Mwalimu Nyerere: The President who shunned wealth accumulation

A lot of articles were written to commemorate Nyerere Day, on October 14. Many of his virtues were re-stated.

He was a nationalist, he hated exploitation of the weak; he abhorred racial discrimination; he believed in the unity of Africa; and so on.

One virtue was not discussed; and that is something that Mwalimu Nyerere did not have: the desire to accumulate wealth, which many African politicians espouse.

It was Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, who is quoted to have said: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto you.” He was of course paraphrasing Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”.

So, no sooner do our leaders get political power, than they (or, their families) begin swimming in wealth: commercial, residential and industrial properties; large farms, ranches; fleets of transport vehicles; industrial establishments; businesses, you name it.

Some get involved in grabbing public land such as forests, parks, wetlands, open spaces, and mineral lands. Nothing of the sort can be said of Mwalimu Nyerere.

There may be a Nyerere Towers somewhere, but it will not be belonging to him. Many of us know that he has property in Magomeni and Mikocheni in Dar es Salaam; and in his home village, Butiama. Not much else. No ranches, no farms, no blocks of high value apartments, no hotels. The properties in Dar es Salaam were developed using loans from financial institutions.

Some of Nyerere’s attitudes towards land and property can be gauged from his actions. He believed that people should live in decent houses. One of his renowned action was to roof his mother’s thatched house, with corrugated iron sheets, to save it from annual leaking and roof replacement.

Soon after Independence, Mwalimu participated in the rebuilding of houses in Magomeni, which had earlier on been built in mud and wattle, so that people could have a decent accommodation.

He was against the introduction of freehold type of land tenure, since he believed, holders of such tenure would be too free to do whatever they wanted with the land, something he believed was not proper. He opposed the free buying and selling of land, as if it was a robe, since this would lead to landlessness among the poor majority, and land accumulation among the rich minority.

Nyerere was not happy with feudalism and landlordism. Tenures like Nyarubanja, and freeholds were abolished in the first decade of independence. Rent control was introduced in 1962, to protect tenants. Thus Nyerere believed more in owner occupation than in tenancy.

Indeed, to Nyerere, landlordism was some form of exploitation. The Leadership Code prohibited leaders: that is, politicians and top government officials, from owning houses which they rented to others. A good number of nationalist politicians were unhappy with this Code, and some parted ways with Nyerere.

In 1971, high value properties (valued at Sh100,000 and above) which were rented out, were nationalised. No compensation was paid, if the property had been rented out for ten or more years, on the argument that the owner would have recouped their investment, already. These turned out to be mainly city centre properties. A public organisation: The Registrar of Buildings, was created to administer them. In later years, this organisation was merged with the National Housing Corporation.

Nyerere did not believe that an individual should benefit from the value of land created by society, which experts call, betterment. Such value should go back to society. Thus, if land was to be acquired, one’s entitlement to compensation should be limited to one’s “sweat equity”, that is, the unexhausted improvements that one had made on the land, such as, unharvested crops and buildings (depreciated, to reflect what value had not been exhausted), but not the value of bare land.

Those of us who were around, remember well that when Mwalimu Nyerere retired in 1985, the whole nation made contributions for his post-Presidential life, since he had not accumulated wealth when he was in office. The house in Butiama, was constructed for him by the army.

With such an attitude towards wealth accumulation, no wonder Nyerere was a great crusader against corruption. Many development projects fail to take off, or are poorly implemented, because of corruption. People engage in corruption in order to accumulate wealth. At the end of the day, the poor get poorer, while the rich get richer, riding on the poor’s backs.

Mwalimu was a great example of shunning corruption; an example to be emulated. May his soul continue to live in eternal happiness!