Celebrating Mwalimu Nyerere: The epitome of servant leadership

Julius Nyerere passed on over a decade ago, 15 years after giving up state power, but that has not stopped his admirers from continuing to churn out texts to celebrate his successes, failures and ‘mistakes’, sometimes interpreted as mitigation for his excesses and obvious weaknesses.

Nyerere was, and remains, a towering African leader who will always be remembered and missed for his cracking wisdom, unwavering commitment to African causes, and his forthrightness and moral stature as an individual.

Reading ‘Africa’s Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere’ leaves me with the impression that we are not yet done with romanticising the teacher-turned-president-turned-statesman and founding father of the United Republic of Tanzania. Perhaps we are still nostalgic and so easily caught up in the grips of the past, a symptom of loss of faith and interest in the present or future, as the late British historian Edward Hallet Carr would put it.

The death of decent leadership on the African continent could be the other reason why Mwalimu still stands as a beacon of honest, upright, unpretentious rulership even in his death, despite his monumental mistakes, which his admirers and loyalists often gloss over.

The fact that since quitting in 1984 as president and his passing away in 1999, no African leader – apart from Madiba (Nelson Mandela), the living legend – has neared Nyerere’s intellectualism, robust political leadership, humility and political decency is a testament that Nyerereism will still be with us for a very long time to come.

At about the same time he was retiring, a new crop of African leaders was fermenting in the trenches of Luwero Triangle, the highlands of Ethiopia and what was to later become Eritrea. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a lot of pregnant hope and excitement on the African continent that Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki would be the new breed of leaders, champions of newly found and fought for democracy and therefore shun institutional corruption, demagoguery, political chicanery and life presidency.

Many hoped that the new leadership would inspire a new reawakening among the people of Africa, bring hope in a continent where kleptomaniac tendencies among the ruling political barons was and is the order of the day. There was palpable joy as people looked forward to ushering in a new century with new leadership that promised to elevate Africa to the echelons of enlightened political leadership.

By the time Nyerere was passing on, just on the eve of the 21st century, there were already telltale signs that all was not well in African leadership. This trio that had been joined by two other rebel leaders, the strict and disciplinarian Rwandan Paul Kagame and the late ludicrous Laurent Kabila, who had been helped in overthrowing Mobutu Sese Seko. To date, these leaders, perhaps with the exception of Kagame, have not lived up to their expectations and have dashed the hopes of many Africans at home and in the diaspora.

So Nyerere must remain the focal point and fulcrum from where to adjudge Africa’s enlightened political leadership that, although troubled by both external and internal forces of imperialism, neocolonialism, failed home-grown social policies such as Ujamaa and the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), remained sober and true to his people of Tanzania.

Suffice to say, if Nyerere was alive today he would probably be sorely perturbed by some of his country’s policies on some of his greatest ideals that he lived for. The East African Community (EAC) is one such passion. Yet, in the whispered corridors of power, it is being alleged that it is actually Tanzania’s government that is forestalling the speedy integration process of the region.

The fact that Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), a party that was central to Nyerere’s political life, still runs the country like it did in the 1980s, refusing to democratise enough and to live up to the ideals of pluralist politics, and hence clings on to dinosaur politics of yore and of monolithic structure, would certainly disturb Mwalimu.

The widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots, the apparent primitive accumulation of capital and the marketisation of goods and services, which Nyerere in his sometimes naïve ways sought to tame, would greatly impinge on his conscience. Although institutional corruption also existed during Mwalimu’s tenure, in latter day Tanzania, just like in many African countries, it has now firmly grown roots and is spreading.

The late Professor Haroub Othman, a fellow Tanzanian, had said Nyerere was not a saint. But that has not stopped the Catholic Church from religiously adopting the founding president for the cause of sainthood. A deeply committed catholic, Nyerere’s religious life, which he did well to be subtle about, is one that is not known to many people.

In the late 1960s and after the Arusha Declaration, Nyerere went about nationalising many of the foreign companies and institutions. But one of the organisations that he deliberately sidestepped was the Catholic Church. None of their properties reverted to the state and they continued running their schools, hospitals and other church-affiliated development projects unperturbed.

The fact that both the political and religious world is seeking to canonise the former statesman is a clear sign that Nyerere, in his own different ways and despite his many foibles, affected these two worlds immensely.

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* This review was originally published by The Star (Tuesday 1 June 2010).
* ‘Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere’ is edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassamwill and published by Pambazuka Press.
* Dauti Kahura is a journalist who occasionally writes for The Standard.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.