last week. Unfortunately, I was taken ill with blood clots in my injured left leg and both lungs as a result of extensive surgery last year. I spent a week in hospital under complete bed rest, but I am happy to report that I am now back home and feeling much better.

While trying to put my mind off my rather serious predicament, I came across the name of my old friend Ally Sykes whom I met while I was working for Grindlays Bank in the early 90s. Ally Sykes was a Tanzanian and was at the time chairman of Grindlays Bank in that country. He maintained an account with Grindlays Nairobi and I was his account manager.

Whenever he needed to transact on his account, Ally would always call me. He was a very wealthy and equally generous man with a wicked sense of humour. I remember him inviting me many times to share a pina colada on the deck of his glass-bottomed luxury boat in Dar es Salaam, but I never quite got around to honouring his invitation. A charming, handsome gentleman with a handle bar moustache, I only got to meet him once in person while he was visiting Nairobi.

Ally Sykes’ grandfather Sykes Mbuwane was a Zulu from South Africa and he came to German East Africa (later Tanganyika) in the 1800s as a mercenary.

The Zulus had gained a reputation among the colonial powers as being tough warriors and the Germans, wanting to beef up their colonial army, had embarked on a recruiting exercise in Mozambique and South Africa to attract young members of the Zulu tribe into their ranks.

Sykes Mbuwane found the colonial oppression in German East Africa to be milder than what he had experienced under the Boers in South Africa and he decided to stay, marrying a Nyaturu woman from the Singida Region of north-central Tanganyika.

Ally Sykes’ father Kleist Sykes was born in 1894. After the elder Sykes died, Kleist moved with his godfather Effendi Plantan, to Dar es salaam where he would later fight for the Germans in World War I.

After the war Kleist worked for the Tanganyika Railway. Later he met Dr James Aggrey a renowned scholar and teacher from Ghana who was with the Phelps Stokes Fund at the time.

As a result of his interaction with Dr Aggrey, Kleist was inspired to form the Tanganyika African Association in 1929 along with his friends Mzee bin Sudi, Cecil Matola, Suleiman Mjisu and Raikes Kusi.

Ally Sykes was born on October 10, 1926. He went through both primary and high school at Kichwele School in Dar es salaam under the tutelage of Robert James Harvey, a rather revolutionary colonial headmaster.

Harvey genuinely cared for the children and his wife being a medical doctor the children got excellent medical care. He was the first white person to put his own child in an African school.

Between 1943 and 1946 Ally Sykes was enrolled with the Kings African Rifles (KAR) where he fought in Ethiopia, Somalia, Ceylon and Burma during World War II. He rose to the rank of Sergeant which was the highest level an African could attain.

Ironically, according to Sykes, at the end of the war the colonial authorities invited some traditional chiefs whom they regarded as their most loyal vibarakas (stooges) to Burma, where they were awarded the rank of Captain.

That aside, the 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 a 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.

After the war in 1945, Sykes took a train from Mombasa to Nairobi where he met his old friend Peter Colmore. He had met Colmore earlier in Nairobi at the East African Music Stores shop owned by Assanand. Both were in KAR uniform; Colmore from the upper class of British nobility and Sykes not doing too badly, from a well to do African family in Dar es Salaam. Sykes had a wonderful command of the English language and that must have impressed Colmore.

Sykes was employed by Colmore as his assistant in real estate business, but the two also shared a passion for music and publicity. They decided to start a band initially known as the Ally Sykes Band and later the Peter Colmore African Band.

The band became popular in Nairobi playing mainly to white audiences who could afford to pay high rates. The band performed on many occasions at the Nairobi Theatre (now Kenya National Theatre).

While he was in Nairobi, Sykes met Jomo Kenyatta, W.W. Awori, Tom Mboya, Bildad Kaggia amongst other Kenyan nationalists and also Mau Mau activists.

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.

At his funeral on 20 May 2013, President Jakaya Kikwete said “If not for the courage of Mzee Ally Sykes and his colleagues to fight for independence the country’s history would probably have been different”. If only I knew then that I was friends with a great man.