A good number of my fellow citizens are struggling to keep their head above water as tough financial times continue. These people are complaining for life hardships. They complained during Ali Hassan Mwinyi, kept the same while Benjamin Mkapa got in power, just like that when Jakaya Kikwete sat at our State House, Magogoni. Now here is Dk. John Magufuli, the story is very similar. Our staff writer SIMON MKINA looks on who is to rescue and stop moans? Read on.
I like the writings of one of the best thinkers, Nicholas Kristof, of the United States of America, a renowned author, who was contributing to The New York Times twice a week.
He proved to be one of the icons that I have been admiring, respect and above all, value him a lot as the best editor, just like my other media icons; my newspaper don – the late Farayi Munyuki, the first black editor in Zimbabwe, Johnson Mbwambo, Ndimara Tegambwage, Salva Rweyemamu (before he was presidential appointee, of course) and many others in Tanzania.
These giants in our local media, and Kristof deserves admiration from all sharp and smart people who cuddles no nonsense no matter what.
In mid-May 2008, Kristof wrote about Africa, asserting that it is a continent with a glittering future and sited Rwanda and Benin as exemplary countries when it comes to tangible development aspects. He was right, but not very right.
He said Rwanda has reinforced all the worst stereotypes of Africa: Wretchedly poor, torn apart by a civil war and seemingly destined to be an international basket case forever.
Yes, Rwanda now is that nice country that has peace, and a shining economy. Rwanda is now clean, safe and enjoying economic growth more than twice as fast as the US or Europe.
To me, the only problem with Rwanda, as I see it is the decision of President Paul Kagame to preserve bones of those who were killed in the massacre of 1994, in a macabre museum. To me, this is the action that can stir up another bout of killings because as human beings, every one of us feels irrationally angry when coming across killers of our kin and kith.
I beg you Mr President (Kagame), it is now high time you buried all the bones as a sign of forgetting the massacre forever. Do it Kagame.
Yes, Rwanda now is that nice country that has peace, and a shining economy.
We all know that in the early 1960s, most of African countries were richer than Asia. Many economists expected Africa to zoom far ahead of Asia. Back then, the World Bank named a group of African countries that it projected to grow at 7 per cent annually.
Instead, Africa drove over a cliff. Of those countries with good data, one-third now have lower per capita incomes than they did at independence (in the 1960s), and the five worst performing economies in the world from 1960 to 2001 were all in Africa!
What went wrong? The reasons were that Africa was not well governed and that it was torn apart by wars, grand corruption (ufisadi), nepotism and all the evils that go with politics and power gluttony.
Those were the brainchild of greedy politicians, who most of the times love to deliver sweet speeches on platforms while the truth is that they do not know what to do to implement what they are preaching. We have many of them, when the audience claps for them they go home with big heads. This is totally unbecoming.
Despite our enormous natural resources, Tanzania, our mother country, has the disadvantage of starting from the bottom rung — per capita income is a mere 260 US dollars. The country is ranked among the world's 10 poorest nations with half of the population living on less than one dollar a day, and 16 per cent of those in abject poverty line on less than half a dollar.
Is there anyone feeling pity seeing their fellow countryman dying from hunger, seeing him without shelter as some big shots out there had decided to demolish their houses to pave the way for a mansion of a tycoon. Is President John Magufuli the one we expected, or should we anticipate the one after him? When? Who will that be? Under which constitution?
This is ridiculous for our people to swim in poverty while we are blessed with a lot of gold reserves; diamonds, copper, coal, hard working people, but we are victims of poorly implemented policies.
We do not have Tanzania leaders who can come up with relevant organizations and policies or plans that can give us an equivalent of what has been done in Singapore to stand where it is today. Singapore is a totally different story; it has developed thrice as much now, while we were all sailing in the very same boat some 50 years ago.
There is nobody who will rescue us, but ourselves.
We want our leaders, under President Magufuli’s points – to know what we need to get out of the mess and poverty; each of us can contribute, but they are the ones who fail us.
We need to stand on our own feet and not on goodwill of the West who, in real sense, are not helping us for free. Trust me, there is no free lunch to offer to anyone, we are not their uncles and aunties. There is nobody who will rescue us, but ourselves.
Some years ago, I remember to had copy of Twaweza, of a well innovative idea; calendars with distribution of different pictures of famous people in Tanzania on the cover and asking if any one of those will change anything for better while we all sit back and relax.
On the calendar, there were a lot of famous presidents, artistes, rich, philanthropists and other global icons, but only one box was empty. This vacant box needs one to put his/her picture and ‘check’ who will be coming to rescue from poverty.
No way, the only man (and woman, of course) to rescue you from difficulties, including poverty is only you.
Tanzanians, take charge!