The Africa Night dinner and dance at the residence of the Vice Chancellor, University of Dar Es Salaam was in top gear as scholars, students, diplomats and other guests tucked into the barbecued chicken, potatoes, plantain and fish dinner amidst clinking of wine glasses.
Laughter, light-hearted jokes and merriment rented the air to the background of melodious music under the June starry night. And as the DJ later changed the disc to a popular music by Nigeria’s iconic musician P Square, an electrifying mood suddenly enveloped the night as some of the students at the function immediately took to the dance floor.
Minutes later, lured by the insistence rumble of the percussions and sonorous voice, I soon found myself on the dance floor much to the students’ great delight. Before long, music, arguably the highest form of art, broke all kinds of barriers as scholars and students, diplomats and politicians, youngsters and the elderly danced the night away. It was a befitting end to the three-day ninth Mwalimu Nyerere Intellectual Festival in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam.
I had come to Tanzania, the Swahili land on the invitation of the conference organisers to deliver a paper on the conference theme; The Politician in the rise and fall of Africa. The three-day dialogue was expected to explore the quality and nature of politicians in Africa as well as the challenges this category of leaders are facing in the execution of their duties among other issues. The discourse was also expected to determine how the politician in Africa had contributed to the development or underdevelopment of African countries.
And so for three good days the conference was awash with erudite presentations from a diverse array of speakers made up of political scientists, human rights activists, gender experts, as well as former and serving Members of Parliaments. Speaker after speaker paid glowing tributes to the first Tanzanian President and the father of the Tanzanian nation, Julius Nyerere to whom the conference was dedicated. Expectedly, the politician was at the receiving end most of the time with many paper presenters inundating the audience with gory and unsavoury political scenarios allegedly perpetuated by African politicians as if the people themselves are innocent bystanders. It was indeed a difficult time to be referred to as a politician and one of my Tanzanian friends jokingly advised me not to introduce myself as a politician but as a writer and physician! Luckily, the audience seemed to agree with the focus of my presentation which was that politics is too important to be left alone in the hands of politicians, as such, the people have to be more responsive and responsible to politics and politicians.
A major highlight of the conference was Prof Patrick Lumumba’s highly entertaining and provocative paper: A call for Hygiene in African Politics. The presentation by the well- known human rights lawyer with its eloquence, drama and masterly erudition delivered to a packed audience consisting mostly of students almost brought down the roof. Prof Lumumba who heaped praises on the current Tanzanian President John Magufuli whom he referred to as a ‘breath of fresh air’ for his anticorruption stand, predicted that Tanzania would in a few years’ time become one of the biggest economies in Africa if Magufuli is able to maintain his wonderful governorship tempo. Lumumba like several speakers before him also reiterated the urgent need for Africans to de-ethnicise our politics. As he put it ; ’the God I worship is a God of diversity’ .
And unlike many conferences where the attendance and quality usually nose dive after the first day, the conference organisers deserve to be commended for packaging the conference in such a way that attendance, tempo and high quality were maintained throughout its three-day duration.
Dar es Salaam with a population of 4.36million is the commercial capital and largest city in Tanzania. It is situated in the east coast of the Indian Ocean. The original name of the city, I was told was Mzizima (tremble due to cold) but the city was renamed by its early Arab settlers as Dar es Salaam, ‘The City of Peace’. Although with about the same land size with Nigeria, Tanzania which just a population of about 56.9million people is considered to be a generally laid back country without the hustle and bustle of Nigeria. A peaceful country with friendly people and well organised transport, health and educational systems, Tanzania without the glamour and sophistication of Nigeria, is like the black and white photographic version of its African brother state.
Like Nigeria, Tanzania also has a relatively new capital city, the central city of Dodoma, to which remaining parts of the government are expected to relocate by this year. Many Tanzanians are eagerly looking forward to the move to the new capital if anything else to reduce the very high rent in Dar es Salaam. ‘’ Dar is very expensive for ordinary Tanzanians due to a high presence of diplomats and expatriates who have driven up house rent to as much as $3,000 per flat in some sections of the city’’ one Tanzanian writer observed. With an exchange rate of about 2,200 Tanzanian shillings to a dollar, the cost of house rent in local currency can best be imagined. However, other daily needs such as food and transport are not that exorbitant. For a 30 minute ride in the Bajaj the Tanzanian tricycle which is the local equivalent of Nigeria’s Keke, I paid about 500 shillings while a ride for the same period of time in the ‘Dala Dala’ the Tanzanian equivalent of Nigeria’s ‘Molue’ was considerably less.
Also like President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, the current Tanzanian President, John Magufuli ‘The Bulldozer’ is also an anti- corruption czar. On my second day in Tanzania, screaming newspaper headlines announced the results of some of his many anti- corruption interventions. Commenting on the suspension of the CEO of EWURA, the country’s power generating firm, the Dar Es Salaam based ‘The Citizen’ reported the suspension as a ‘Midnight Drama’. In its own report of the massive plundering of the country’s mineral wealth as revealed by a Presidential investigating committee, The Guardian observed thus; ‘’Even The Devil Must Be Mocking Us’’. As The Guardian put it; ‘’ The second presidential probe committee has revealed industrial-scale plunder of mineral wealth from Tanzania to the tune of over 100trn shillings in unpaid tax revenue over 20 years’’. Coming after several cost savings measures including the May 2017 sacking of the country’s Minister for Mines, Sospeter Muhongo over allegations of improper declaration of mining exports, it was obvious that Magufuli meant business. Expectedly, it is not all Tanzanians that are happy with the President’s style of government and some accuse Magufuli of human rights violations.
As it is my usual practice when visiting a foreign country, on the first week of my arrival in Tanzania, I paid a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Embassy located at No 13 Haile Selassie Road, Oysterbay by Collassium Hotel. On hand to receive me were Ambassador Salisu Umaru and his wonderful staff made up of five seasoned diplomats and three defence advisers. In his welcome remarks, Ambassador Umaru expressed his delight at my visit and promised to send a representative of the embassy to the conference. After heaping praises on the host country for what he called Tanzania’s love for peace, stability and good leadership, the ambassador observed that there are only 500 Nigerians made up of University lecturers and traders in the country. He also observed that most of the visa requirements from Tanzanians are for pilgrimage to Pastor T B Joshua’s church in Lagos. I was later taken on an official tour of the highly impressive Embassy building as well as the official residences of the Embassy staff which were clustered around the embassy building. I was made to understand that the official residencies as well as the Embassy building are fully owned by the Nigerian government.
In view of the very high cost of rent in the city, Nigeria is said to be the only West African country with a fully functional Embassy in the country.