Mke wangu siku zote anasema si tu Zanzibar bali mpaka Tanzania nzima haijawahi kutokea mwandishi wa habari mahiri kama Ali Nabwa. Na ukitaka kujua mengi kuhusu Huyu basi katika timu yenu wangemwongeza Salim Saleh kwani huyo kidogo anajua chimbuko lake na alisimamia sana maadili ya kiuandishi.
Mola amlaze pema Peponi.[/QUOTE
Amin.
Hii ni taazia nilimwandikia sahib wangu Ali Nabwa na ilichapwa na The East African.Wednesday, February 21, 2007Obituary:The Weeping and Whipping Pen of Ali Mohamed Nabwa (1936 -2007) By Mohammed Said,
"There was never a dull moment with Nabwa. When I first came into contact withhim I knew him by one name only - Nabwa. I did not even know that that was nothis real name but a nick name. I came to know of his real name much later whenI came by chance to read his prison letters written from Ukonga Prison Dar esSalaam where he was remanded being accused as among those who had plotted theassassination of President Abeid Amani Karume. These letters are masterpiecesof literature not only in the style, language, satire, wit and the anecdotesbut in what the letters reveals of what actually took place in Ukonga Prisonwhere those arrested in Mainland were remanded. We will Insha Allah come tothose letters later.
I met Nabwa for that first time in mid 1970s in Dar es Salaam . At that time hewas staying at Narungombe junction with Sikukuu Street in Kariakoo. The houseNabwa used to leave was one of the landmarks of Kariakoo in more than onemeaning. The house, a two storey building was one of the few imposing buildingsby the standard of that time owned by an African. The house belonged to MzeeMrisho of Mwanza. This building hosted the famous Saigon Club a hang out ofwatoto wa mjini, who is who of Dar es Salaam. Not that the club rented anypremise in the building, not at all. Members just met and relaxed in chairs inthe environs and shade of that building. Saigon was a meeting place of allsorts of upstarts as well as those who have made it, be it in politics,business and what have you. They met at Saigon Club to exchange notes, makedeals, relax, while away the time discussing issues of the day mainly footballpolitics or sit for a drink across the road at the local pub in those dayspopularly known as store.
In Mwalimu Nyereres Tanzania one needed a permit to purchase the essentials inlife lactogen milk for a newly born baby, rice and cooking oil for a weddingor funeral, a car. If one has problems of documentation in clearing goods fromthe port due to bureaucracy and wants to beat the red tape all that could bearranged with ease at Saigon Club. The Club became popular and many young andnot so young were proud to be identified with the club. To be a member ofSaigon proved that you were someone about town because at Saigon one rubbedshoulders with the rich and famous though in humble surroundings of Kariakoo.It was in this kind of setting that I met Ali Nabwa.
Since the Club was adjacent to where he lived, Nabwa used to come out and joinus the lazy bones for a chat. It was during that period in the discussion I hadwith him that I noticed the massive intellectual ability in Nabwa. We wouldsometimes disengage ourselves from the crowd and the two of us would sit apartfrom the rest of the crowd to be engrossed in deep discussion about Zanzibar .In this way I came to be exposed first hand of the atrocities which took placein Zanzibar soon after the revolution in 1964. In me Nabwa found an ardentlistener and a wiling but interactive student. Nabwas narrations of thepersonalities in the Zanzibar Revolution and his analysis of complexity ofZanzibar politics became an eye opener to me.
One day Nabwa told me how Abdulaziz Twala met his death. I was stunned. I toldNabwa that Twala and Jaha Ubwa were friends of my father. In our sitting roomon the wall there was a photograph of my father and Twala posing together. Whenmy father got information that his friend Twala had been killed he removed thephoto from the wall and I never saw that photo again. And from that day forwhatever reason if he had to mention Twala or Jaha Ubwa even among his friendsmy father whispered. I was very young at that time to understand the fear whichthe atrocities in Zanzibar had instilled into many people including my fatherto the extent that he thought unwise even to retain whatever memories he had ofhis late friends and be scared stiff to even mention Twalas name or that ofJaha Ubwa in public. The day Nabwa related to me the story of Kassim Hanga andthe barbaric way he was killed, he brought back memories of the man as I knewhim in 1960s. I told Nabwa that as a young boy of about 12 years of age I knewHanga from a distance because he used to come to the neighbourhood were welived to play bao. At that time Hanga was minister in the Union Government. Icant even count the times I saw Hanga at Gogo junction with Mchikichi Streetsitting on a mat playing the traditional game of bao with very common people.I told Nabwa I was there among the crowd at Mnazi Mmoja Grounds in front ofArnautoglo Hall when Hanga was taken from Ukonga Prison and brought to a publicrally in which Nyerere jeered, ridiculed and humbled him publicly. Hanga headbowed and his bespectacled face full of beard sat there in the scorching sunsilently wallowing in his humiliation. That was the last time Hanga was seen inpublic.
