DAR ES SALAAM: MWALIMU Julius Nyerere devoted his life to the service of Tanzania and Africa, carrying a steadfast vision of liberation, self-determination and a future in which freedom translated into dignity for all.
His relentless commitment stemmed from a profound desire to free nations from the grip of exploitation, ensuring that every country could stand sovereign and dignified.
And, 27 years later, Nyerere’s legacy as a leader and advocate for social justice continues to inspire movements for freedom and equality across the globe.
His principled stance and the moral force that underpinned it were decisive in dismantling the system of exploitation and corruption and most important colonialism.
Mwalimu was at the forefront of African anticolonial movements and made this part of the national’s agenda, not only in words but also documented it in the Arusha Declaration as well.
In an interview recently that revisited the national founding father’s leadership principles, Economist-CumInvestment Banker, Dr Hildebrand Shayo said Mwalimu Nyerere believed that it was possible for Tanzania, Africa and the world at large to achieve a common purpose if people work together.
“Let us continue each day to be inspired by his lifelong leadership example and his (Nyerere) call to never cease working for a better peaceful and more just world,” Dr Shayo said.
Mwalimu was a PanAfrican who advocated for anti-colonialism, African independence, sovereignty and self-reliance. He always spoke against oppression and injustice globally.
Thus, Dr Shayo said, “as we celebrate his one hundred years as a nation, let us maintain each day to be encouraged and motivated by his lifelong standard and his quest to united Tanzanians to never give up working for a better united nation and just world”.
Nyerere was a major force behind the modern Pan-African movement and one of the founders in 1963 of the OAU, now AU, and was a key figure in African events in the 1970s.
And, also was a strong advocate of economic and political measures in dealing with the apartheid policies of South Africa.
Many in the geo-political vicinity of the world were inspired by his selfless struggle and stand for human self-esteem, fairness, and liberty.
For his part, Alpha Capital Head of Research and Financial Analytics Imani Muhingo said Mwalimu was widely known for his exemplary moral leadership and standing ground for his beliefs, even against powerful nations and myriads of challenges.
“He (Mwalimu) rejected (then) West Germany’s aid when they lingered economic and military assistance to influence Tanzania’s foreign policy that was crucial to the union Tanganyika and Zanzibar,” Mr Muhingo, an economist and a stockbroker, said.
He hosted exiles and freedom fighters, and supported movements by South Africa’s ANC and PAC, Mozambique’s Frelimo and Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) forces.
Nyerere facilitated for militant trainings for liberation groups and provided financial, military and moral support to many African freedom endeavours.
Mwalimu severed relations with Britain in 1965, by the time a major donor to Tanzania, over Britain’s failure to condemn Zimbabwe’s minority independence.
He threatened to never join the Commonwealth if the apartheid South Africa was a member. South Africa withdrew candidacy soon after.
Nyerere was a son of the chief of the Zanaki. He was educated at Tabora Secondary School and Makerere College in Kampala, Uganda.
He later taught in several Roman Catholic schools before going to Edinburgh University. He was the first Tanganyikan to study at a British university. He graduated with a Master of Arts in history and economics in 1952 and returned to Tanganyika to teach.
In 1953 he joined the Tanganyika African Association (TAA), quickly becoming its president in 1953. In 1954 he converted the organisation into the politically oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU).
Under Nyerere’s leadership the organisation espoused peaceful change, social equality, and racial harmony and rejected tribalism and all forms of racial and ethnic discrimination.
“If real development is to take place, the people have to be involved,” Julius Kambarage Nyerere, from his book ‘Uhuru na Maendeleo’ (Freedom and Development).
According to the book, Remembering Nyerere in Tanzania: History Memory Legacy, Mwalimu, the socialist president of Tanzania, provides one of the best contemporary illustrations of the importance of mean and ideas as factors in historical change, of history not as “destiny and necessity” but as “chance and contingency”.
“He is an example of a ruler who recognises that considerable structural impediments and constrains stand in the way of planned, socialist inspired change in Africa, but who believes that appropriate action can be taken to rationally deal with these obstacles,” the book said.
Nyerere offers the students of African rulers and regimes an example of a leader whose personal ideals will have made a significant difference not only to personal relations of power in the state, but also to social relations in the wider society, the book quoted Jackson and Rosberg research of 1982 at page 219.
He championed democracy by action like giving audience to college students and accepting challenges from his parliament even when they shoot down a bill he sponsored, during one party rule.
“In advocacy for democracy and pragmatism, he agreed to step down when he did not agree with the necessary policies Tanzania had to undertake for economic survivor at the time,” the book said, “and later was a solid advocate for multipartism”.
He still promoted socialism even after his post presidency life, although wisdom led to his recognition of mistakes made during his leadership, especially in the premature nationalisation of the economy.
“As we commemorate 27 years since his death, Tanzania still enjoys his ideologies and fruits of his leadership including unity despite being a nation of more than 100 tribes,” Mr Muhingo said.
Adding “also the widespread use of Kiswahili which is now spoken by approximately 200 million people in Africa and receiving increased recognition and he has remained a moral compass for Tanzanian leadership.”
Even though Nyerere remains the Tanzania’s father of the nation, but his influence extended far beyond its borders, establishing him as a prominent figure in Africa’s liberation struggle and a key advocate for the continent’s newly independent states.
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