Jenerali Ulimwengu

If only the TPDF could shoot down all the problems afflicting Tanzania today

Recently, Tanzanians have been experiencing the proverbial interesting times of the Chinese curse.

Even the regularity of strange occurrences, bizarre behaviour and weird statements from some of our rulers has not lessened the menace posed thereby.

To wit: In the middle of this vast nation there sits a small patch of country that some time ago attained parliamentary constituency status, meaning it earned the right to periodically organise a rowdy circus called an election campaign to choose one man or woman to represent its people in Dodoma.

Igunga — for that’s what that dusty, windswept moonscape is called — would have had no way of arresting the nation’s gaze in these times of power cuts, sugar shortages and escalating fuel prices, except that the man who has represented the little place for close to 20 years

recently resigned his seat and other positions, claiming his party, the mighty CCM, was bedevilled by dirty and divisive politics.

Apart from the tsunami effect of that resignation on the ruling party, which found itself forced to contest a by-election when it is at arguably its weakest moment, an expectant atmosphere was created by the prospect of the first political fight since the general election of last year, which left CCM with a black eye and the main opposition, Chadema, with a new ambition.

We all expected the campaign would be tough. But few people thought that a district commissioner, say, would be subjected to a crude form of citizen’s arrest by Chadema; nor that a campaigning Member of Parliament would climb onto the speaker’s dais with a clearly visible pistol at his hip, nor still that shots would be fired and vehicles rammed into gathered crowds.

To wit: Sugar has become scarce in the whole of the East African region, and smuggling is ripe.

No one seems to be quite sure what causes this widespread shortage, but my understanding is that mafia syndicates may have more than an interest in sweetened tea. No matter, the fact is that the Tanzanian police have been accused of aiding and abetting the smuggling.

A very senior government official has come up with a brilliant idea: Since the police have obviously let us down, the government will mandate the venerated Tanzania People’s Defence Force, TPDF, to track down the smugglers.

Never mind that the TPDF is not a civil force, not versed in the delicate art of arresting suspects: These guys shoot to kill, after all. The fact that the police, whose job it is to arrest smugglers, have apparently failed to do so, has not attracted any remedial action on the force itself.

To wit: Crucially important drugs on the market have been discovered to be fake, and they seem to have been there for quite some time, giving one goose pimples just to think how many people these fakes have killed while officialdom watched.

To wit: In the Igunga campaign, the three main parties contesting the seat have taken to the air, crisscrossing the constituency, awing villagers who flock to ogle at choppers that are probably not supplied by the sugar mafias but by some rich guys nonetheless.

To wit: A friend of mine lost a daughter recently. She had complications from malaria, developed a most terrible and excruciating condition called Black Water Fever. The parents of the 25-year-old did everything they could to save their beloved daughter, but in the end they had to watch, helpless, as their baby faded, and slipped through their fingers.

The Igunga campaign was probably not to blame for the young woman’s death, and to blame the sugar mafias would be farfetched. The drugs rackets seem more relevant, but there’s nobody the military could have shot.

Source The East African