Nabwa became my mentor now filling the missing gaps for me. Probably unknown tohim, Nabwa was correcting the stereo type of Zanzibaris and Zanzibar which hadhitherto existed in my young innocent mind. I began to see Zanzibar , itspeople, history and the revolution in a different perspective. Nabwasnarrations became more interesting to me because I was now placing the faces Iknew to the events and the sad endings which engulfed them. My palaver withNabwa soon became a two way street because when Nabwa took me through memorylane I will interject of what I knew about a personality or event howeverscanty that information was. What Nabwa did was to listen patiently and latercorrect my version.
The Zanzibaris I knew as young boy was that of my fathers friends and theirwives who came to visit our home mostly during sports festivals in EasterHolidays. The Zanzibar I knew was that painted to me by my father of partiesand taarab and the singing of Bakari Abeid, of Ikhwan Safaa of koga mwakaand the like. The Zanzibaris I came into contact with were my fathers friends,nice people who would ask me if say my prayers daily and whether I havefinished my Quranic orientation and things like that. Nabwa was painting adifferent picture of Zanzibar and the revolution. In this way I became Nabwasstudent of the robust and violent Zanzibar politics and for the time we weretogether I came to like Nabwa and I have every reason to believe he liked mebecause the friendship we striked lasted until when Nabwa passed away.
But strange never at any one time did he mention to me that he had just beenreleased from prison. I only came to know about that many years later when Imet Jim Bailey and he handed me a manuscript Tanzania the Story of JuliusNyerere. I met Jim Bailey in early 1990s. Jim Bailey was the proprietor andexecutive editor of Drum a photo-journalistic magazine published in SouthAfrica and distributed in almost all English speaking African colonies. Drumwas a very popular magazine. Its popularity only waned after most of Africancountries gained their independence and the new leadership in Africa seemed tobe enjoying founding fault with the publication. Drum was banned in manyAfrican countries for various reasons, from publishing nude pictures (scantydressed girls) to not observing the right etiquettes when reporting sensitivegovernment matters. I was introduced to Jim Bailey by Ally Sykes.
Jim Bailey had a manuscript and wanted someone to go through it and giverecommendations on the work. It was a book of collection of old photograph withcaptions and articles in between from Baileys African Photo Archives inJohannesburg . Bailey travelled from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam to see AllySykes and show him the manuscript. Ally Sykes recommended me to Jim Bailey andit was in this way that I met him and he gave me the manuscript to read. It wasthrough this manuscript that I came for the first time face to face withNabwas pen through his Prison Letters. The letters introduced Nabwas mind tome in a way that I can not find words to describe. In those letters Nabwas penwas not writing but weeping and whipping. The words from Nabwas pen weretaking me to a different world which even in my wildest imagination I neverthought existed. The first letter written in 1973 from Central Police StationDar es Salaam shocked me. In that letter Nabwa described intimidation andtorture by the police in the style replica of the Ton Ton Macouts of Papa DocsHaiti .
