Shouting down people who are asking legit questions will not cut ice.
The efforts to “demagufulify” Tanzania are continuing, but, as I expected, these have to grapple with obstacles at every turn and accept these as part of the legacy of the departed leader that will die very hard.
That is the way the cookie crumbles, and to expect anything less would be to engage in daydreaming.
See, for five years and some, John Magufuli ran the country like it was his personal fiefdom. He beat “his” party — for which he had absolutely no respect — into submission, rewrote its governance rules, put at its helm his appointed hatchet men and made it do his bidding, all in the space of five years.
He handpicked minions and gave them responsibilities they could not qualify for, flouted every rule in the book and these rendered his people dizzy with the incalculable powers they now wielded.
Mere mortals, most with pedestrian abilities at best, these individuals grew fangs, scales, claws and talons overnight, went around harassing people, organising gender-based violence and leading raiding parties on people’s property.
They did this with such impunity that one was made to wonder if the president — who was known to have a soft spot with for his lads — really knew what they were up to and whether, if he knew, he even cared.
The perennial excuse that “the man was good but his advisers were bad” cannot stand scrutiny when used about this man.
Several times, after swearing in the people he had appointed to go harass his country men and women, all he told them was “don’t forget you have those hours you can detain people without trial”. It is safe to assume that he knew what they were doing and did not give a hoot how far they went.
We have in our midst people who will feel that they have been shoved away from their dirty manger by the death of Magufuli, and they do not know how to reinvent themselves so as to be accepted as honourable members of society.
I believe some of them might as well come out, dust themselves up and start behaving like ordinary citizens, and contribute to the building of their nation.
But some of them are beyond local repair, having gone overboard in the exactions that they meted out to the people of this country. Some of them were involved in the thievery that went on all along the time that Magufuli was sitting at the top of the food chain.
A lot of them went much further and earlier, back in the day when the man who would become president was still doing his shenanigans in the construction industry.
These were the boys who were with him during his heyday of building roads and bridges, a lot of them sub-standard, the era of appropriating government houses and giving them out free.
Later came the days of land grabbing in all the provinces and the days of so-called “plea-bargaining,” a device put in place for him, by lawyers, to extort and shake down people who might have had issues with law enforcement and were desperate to buy their freedom. The catalogue is too long, the people involved in this chicanery too many.
So they will balk at any and every attempt to put the record straight, and will advance the same tired excuses we are always hearing, like respect for dead people, letting “bygones be bygones,” and concentrating on “going forward” lame excuse by people who do not want to look their past in the face.
Of course, there are those who genuinely thought Magufuli was for the good of this country because “he fought corruption” and stopped the “exploitation by imperialists,” to which I say, “fiddlesticks!”
We may soon know about the man’s so-called integrity, but I doubt the credentials of anyone fighting corruption who starts by killing the media and parliament.
Once you do that, how do you go about fighting graft, unless it is in the same way that he managed to “defeat Covid?” Prayer and fasting?
At some stage we will have to deal with a new culture introduced into our politic — assassination.
A couple of people have been mentioned as victims of assassination, real people who were known to the public, and who have disappeared without a trace!
While I may not be allowed to surmise that Magufuli killed them — at least they were known to disagree with him — but it is my duty as a public servant to say they have disappeared and their whereabouts are not known, and this happened on Magufuli’s watch.
Another one, lucky to be still around, had 16 bullets pumped into him, and now walks with a bad limp and a bullet still in his body as a souvenir!
Now, the media spaces which Magufuli forcibly closed down without using any recognised legal mechanism are reopening, thanks to President Samia Suluhu.
Those who may have been involved in the excesses for which some of us accuse Magufuli should feel free to come forward and answer our charges and press their case as to why we should treat this man as a great man.
Shouting down people who are asking legit questions will not cut ice.
Jenerali Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: jenerali@gmail.com