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Jakaya Kikwete is East Africa’s blessing
2006-01-07 09:18:25
By JERRY OKUNGU
Foreign journalists have been writing positively about the landslide victory of Jakaya Kikwete as fourth President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Twenty years is a long time, but it is not too long if that is what it takes to prepare for the job of president of a country.
President Jakaya Kikwete, the latest addition to a growing list of Tanzania’s admirable statesmen, has just done that.
His apprenticeship spanned two decades with tutelage under three heads of state, among them Julius Nyerere.
It is coincidental that when Kikwete was retiring from active military service and exchanging his military uniform for civilian political outfit, a guerrilla fighter was on the verge of shooting his way to State House in Uganda.
Now, 20 years later, two presidents have retired in Tanzania and a third one elected with the biggest majority in East Africa’s election history; nine million votes! And as we witnessed this democracy at its best, attended by the highest number of Heads of State in Africa, fifteen in all, Museveni who took power at the time of Kikwete’s induction was still clinging to power beyond his sell-by-date.
How I wish our leaders in the regime would just stop for a moment and see what happens in Tanzania!
Kenyans and Ugandans need Kikwete as much as Tanzanians need him.
East Africa is a region of one people bound by historical facts and a natural umbilical cord, Lake Victoria. We have shared our destinies, borders and our people for generations.
The Samia and Iteso live on both sides of the border Kenya-Uganda border and have crossed over, buried their dead and celebrated their marriages and births without asking the authorities for permission.
On the other hand the Maasais of Kenya and Tanzania around Namanga and Loitokitok have continued to traverse the territory at ease in times of joy and in times of seasonal hardships.
We need to formalise this informal interactivity.
With Kikwete at the helm, and believing in his youth, vigour and vision for the region, we truly trust that he will rise above parochial politics that has bogged this region for four decades, separating and denying the people of East Africa their common destiny.
With structures for a possible East African Federation already in place, what we need is a collective leadership that does not pull apart in different directions, but one that shares a common vision and sees the big picture.
At the recent Brain Gain conference held in Nairobi, knowledgeable brains in Africa reaffirmed that skills, expertise and intellectual output should circulate and be shared among the people of our region.
It was obvious to participants that a Kenyan working in South Africa, Burundi or Burkina Faso was a bonus for the continent rather than a total loss.
A Tanzanian working in Kenya, like my friend GAYO the cartoonist has, actually a positive factor in the reunification of the region.
In the 1960s and early 1970s when Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian students used to be admitted in all the three public universities, the bonds that such products created still work to this day.
The mere excitement of meeting friends like Peter Katuuliba from Uganda after many years is always a thrill.
But how will Jakaya Kikwete pull the rest of East Africa along, even if he wanted, without the full support of his colleagues in the region? How will he blend Tanzania’s brand of democracy with a mixed bag of benevolent dictatorships in Uganda in Kenya?
How will he compromise the explicit arrogance displayed by his colleagues in the region, who fail to call elections even after they have lost a confidence vote?
How will he sit at the table with leaders who jail their opponents, bribe parliamentarians to amend the constitution in their favour and appoint their tribesmen and cronies to public offices in total disregard for fairness, natural justice, merit, accountability and professionalism?
East Africans may recall that when dictator Idi Amin emerged on the political scene in 1971 as Uganda’s strong man, he accelerated the disintegration of the East African Community.
His brand of politics compared to that of Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta was like water and oil. They could not mix. Six years into his bloody rule, the Community collapsed.
When President Museveni took over power in Uganda 20 years ago, East Africa looked forward to a brighter future. And for 10 years, the man did a splendid job and he deserves accolades and medals for that.
However, 10 years later, the story is now different in Uganda. The demons that led Obote and Amin to ruin Uganda are slowly raring their heads there again.
Today, Black Mamba Special Military Unit can lay a siege in the chambers of the law courts when Museveni’s rival is on trial.
Today, the military can have the audacity to warn former military officers in politics not to play with Museveni, meaning, don’t oppose him in politics! When we turn to Kenya, we see a failed or botched democracy that had a lot of promise in December 2002.
While the world celebrated our regime change then, little did we know that we had not crossed the bridge yet! We celebrated too soon.
Now, every gain we made in the run up to the 2002 elections has gone down the drain.
Back then we were promised many things by our messiahs.
We were promised immediate prosecution of economic criminals; we were promised zero tolerance on corruption and an ethics law that would safeguard us against thieving public servants.
We were told then that we would have a lean and efficient Cabinet that would deliver services to the people.
We were promised a lean and highly professional civil service that would reduce wastage and cut down on bureaucracy.
We were promised a new constitution that would respond to the aspirations of a young nation like Kenya in 100 days of the new regime taking power. We were promised 500,000 new jobs a year, 150,000 new homes every year and many more things.
Three years later, more thieving by ministers has taken place.
Three years later, cronyism and tribalism have been entrenched in our national psychology. Three years later, not a single election promise has been honoured.
The challenge facing East Africa’s noble objectives is the challenge of naked ethnicity.
Whereas Tanzania is blessed with a legacy of one nation, a culture of nationhood and patriotism, Kenya and Uganda have yet to grapple with how to tame the animal Nyerere fought and tamed 40 years ago.
It is this disparity, this disconnect that will give Kikwete the biggest challenge if he is to steer the region into integration.
The other challenge facing Kikwete is Tanzania’s perceived split personality or loyalty when it comes to choosing between being with Southern Africa and remaining in East Africa.
There is this underlying current or call it suspicion that if the East African Federation was realised, Kenya would benefit more due to its bigger economy and better trained manpower.
This is the reason we have had teething problems with the Customs Union effected last January.
Tanzanians see Kenyans as aggressive to the point of being greedy businessmen that would grab any and all in sight at the expense of their neighbours.
As I write this article, some Kenyans have just been sentenced to over 30 years in jail in Tanzania by a court for robbery.
This is not to mention the recent incident when Kenyan nationals working for the Nation Media Group were expelled in mass for working in Tanzania ’illegally’.
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