Shariff Ritz,
Nakuwekea kitu vipi Said Ally Mswanya alivyoingia katika siasa Tabora na utamuona mwisho
kabisa ya maelezo yangu kama nilivyoeleza katika kitabu changu.
Hii ilikuwa 1955/56:
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[TD]German Pacha, TAA secretary in Western Province, was among the Associations delegation which on 29 th October, 1953 went to Government House to see Governor Edward Twining to discuss Government Circular No. 5 banning civil servants from politics.
The following year TAA was transformed into TANU and Pacha was among the founding members.
Pacha began to campaign for TANU soon after his return from the founding conference.
Being a graduate of Kipalapala Pastoral Centre, he had easy access to Parish halls of rural Tabora in which he held some of the early TANU campaign meetings.
This created a conflict between Pacha and TANU Muslim leadership in Tabora.
[1]
Missionaries were known to be colonial agents and anti-Islam. The Muslim leadership in Tabora therefore withdrew its support for Pacha and for a period of time TANU in Western Province stalled.
TANU did not, as a result, make inroads into Tabora as was expected.
The zeal which had characterised politics in Tabora from 1945 seemed to have waned with the emergence of the new political party.
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[TD]The initiative to inject life into TANU came a year later in 1955 from the Young New Strong Football Club-an old established soccer club which was popular in the township.
Among the members of the club were some of the founding members of the African Association, Fundi Mhindi and Maulid Kivuruga.
The Chairman of the club was Juma Mrisho, a star footballer; Shaaban Mohamed Silabu and Bilali Rehani Waikela were secretary and assistant secretary respectively.
This leadership met in the house of Abeid Kazimoto, employed by the Medical Department, to discuss how to invigorate the Party.
It was now clear that Pacha, being a Christian and belonging to the Lulwa tribe from Mpanda, failed to win the confidence of the proud Manyemas of Tabora.
After all, Manyemas are known for their quarrelsome character.
At that time TANU had to be accepted by Muslims in urban centres before it could spread to other areas.
Manyemas like other urbanised Muslims in town centres were a very strong political force which could not be easily ignored.
What faced Pacha was similar to what Nyerere had faced after defeating Abdulwahid in the 1953 TAA election.
Muslims withdrew their support from the Association for similar reasons.
The club leadership decided to invite Julius Nyerere and Bibi Titi Mohamed to Tabora to discuss the problem.
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[TD]In 1955 the two came to Tabora and a meeting was held at the club house.
In attendance were Pacha, Juma Mrisho, Shaaban Mohamed Silabu, Bilali Rehani Waikela, Mohamed Mataka, then
Muezzin of Masjid Nur-the mosque frequented by Manyemas, Hassan Mohamed Ikunji, Ramadhani Mussa Wajaku, Swedi Mambosasa, Said Ali Kiruwi and Hamisi Khalfan.
The club leadership told Nyerere and Bibi Titi that the football club was seeking affiliation with TANU in order to start a membership drive.
They were told further that since the club enjoyed support of the people in Tabora and had maximum publicity this could be used to the benefit of the Party.
Nyerere was also informed that the club would like to integrate within TANU the three women only societies, the
lelemama and
taarab groups-
Nujum ul Azhar, Waradatil Hubb and
Egyptian Club.
Nyerere and Titi agreed to these suggestions and that night, flanked by the club leadership, Nyerere spoke to the crowd which had gathered outside the clubhouse, on the future Tanganyika.
Nyerere had come back to Tabora, where part of his political carrier had begun eight years before. Conspicuously absent in all these negotiations, in which local alliances were being forged and the struggle for Tanganyika was being planned, were the educated Makerere intellectuals of the St. Marys School.
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[TD]A Muganda woman by the name Nyange bint Chande, a member of one of the
lelemama groups in Tabora, offered her house as the first TANU office in Western Province.
Elections were held and Shaban Marijani Shaban and Idd Said Ludete were elected TANU District Chairman and Secretary respectively.
