VIDEO: Maalim Seif discusses family life and his political journey

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Maalim Seif will be contesting the Zanzibar presidency for the sixth time - but now doing so on the ACT-Wazalendo party ticket

He responded: “First of all, Seif Sharif Hamad outside politics is a family man as I have one wife with five daughters, who are all now grown-ups, but only one is married and lives in Zanzibar and the rest are living outside the country with their partners.
“So, I would say, I’m lucky to have all girl children as it is a blessing to me and it is the biggest blessing too. The Almighty God has blessed me with girl children and I thank him that all my daughters have their men and are doing well, continuing with their daily activities. So, I’m a family man.
“Also, I’m a person with friends, who are very close to me as others schooled together with me and now we are grown-ups. We were in secondary school, but a number of them are my students as I started working as a teacher. So, you can see I completed my high school education (Form Six) in 1963 when most of you here were not born,” he says.

However, he explains that, contrary to his expectations, he missed the chance of continuing with his studies directly as he had to wait for some time before proceeding with education.
Here is what he says: “After the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, the Revolutionary Government ordered that all the youth who, including myself, completed Form Six education had to first remain behind to help build the country.
“This is because the government took the decision of expelling all colonial officers whose positions were filled by the youth.”
However, the opposition politician says at that time he had applied to continue with his studies at different universities including Makerere University in Uganda, Oxford University in the UK and several other universities in Canada and the US, which he did not, however, mention.
“The government continued to tell us to be patient until 1972, after the death of Zanzibar’s first President, Mzee Abeid Amani Karume, his successor Aboud Jumbe , who was my secondary school teacher, ordered all the youths to get back to school.
“So, at least 13 youths were selected, including myself, to continue with studies as the rest of them had already been taught by myself, but we joined the University of Dar es Salaam together. So, all these people are still my friends as some of them are working with us.
“So, I could say outside politics, Maalim Seif, as I’m, is an ordinary human being, who loves making jokes with people. Why do people still have confidence in this Maalim Seif who you know? It is because I do not discriminate anybody. Even my guards get some difficulties (laughter). Because when I go to Baraza, I stay with different people, but my guards don’t want it all. So, I tell them that they guard me physically and physically look at my life, but they don’t look at my political life (laughter).

Speaking about the position of his wife, Bi Hawaina, here is what he says: “I thank Bi Hawaina a lot for her tolerance and for looking after the children as most of the time she was alone and I had no ample time, as a parent, to participate because I used to make official visits to different places.
“You know, I regard politics as my second wife. I have only one wife, but I regard politics as my second wife. I feel pity for my wife. Ever since I was the head of CCM’s department, I was not used to staying in Zanzibar as I moved around all the regions of the mainland.
“And when I became Zanzibar’s Chief Minister - and, thereafter, CUF Secretary General - I rarely went there, because I used to go outside the country often. So, I really feel pity for my wife because my children had no ample time to spend with their father,” says Seif Sharif Hamad, who reveals his favourite food.
“I’m a Zanzibari … I like any kind of cooked rice including pilaf, white cooked rice, cooked rice mixed with fried steak and pepper, and cooked rice mixed with fish that is my side dish. I do also like eating stiff maize and cassava porridge mixed with cooked greens. It is okay to me.”
He showered praise on his wife for doing the job of raising their children. “I thank her very much. She was also a teacher, but she quit in order to raise the children.”
“I sometimes wish to know the position of her parents in enabling her to enter politics. I asked her whether one of her parents was in politics or they persuaded her to enter politics, but she responded there was nobody who did that.
“I’m telling you, when I was a little boy, I can’t remember when, but my parents used to tell me ‘if you are educated, you will become a leader’. But even after I got educated, I had no dream of becoming a politician as he always wanted to become a top public servant or as government employee (a bureaucrat) like a permanent secretary in a ministry. So, I can only say that I was thrown into politics.”
He touched on how Zanzibar’s second phase president, Mzee Aboud Jumbe, who appointed him to become his aide in the President’s Office.
“There is where I started working under Zanzibar’s President and Afro Shiraz Party (ASP) chairman.
“On February 22, 1977 after parties were merged, I received a phone call, requiring me to go to State House. In the first place I thought I was going there to collect a notice, but when I reached there the protocol people just told me about where my chair was… but I told them that I was just a clerk… all those who I saw around were members of the House of Representatives and ministers. Lah … that is when I asked myself ‘Has the president appointed me a minister?’
“So, when the president came in, he said he had made a Cabinet reshuffle and appointed me as an education minister.
That was how I entered the world of politics.

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VIDEO: Maalim Seif discusses family life and his political journey

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