By Joas Kaijage, The Citizen Correspondent
Posted Sunday, October 13 2013 at 01:00
Posted Sunday, October 13 2013 at 01:00
In Summary
The great leader was given a fitting burial on
October 23 in 199 at Butiama Village where he was born, grew up and
retired after a distinguished political career and principled
leadership, which both supporters and critics admired and appreciated.
Bukoba. Tomorrow, Tanzanians will commemorate
the 14th anniversary of the death of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who died
aged 77 at a London hospital of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
The great leader was given a fitting burial on
October 23 in 199 at Butiama Village where he was born, grew up and
retired after a distinguished political career and principled
leadership, which both supporters and critics admired and appreciated.
Emmanuel Rwegasira (82), who witnessed the Mwalimu
era and served the nation under him, compares the days of his rule and
Tanzania today. Mr Rwegasira granted The Citizen on Sunday an interview
recently. Excerpts:
Having been around during Mwalimu
Nyerere’s time, what are the things that are happening today in the
country that the Father of the Nation would not have allowed to happen
or tolerate as a national leader?
From the very beginning, Mwalimu Nyerere
identified diseases, ignorance and poverty as the major drawbacks to
development. He believed he could achieve the objectives of helping his
people in the fight against the three enemies through provision of
better education for both the youth and adults.
His ambition saw the inception of the Universal
Primary Education (UPE) programme, the
establishment of secondary schools and teachers training colleges in various parts of the country.
establishment of secondary schools and teachers training colleges in various parts of the country.
The prime goal was to ensure there was a pool of
experts with adequate education to spearhead the country’s development
instead of relying on alms from donors. Today’s leaders are relying more
on foreign experts instead of producing and making good use of our own
experts.
Mwalimu did not allow exploration and exploitation
of natural resources like gold, believing that should be done when the
country had enough experts with the capacity to ensure these resources
were exploited for the benefit of Tanzania. He did not want the natural
resources to benefit a few individuals based on their economic classes,
race or political status
Rather, he believed that unless local experts were
in place, embracing foreign expatriates and technologies could do very
little to ensure the natural resources were equitably managed for the
benefit of all Tanzanians. Today, the resources are being exploited and
Tanzanians getting almost nothing!
Mwalimu was very concerned with the problems and
hardships of his people. During his leadership, he insisted that if we
wanted to make progress, we had to make sure we elected leaders who were
very concerned with people’s interests, not those with inordinate
appetite for amassing wealth.
This was the motive behind the inception of the
Ujamaa na Kujitegemea (socialism and self reliance) ideology and in
fact, Mwalimu saw and considered himself equal with the people he led.
His approach in the fight against diseases was basically to encourage
preventive rather than curative interventions.
Although Mwalimu believed in provision of
education as a means of moulding good leaders and experts for the
country’s development, it did not count much for him that the high level
of education for someone acquiring a political post would automatically
guarantee his quality of leadership.
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