Makongoro revives Nyerere’s ideas, humour, gestures, fury

Dar es Salaam. A parent’s magic rubbing off a child was vividly demonstrated in Butiama last week, when Charles Makongoro Nyerere formally declared that he would vie for CCM’s nomination for the Ikulu race slated for October.

Makongoro is not an entirely strange person to Tanzanians, but hasn’t been a highly visible newsmaker either. Of the children of Father of the Nation Mwalimu Nyerere, he has been the most in the limelight.

The one-time Tanzania People’s Defence Forces officer was on the battlefront during the war between Tanzania and the aggressor forces of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in late 1978-early 1979. But being one of several patriots in combat assigned to tackle the Ugandan bandits who had annexed the Kagera salient, he was a backgrounder. Special mention was reserved for top military commanders.

His break came in 1995, and in highly dramatic fashion. He defected from CCM, a party of which his father was one of the principal founders and the first chairman. Fifty-six-year-old Charles, currently a member of the East African Legislative Assembly, joined NCCR-Mageuzi in 1995, on whose ticket he contested and won the poll for the Arusha Urban parliamentary constituency seat.

Tremors spread through the ruling party, especially amongst the stalwarts who respected and feared Mwalimu in equal measure.

Whence, they wondered, did the young man draw the courage to do what they perceived as taboo ? Granted, multi-partyism had been reintroduced in Tanzania, and opposition parties counted in its ordinary and leadership ranks, previous staunch CCM members.

They feared though, that, the defection of a Nyerere family member to the opposition would deal a severe psychological blow to the ruling party.

In his recent speech, Makongoro explained that the reception of Mwalimu, to whom he had hinted on his intention, was cool. It actually reinforced the old man’s explanation-warning combination that, long-reigning parties tended to relax along the way.

The leaders assume that, whichever they behaved, including disregard for policies and programmes, they would remain eternally popular, unconscious that, frustrated wananchi, as voters, can switch their loyalty elsewhere.

Many, people forget that the senior Nyerere had been instrumental in pushing for the re-introduction of multi-partyism. It surely would have been hypocritical of him to have qualms over his above-18 son making free political choices.

In his speech, Makongoro cited the deeply entrenched culture within CCM, of bending otherwise good policies, as well as cultivating and embracing corruption as something virtuous.

He stunned the audience on site, and viewers of the live television event on television, by revealing that, he quit CCM primarily because of the looming certainty that due to lack of financial means to bankroll an election campaign for the Arusha Urban constituency seat, he wouldn’t sail through the nomination process.

Makongoro had become disillusioned over the demotion of the party to a commercial outfit where a candidate’s success in electoral processes was predicated on one’s capacity and willingness to dish out bribes! In spite of rejoining CCM and becoming Mara regional chairman between 2007 and 2012, Makongoro is still bitter over the party’s derailment.

Hence the recurrent demand in his speech, that the minority hijackers that worshipped and manipulated wealth, and which they sought to use as a springboard for leadership, should surrender it to its legitimate majority owners.

Philosophical sentiments aside, it’s Mwalimu Nyerere’s echoes of oratorical skills, gestures and jokes in Makongoro’s delivery that generated interest amongst the laudience. Coupled with substantial facial resemblance to the deceased papa, Makongoro fascinated the audience with jokes and chuckles. For instance, he chided those who sought to demonise him as a womanizer, by posing: “Did they expect me to love men?”

On a light note, too, he referred to ‘Mzee Kifimbo’ as a nick-name that had been pinned on his father, courtesy of a small baton which was to him what a white handkerchief was to Zambia’s Dr Kenneth Kaunda and a flywisk was to Kenya’s Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

He produced a ‘kifimbo’ of his own, which he would apparanetly adopt as a symbol, to the huge applause of the audience.

In-between his largely off-the-cuff speech, he removed and re-set his reading glasses, scratched the head and contorted his face into a fearsome mask of sorts, to reflect anger over, say, corruption, and minister Stephen Wassira’s reluctance to ‘kung’atuka’ ( to retire).

Makongoro’s entry into the race for Ikulu may revive the debate on the whys and why-nots, of children of presidents vying to hold the highest office in the land.

The issue should be approached soberly, as doing so emotionally is bound to be unjust. In a monarchy, a child or grandchild of a king or queen becomes one in future.

The trend of sneaking monarchical arrangements into what are meant to be democratic set-ups is disturbing. It is driven by power greed by rulers who scheme to groom their children as their successors.

Some children intoxicated by limitless powers during their parents’ reigns, by holding sensitive positions for which they aren’t necessarily qualified, such as army commanders and intelligence service chiefs, use crude means to become leaders in the near or distant future.

The consequences are disastrous, as the Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria scenarios bear witness.

Nearly 30 years have elapsed since Mwalimu (who died in October 1999) relinquished the hot seat in 1985 when the young man was in his mid-20s.

As an aspirant, he has the courage backed by evidence, to declare that he is a poor person, and, unlike many compatriots in these times of economic liberalization and globalization, is among the very few exceptions that can loudly use expressions like “CCM is a party of peasants and workers”.

In the spirit of the much-hyped political level playing field, Makongoro’s filial link to the founder president is only incidental.

There’s a diference between a Nyerere, Mwinyi, Mkapa and Kikwete Junior taking a shot at the Tanzanian presidency, and a young member of the British monarchy becoming king or queen someday.

Wilson Kaigarula is revise editor, The Citizen