Ejama eh, naelewa ni uchaguzi season but some of the comments here are downright flawed, big time! First of, is Mtwara poor? It is ironic that one of the wealth of Mtwara, korosho, made a certain MP of Singida and his family quite rich!. Companies such as Mohammed Enterprises and Export Trading were responsible for the downfall of one of the most profitable governmental parastatal, GAPEX.
Secondly, these mentioned regions may have suffered due to the absence of cash crops, natural resources and/or mineral deposits. The so called rich regions had a major cash crop, which led to the presence of major cooperative unions, which in turn led to access to funds to send their children to schools. Kilimanjaro, Kagera, Mbeya had coffee, Mwanza, Shinyanga, Mara had cotton, Morogoro, Tanga and surprisingly Singida had sisal. These regions also had well-managed cooperative unions, good education systems that got educated people to work for the colonizers and later cooperative unions - kwani huoni wa akina Mengi, Mwandosya, Tibaijuka, Wasira, Mwapachu, Rutihinda, Rugunyamuheto, Masilingi, Magufuli, Mwakyusa etc wametokea wapi?
The case of Tabora is also the same. Until very much later the existence of beeswax as an export crop was not feasible. Honey and beeswax has recently come into the open but only a few people are taking advantage of this - eti wanasema Rage ni mmojawapo wa wafanyabiashara wanao fanya vizuri sana na biashara hii, lakini wapo wengine pia.
Furthermore, until the first multiparty elections of 1995 (correct me if I am wrong) and given the above reasons for back up, many people in Tanzania knew nothing about new political parties other than CCM and its predecessor, TANU (kwa wale wazee waliokula chumvi nyingi). Inawezekana pia ilikuwa ni swala la kuchagua "jini ulijualo kuliko jini usilolijua". Vilevile, ukweli ni kwamba until uchaguzi wa 2005 na huu wa sasa kumetokea vyama vina uwezo wa kusafiri kwenda kupiga kampeni mikoa yote, na kampeni zote zimesaidiwa na utitiri wa redio, luninga na simu za mkononi.
Binafsi sioni kwamba eti ni CCM, au udikteta wa Nyerere (n@#$%r, please!), udini (come on!) and all the above mentioned reasons ndio sababu mikoa hiyo ni masikini na ni sababu ya kuikumbatia CCM. Ni kwa sababu ya many factors zinazosababisha mikoa hiyo iwe maskini.
Phew.....my two cents!!!