How I celebrated Nyerere scholarly week

THE second week of April witnessed the commemorations of Nyerere Intellectual week as it was organized by the University of Dar es salaam .

Many thinkers, among which is a stalwart-cum-doyen of literature, Prof. Akinwande Oluwole ’Wole’ Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, attended and brainstormed on Nyerere’s works and thoughts. Prof. Soyinka castigated ’African criminal solidarity’ by our rulers.

To me, it kicked off with a short but heart-felt prayer. I cursed all hypocrites and self seekers that have burdened innocent and poor people by introducing burden bearing.

They arrogantly call it ’cost sharing’ while they did not share or carry any burden as it is today. They went to free schools under Nyerere’s visionary ujamaa they later felled. The same traitors and backbiters of Mwalimu, shamelessly and cowardly, are pushing others to the limits as far as burden bearing is concerned. They’re doing EPA thievery and political quackery while Nyerere rose and stood against these vices.

Nyerere used his brain. What of his betrayers? They’re using their intestines to think instead. Nyerere thought about and truly loved his nation. They’re devouring and tearing it down. Nyerere lived an open and transparent life. They live a skeleton in the closet lives- behind the curtains and in the rostrums, as they offer jam tomorrow and a pie in the sky to remain in power.

After a short personal prayer, my wife and I started discussing how tables were turned against Nyerere’s people he died praying for. We talked about ’promoters’ or those that buzz you to signify that you call them so that they can ask you to send them a few dollars. You can not blame them. They’ve been put on booby trap and carey street so as to gulp any rot including DECI. Life to them has become meaningless and a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

While our intellectuals were aggrandizing themselves to mark Nyerere’s intellectual week by inviting sharp minds like Wole Soyinka, Kofi Anyidoho, Issa Shivji and others, at heart, they were grappling with guilt. I saw Rweka Mukandala standing in the forefront as if he deserved while he actually failed to defend the rights of the children of paupers from bearing the burdens of the fisadis. The major question was: Do they live up to what Nyerere lived for? The answer is simple.

How, though they cheat, they do, could they introduce burden bearing whereby we recently witnessed our youths being expelled from universities How if they kow tow before corrupt regimes that have felled Ujamaa so as to introduce ’Uhujumaa’

Tell me, how the same bin-Adams have amassed wealth whereas Nyerere died a pauper? Nyerere nationalized all means of production so as to invest in sound social services. What have they done to his noble works All factories, parastatals, railways and what not are gone. The minerals he preserved for the future generations are given at a throw-away price thanks to being given nonsensical kick backs like we saw in the saga of Mr Vijisenti and his buddy Rashidi recently.

Trust and probity have been vended and vandalized. Nobody is responsible to a great unwashed. The little birds told me, even our sand is currently being shipped abroad concealing a lot of minerals and it is taken as a normal thing!

How if quacks, robbers and con men and women are the ones running our all-time-sick economy in lieu of the hoi polloi How if party cadres have represented gung-hos Nyerere created How if big-time thieves are in the kitchen
How if Tanzania is becoming a beggar more than at his time How if code of conduct is no longer a recipe
cum-prerequisite in public services? We currently have the thieves that eat without even washing their hands let alone eating with both hands and legs. We've thieves Nyerere once trusted being protected by the office he honoured so much but being shat at thereafter.

I wished Nyerere could be resurrected so as to witness how systemic and endemic looting is becoming the order of the day. I badly wished Nyerere could be there to witness how accountability and responsibility have been put on a cross as patriotism is buried alive. I wished Nyerere to be there to witness the graves of saints being attended by sinners of all sorts.

Indeed I wished Nyerere could blast from the past to see by himself how his party is in blossom sleep in bed with fisadis and fat cats made by those that betrayed him and his noble works, not to mention his people.

I wished I could shout in the ears of my kids telling them loudly how Nyerere was badly betrayed and put on shame. Though hypocrites say they are adoring him, they kick him in the navel.

I wished he could come and go to Ubungo Bus Terminal, BoT or Kiwira to see how his selfish disciples are looting his country he loved most.

Verily I wished my kids were mature so that I could read them Nyerere’s ’Freedom and Socialism’ amidst this credit crunch and economic recession caused by the greed and lust of dying capitalism.

In a nutshell, I commemorated the Nyerere intellectual week by soul searching. How did you, if you did A little bird told me, those you think are with Nyerere are not.
O ye, of little faith, Nyerere was neither a glutton nor myopic. How dare you drag him into your mess Shame on you!
Source:Thisday April 20, 2009.