Sokoine legacy lives on 30 yrs later

Monduli. For Ibrahim Sokoine (41), the son of the late Prime Minister Edward Moringe Sokoine, April 12th, 1984 was a normal schooling day.

Aged eleven years then, he was in Standard Three at Bunge Primary School in Dar es Salaam and went about his lessons not knowing something tragic would hit the family before the end of the day.

At around 2pm, he was through with the school and went back home within the prencits of the State House.

“Often times I would be picked by government vehicles, but sometimes I just marched back home,” he said at his Enguik Village in Monduli Juu area, some distance from the Monduli District headquarters on Wednesday.

To his shock, he found screams all over the place as news had just filtered in on the sudden death of his father a few hours back in a road accident in Morogoro Region.

The death threw the family and the nation in deep mourning for days and months to come.

Apparently Mr Ibrahim has all attributes of his late father; quiet, soft spoken and careful on every word he utters.

On Wednesday, and probably for the last few days, he had camped at the family’s village home overseeing preparations for the 30th memorial which would be marked today.

He was moving from one corner of the expansive and fenced residence which has the grave of the late prime minister at one corner and other buildings, including the official residence of the PM before he died.

Ibrahim, who operates some business in Arusha, had not much to discuss about the tragedy which happened when he was a toddler.

“I am the fifth born of the first wife of Mzee Sokoine. Namelok, the Special Seats MP is my elder. The family’s first born is Lazaro who is currently in Dar es Salaam,” he told The Citizen on Saturday. He was born in 1973.

Mr Ibrahim did not have much to talk about the tragedy which took the life of his father at the time of his prime time; taking care of the large family as well as steering the nation through its worst economic crisis.

“We have a family spokesperson who would give all the information you need, including the future plans of this place. We get many visitors here who inquire about many things”, he pointed out.

Despite the loss, most of his brothers and sisters managed to pursue studies.

His elder brother Lazaro was studying in Cuba. “After primary school, I joined the Arusha Catholic Seminary and later went to Nairobi for business studies which I completed in 1998,” he said.

Currently, Ibrahim operates a private business in Arusha. One of the firms associated with him is Joyful Adventurers which operates tour business in Arusha and Dar es Salaam.

In all, the late premier was survived by 10 children. Many of them are currently working or doing private business in various places, notably in Arusha, Dar es Salaam and Monduli. The homestead, perched on a hillside not very far from the boundary of the forest zone on Monduli Mountain, has been undergoing some rehabilitation in readiness for today’s event.

Family members who are living there have been moved elsewhere to pave the way for hundreds of dignitaries who are expected there for special prayers which would be led by Cardinal Polycarp Pengo.

The Sokoine homestead may look quiet for most of the time, but not the surrounding Enguik Village which is rapidly growing with new modern buildings coming up unlike in the distant past.

Less than a kilometre from the late PM’s home, is a village office where elders normally congregate under a tree shade to discuss matters of the community.

One of them was Edward Ngobei (56) who had known the late Sokoine from the 1960s given the proximity of his home to where the fallen leader grew up. Sokoine was much older than Ngobei but the latter had vivid memories which convinced him the man was destined for higher office in years to come.

“He was still a young man, but was annointed a Maasai leader (Laigwanan). That was shortly after he became a local administrator and later MP for Maasailand,” he explained. Incidentally, it was when he was appointed assistant minister, minister and later prime minister that the late Sokoine came closer to the people.

“Whenever he was here he would arrange for a meeting with village elders. Most of the discussions would be about development projects in the area,” he said.

He added that the late PM was instrumental in bringing water to the semi-arid area.

`For instance, he  pushed for the construction of the Elway dam downstream. The dam has never dried up even during periods of prolonged droughts.

A piped water network for the village was underway when he died but the project was later completed.

Mr Ngobei also credits the late Sokoine for the building of three primary schools in the area as well as establishing a cattle ranch in Monduli Juu to tap the livestock potential. The project collapsed later.

But he could not forget April 12 when the tragedy hit the country.  “I was a young man then and was looking after cattle the whole day. Later, I heard people crying, saying Sokoine had died,” he stated.

He said although many people could not believe it for days or weeks, they later believed Sokoine’s demise was God’s will.

“Had he been alive, I am sure he would have managed to resolve conflicts pitting nomadic herders against farmers,” he went on.

According to him, ordinary people in Monduli, just as is the case elsewhere in the country, felt that fate had robbed them of a person who advocated for their welfare.

There is a university in Morogoro named after him. This is Sokoine University of Agriculture (Sua), which began in 1964.