Nyerere’s timeless warning on pomposity and ‘rubbish’

On this observing of Nyerere Day, yesterday, I thought it vital to reproduce a section of a seminal letter that Mwalimu Nyerere wrote back on July 13, 1963 to officialdom and TANU functionaries. This letter is never talked about in the public domain but I believe it may even have more significance in today’s Tanzania than it did back then. I have witnessed with my own eyes how even at solemn occasions such as the funeral of my late father, who was the first indigenous AG, just how our leaders have an insatiable thirst for extravagance with their escorts and guards wielding guns. You would think they are going into a combat zone. Nyerere was a teacher in the true sense as his name Mwalimu goes.

A part of the letter reads: “It is the same with police escorts. We managed to get about quite well without them when we were not in the government; but I am told we cannot now do without them altogether. I admit, therefore, that there may be certain ceremonial occasions when it is necessary for the President or the Vice-President, to have a police escort. For example, when receiving a State visit or when there is to be a State Opening of Parliament we have to make sure the roads are clear so that the President arrives punctually at his destination. In a case like that the preliminary clearing of the road from The State House to Karimjee Hall is necessary, and the public can easily appreciate why it is so. But, as with the playing of the national anthem, the intrinsic importance of the occasion must itself be sufficient to warrant the use of a police escort. It is meaningless, in fact it is insulting to the public, if we try and use an escort, or play the national anthem, as a means of embroidering the most ordinarily occasion with a sham pomp which it does not merit!

“The office of President, in this or any other sovereign republic, carries with it the duties and the responsibilities of the head of state. It does not, or it most certainly should not, oblige its holder to become also the greatest public nuisance in the capital city! Yet, as a result of this growing insistence on pomposity and ostentation, the President of Tanganyika is fast becoming the worst public nuisance the city of Dar es Salaam has ever had to put up with!

“Whenever he decides to go out, whether to a dinner, a dance, or even to visit some friends, the normal flow of traffic has now to be interfered with. If he has not had time to warn the police well in advance, then other road-users on the route to his destination will suddenly find themselves being cleared out of the way (like so much unsightly rubbish) to leave the road clear for the President’s car. And, acting under orders to get it clear immediately, the unfortunate police outriders have no time for courteous explanations; so that the mere ‘ordinary’ motorist has to be waved off the road with a rude abruptness, and sublime disregard for his own convenience, which can do little to enhance his respect for the cause of it all!

“If, on the other hand, the police have had sufficient warning to enable them to do their work efficiently, then all traffic within a quarter of a mile of the route may be brought to a standstill for anything from half an hour to an hour before the President leaves The State House.

“If I were not myself the President, I should by now have taken to ringing up the The State House before ever attempting to fix any appointment with a friend; for it is rapidly becoming impossible for anybody in Dar es Salaam to guess how long it will take him to drive from point A to point B without first finding out whether the President also intends to go out on that particular day!

“And it is not only the public who suffer, but the police themselves. It is difficult, to say the least, for them to live up to the repeated injunctions of TANU and the Government to ‘treat the public with consideration and courtesy’, and at the same time to carry out sudden orders to clear bewildered motorists from the public thoroughfares in a matter of minutes! Once we even had a serious accident as a direct result of this insistence on the very maximum of pomp. I was going to Morogoro. Two police cars had been provided as escort, but at the last moment it was decided that this was not impressive enough, so a motor-cycle outrider was ordered to go ahead of the police cars. As he was hurrying to obey this order something happened, and his motor-cycle overturned. He was severely injured, and lost four of his teeth -- all in the cause of enhancing the Presidential Pomp.

“Then, too, there is the question of The State House grounds. It is much more difficult to enter The State House grounds than it was under Colonial Rule. There have been several occasions when I have wanted passers-by to be allowed into the grounds to enjoy a ngoma that was going on there. But it has proved impossible for me or anybody else to get the gate opened. Presumably this could only be authorised by means of a Cabinet Directive!

“I, myself, cannot leave The State House grounds without the guard at the gate being called to announce to the whole city -- by a fanfare of trumpets -- that The President is going out!

Hitherto, whenever I have questioned the value of all this very undemocratic democracy, I have been assured that ‘the people like it’. But this is highly doubtful. Do the people really like being refused permission to join in the ngomas which they can see going on the other side of The State House barriers?

“Do they really love being shouted at to get off the road because the President, or a minister or a regional commissioner, is taking an afternoon drive? Do they really feel a surge of pride and patriotism every time they are expected to stop what they are doing and stand to attention just because some newly-appointed official, whom they may not even have seen before, is being, ‘serenaded’ by his friends with the national anthem.”

We should stop deceiving ourselves. This sort of pomposity has nothing to do with the people, for it is the very reverse of democratic. We must stop it.

We must begin to treat pomposity with the scorn it deserves. Dignity does not pomposity to uphold it; and pomposity in all its forms is a wrong. Even it were proved that the people really did enjoy it- which I very much doubt- it would still be a wrong; and as such it would still be our duty to put a stop to it, and to tell the people that what they had learned to enjoy was wrong.

Yours sincerely,

JKN.