That was not all among those arrested with him was Badru Said. This was aperson I knew, an uncle of a friend of mine. In Nabwas sense of humour in theletter he says it needs a Dickens to describe the squalor of the cell he wasin. The letters which followed were all from Condemned Section Ukonga Prisonwith the exception of one from Muhimbili Hospital where he was hospitalised. Iremember reading those letters I some times found myself laughing not becausethe paragraph was in any way amusing but for the mockery and absurdity of itall. But that alone would not have made me laugh. It was that cynicism bankingon satire which made me laugh at the tragic events unfolding instead of shadingtears. Nabwas pen entertained me in a way that I had not experienced before.In his analysis of the personalities which people were made to believe weresymbols of justice and principles Nabwas pen removed the charade and thecamouflage to reveal their true colours and identity. Nabwas letters were apotpourri of short biographies, dossiers, profiles, hit list of enemies andmethod of their execution. In the Prison Letters Nabwas pen exposed theatrocities which took place in Zanzibar after the revolution and analysed thearrogance, mediocrity and sheer myopia of the leadership.
Bailey had this to write on the letters:
When I came by the letters of Ali Mohamed Ali a Comorian islander, formerlymanager of the Dar es Salaam branch of the East African Publishing House written from Ukonga Gaol in Dar es Salaam , describing gaol conditions, theyturned my stomach. I checked them against the story of a totally independentformer prisoner in Ukonga. They tallied. I checked them against the record of aformer Ugandan prisoner. They tallied. I discussed them with a former seniormember of Tanu in Dar es Salaam . He confirmed that those were the conditions.I did not publish them since it would have put paid to any chance of publishingagain in Tanzania .
After finishing reading the manuscript I wanted to meet Nabwa and give him hisletters as I knew he would not have copies and he would love to have them back.At that time he was Personal Assistant to the Vice President Dr Omar Ali Juma.I was able to get Nabwas telephone number through an acquaintance at MasomoBookshop in Zanzibar and I called him. If Dar es Salaam has Saigon Club,Zanzibar can boast of Masomo Bookshop at Mkunazini. One can fix anything fromthere.
I travelled to Zanzibar and I met Nabwa. About ten years had passed since wesaw each other. Nabwa was happy to see me and was beside himself when Ipresented the envelope full of photocopies of his prison letters. He wanted toknow how I came by them. Typical of him Nabwa began asking me if I couldrecognise the personalities behind he initials and innuendos he had used in theletters instead of real names. I told him some I could. Nabwa revealed to methe true identities of the characters. Some of them were people personallyknown to me.
Now looking back I am happy that I was among those privileged to read Nabwasrevelations of injustices in Zanzibar before he became a celebrity of sorts andhis writings major topic of discussion in the corridors of power. Theatrocities which no one had the courage to speak about them publicly for almostforty years were laid bare for all to read through Dira the paper which Nabwafounded in 2004. Dira was the first free newspaper in Zanzibar since therevolution. The ripples from Nabwas pen were electrifying. Dira became a papereagerly awaited by the public including Zanzibar leadership each week. Itscirculation rose each passing week. Nabwas pen was lifting the lid in broaddaylight. The stories of treachery, rape, murder, homosexuality, forcedmarriages by members of the Revolutionary Council and their cronies in Zanzibarwere all there with names, places and accomplices for all to read and passjudgement. Those who had demonised the Sultan had no tongue to defend their ownupright track record. The young generation began to ask questions and in theanswers they saw the leadership in power and the revolution in a differentlight all together.
Nabwas pen helped the young generation to understand why those in powerabhorred democracy and were constantly haunted by the ballot box. They now knewwhy the leadership in the government shivered at the prospect of losing power.The young generation now realised why the leadership would go to any length tocling to power even to the extent of committing more atrocities just to remainin power through massive vote rigging. What more the young generation realisedwhy those in power were trying to build a dynasty. The government did not have thecourage or the strength of character to contradict Nabwas pen. The only wayout for the ruling clique was to harass Nabwa, revoke his citizenship andmuzzle him by banning Dira. But governments revenge upon Nabwa had come toolate as to some extent Nabwas pen had completed its mission. The last time Isaw Nabwa was at his Dira office at Vuga. I had gone there to congratulate himfor the work he was doing through the paper. I called him when Dira was bannedand his citizenship revoked. I had a pressing matter which I wanted to discusswith him. I asked him if we could meet in Dar es Salaam . He told me that if heleaves the isles, Zanzibar Government will not let him in again. That wasNabwa. Much as he was haunted through intrigues Nabwa was not a person to becowed. He challenged those in power to take him one on one. The authorities didnot have the stomach for that."
Mohamed