Bilali Rehani Waikela became committee member. The first TANU membership cards were sold at the market place by one Amani Idd and Pacha, the Tabora TANU Provincial Secretary, who had a small business there. Amani Idd was later joined in this work by Dharura bint Abdulrahman.
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[TD]No sooner had the Party began to gain strength then a conflict erupted between the provincial and district office.
By the end of 1956, TANU branches were opened in all eight districts of Western province with the initiative of the TANU district office in Tabora.
In 1957 the Manyema leadership at the district office complained that the provincial office was dormant and called for elections to elect a new provincial secretary and chairman and oust Pacha from leadership.
At provincial level TANU did not in fact have an office of its own.
Although there was some truth in the allegations levelled against him, Pacha took all these new developments as an excuse and as a deliberate effort to drive him out of power.
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[TD]Mzee Fundi Mhindi, a veteran politician, founder member of the African Association in 1945 and TANU in Western Province in 1955 and now chairman of Tabora TANU Elders Council was sent to TANU headquarters in Dar es Salaam to discuss the problem of provincial elections.
Mzee Fundi Mhindi held discussions with Nyerere and John Rupia.
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[TD]TANU headquarters decided to send Peter Mhando (younger brother of Stephen Mhando) to Tabora to make an on-the-spot investigation and file back a report which would form the basis of a lasting solution to problems afflicting TANU in Tabora.
Peter Mhando, who was in his late twenties working with other youths at the district office (Waikela, Ramadhani Abdallah Singo, Abdullah Said Kassongo and others), completed a report and sent it to the headquarters in Dar es Salaam.
This was to be Mhandos last assignment, as he died of diabetes soon after filing that report to Nyerere.
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[TD]TANU headquarters reacted to Mhandos report by sending
Said Ali Maswanya to Tabora from Shinyanga to become provincial secretary in place of Pacha.
In his report to TANU headquarters Peter Mhando recommended that the next TANU annual conference should be held in Tabora so as to give more strength to the party in Western Province.
This is how Tabora came to host that important meeting.
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***
Nyerere took the opportunity of his presence in Tabora to solve the leadership crisis which had
occupied TANU in Tabora for a long time. Since his return from the TANU founding conference in
Dar es Salaam in July, 1954, Pacha had not called for a meeting to elect office bearers as required
by the constitution.
The provincial office in Tabora was functioning without a chairman and the tenure of the incumbent
secretary Pacha had lapsed four years back.
Nyerere presided over the long overdue provincial elections, and
Said Ali Maswanya was elected chairman
and Kassela Bantu defeated Pacha to become Tabora TANU provincial secretary. Before leaving Tabora
Nyerere held a public meeting at the Tabora Central Market to announcethe conference resolutions.
***
It is from these developments that we can now start tracing and analysing how the government finally moved
to subvert Muslim unity through campaigns of intrigue, sabotage, bribery and misinformation against the EAMWS
leadership, which it perceived as a threat to its own political domination over the Muslim majority.
The governmentwas now literally in Christian hands. Apart from Zanzibaris in the union government-A.M. Maalim,
Minister of Commerce and Industry; Aboud Jumbe, Minister of State; A.M. Babu, Minister of Lands, Settlement and
Water development; Hasnu Makame, Minister of Information and Tourism; Nyereres right-hand man, First-Vice
President Rashid Mfaume Kawawa, the only Muslim minister from the Mainland in the fifteen-man cabinet was
Said Ali Maswanya, Minister of Minister of Home Affairs.
How could such a situation have arisen? The answer to this question lies in the past history of Tanzania when the
first missionaries arrived to civilise the black continent.
Shariff Ritz,
Huyo ndiyo
Said Ali Maswanya.
Alitokea Shinyanga akenda Tabora na mwisho Dar es Salaam.
Amekufa akiijua vyema historia ya TANU na yote yaliyotokea baada ya uhuru.
[1]
Kumbukumbu za Uenezi wa TAA/TANU Western Province. Pachas Papers.
