Good to have you back here Kiranga.
The sacking of Mafuru was quite unfortunate - the same goes for Mwele Malecela. What I am surprised by the leadership style of the top man is that that has not ruffled the wrong way people like Mahiga or other technically abled personnel in the administration. It seems non possess both the intestinal and testicular fortitude to resign.
Thanks Epigenetics.
It is good to have thoroughly reasoned input here. Whenever I see your input, I am in equal parts delighted and inclined to pay attention and ponder seriously.
The question of how to deal with a mad emperor (and let's face it, this, in all earnest, is the question here) has puzzled political analysts since before the times of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. It is not an easy one to solve.
What does an aide with integrity do? Does one resign in protest and to expose the madness in the hope that doing so will hasten the demise of the regime and stop the bleeding before too much blood is shed and the body politic dies?
Or does one stay onboard to serve despite all the chicanery, in the hope that doing so has the chance of at least minimizing the damage?
Is the known present state of chaos and confusion better than or worse than (for the country, that is) a half of the scenarios that would probably play out after a resignation?
The answer, by some not so uninformed estimation, depends on a very well calibrated set of scenarios.
I remember reading on The Wall Street Journal a few months ago on this very question. The article was centred on why the clearly failing Maduro administration is not deserted by some very sane Venezuelan politicians. The conclusion was, there is a critical mass point where deserting is meaningful. Resign before reaching that point, only to have the regime pass through some doldrums successfully, and you become an impotent has been, even an enemy of a powerful cabal in the deep state. Stay on too long past this point only to fall later with an unpopular government, you become a pariah that fell on the wrong side of history.
I will try to look for a paywall free version of that article and post it here.
The biggest reason I can think of that keeps people like Dr. Mahiga going is an impenetrable sense of patriotism and optimism, in fact let's take Dr. Mahiga as an example here. I can speak from personal knowledge of Dr. Mahiga, his working philosophy and history going back to the Nyerere era, so this is not just a generalization or speculation. I know Dr. Mahiga personally.
Dr. Mahiga, is a diplomat, he is a natural optimist. To a fault. Going to Somalia to mediate for the UN requires such a person. I suspect he realizes the unenviable position he is in but justifies his staying on by rationalizing that the country needs people like him now than ever, lest an inexperienced person -or even an experienced one who is a sinister opportunist- comes on board and the country faces some major embarassment without having an able diplomat at the top who can do some serious fire fighting.
This is the biggest reason I think Dr. Mahiga stays on. Otherwise he would have resigned to enjoy his sizable (by Tanzanian standards) UN pension.
Of course you have the element of personal ego of "I am not a quitter" and "I have to finish whatever I started" on his part and many of his counterparts. Of course some characters are motivated more by being in power than anything else. These elements are not to be ignored.
I feel that in Tanzania, the Machiavellian adage "tumikia kafiri upate mtaji wako" is taken very seriously. People in power are respected tremendously regardless of what their ability is. Magufuli himself served for almost two decades under Mkapa and Kikwete, watching all this business about dubious mining contracts, and even passing the minutes at the cabinet level with neither a public protest nor a resignation. All along, we have to assume -if at all the current mining contracts overhaul is serious- he was irked and reserved his ire until he clinched the throne. People who justify his former silence on the matter argue that, had he resigned in protest, he wouldn't be in his current position that gives him the power to overhaul everything with presidential powers.
I am big on nuance and equivocating to get the other side's point of view. This argument is hard to dismiss, especially from a realpolitik Tanzanian experience that is devoid of a highminded morality that sometimes is seldom realistic. We are often accused of analyzing the Tanzanian political landscape with ivory tower theories that are far removed frim realpolitik.
I would like to see people resigning in protest, public protest at that. But apart from the fact that that could turn really dangerous really fast (one can easily say to hell with that and stand for principle), the thinking goes, there is no guarantee that the next person filling the position will be any better. In fact chances are a stooge will be in place.
In fact, we are seeing the exact opposite. Instead of people like Dr. Mahiga resigning, we are seeing elements of the opposition, people like Dr. Kitila Mkumbo - a walking contradiction and an embarassment to the opposition if there ever was one- and Anna Mghwira are recruited into Magufuli's administration, lending it credence in the process.
The sad reality is that, without protest resignations and even expose books like Kenya's Miguna Miguna "Peeling Back The Mask: A Quest for Justice in Kenya" -this book helped me understand Raila Odinga so well- we will be shortchanging our democracy severely.
An even bigger reality is that most of people in power will not resign.Whether by a quaint sense of patriotism and sense of duty that borders denial, like Dr. Mahiga, or out of sheer sense of severe power hunger, culture of collective oversurbodination and an unhealthy respect for authority like so many of the gang.
There is a need to raise the voice that creates a criticall mass to call them out to either do the needful and resign, or be counted with the pariah team that is sinking the ship.
This includes abled people who are almost in denial with their quaint sense of duty, patriotism, optimism and a collective unhealthy respect for authority that only serves to enable and normalize our current Caligula.
Unfortunately, we do not yet have the requisite political awareness to see past certain machinations and propaganda from the current ruler and his enablers.
But this has hardly stoped a determined movement.
Bill Ayers said a revolution looks impossible before it happens and inevitable after it happens.