By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

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A lot of talk around Tanzania these days goes on about security – or to be more precise, the lack thereof—and it is not surprising, seeing as we seem to be under attack from something, or someone we cannot be too sure about.

All we know is that people are being disappeared, only to resurface in very bad shape, with horror stories of torture, and worse.

Some cannot tell their stories, but these are written all over their bodies, and they are scary, to say the least. There is an ogre in our midst, and we are at a loss to identify what or who it is, when it will strike next, and who the victim could be.

In times of uncertainty such as these, the people look up to their elected leaders—sometimes even unelected — for succour and assurance—and when they cannot find these, they descend into what has been called the “Lord of the Flies” moment, that situation described by author William Golding where order has broken down completely and these school kids in a tropical jungle become animals, hunting each other.

That succour and that assurance I allude to above are still elusive.

President Samia Suluhu has not chosen to heed the calls coming her way from all walks of life for her to do something to show that she cares.

Rather, she is telling Tanzanians that she has a very strong intelligence apparatus that she will use to clamp down on people she says are planning to cause “insecurity.”

Read: Chadema demands judicial inquiry into abductions, killings

Normally, when you hear the top citizen say that you would say, “Aha! So, she is coming to get that ogre that has been devouring our people; she is coming to restore our security and peace of mind!”

But no, she is talking about the opposition politicians who want to kick her out of power, those who have expressed the open desire to have her voted out of government, which is a constitutional right!

Now, lest I be misunderstood, the opposition who have said they will demonstrate against forced disappearances may be going about it in the wrong way, maybe not following the requisite procedure, I don’t know.

But surely, being mistaken about procedures cannot be put on the same scale as people being kidnapped in broad daylight and being found dead and mutilated, unless our Mizaan is terribly unbalanced.

There is a dire situation which concerns every citizen of this country, and every other person who wishes us well.

By the way, let us learn to listen to what others say about us. Saying they also have their problems does not diminish ours as this is not a championship between the downright bad and the not-so-bad, between the intensive-care inmates and mortuary congregation.

It reminded me of a minister in our government who was in the US and was talking to Tanzanians there, and he was asked about the inability/unwillingness for the state non-investigation of the shooting of a prominent opposition politician who survived only because he has very strong Juju watching over him.

Rather than just waltz around the trick question as they usually would do, the minister put his memory into play by saying that even in America (you people should know!) “Two presidents were killed and up to now the investigations are not over (I am paraphrasing).”

Why did the minister have to lie? First, not two but four American presidents were assassinated, and in all four cases the culprits were found: John Wilkes Booth for Abraham Lincoln, 1865; Charles Giteau for James Garfield, 1881; Leon Czolgosz for William McKinley, 1901; and Lee Harvey Oswald for JF Kennedy, 1963.

One does not gain any kudos for telling untruths like these unnecessarily, when saying what one knows to be the truth leaves one free.

Now, let us not go into the issue of the political candidate who was missed twice by a sniper in that same unfortunate country!

Rather I will venture into a little anecdote of my youth. In the Middle East, an anecdote used to be told of the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi getting overthrown by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, and being given asylum in Alexandria by Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat.

One day, Sadat pays a visit to the deposed Shah, and they are taking a walk in the lavish palatial gardens.

Soon the Shah notices that every now and then, someone with a walkie-talkie to his ear would burst out of a flower-shrub muttering incomprehensible things, which were disrupting the two great men’s conversation.

Finally, the ex-Shah cannot bear it anymore, and he asks his friend: “Who are these jokers interrupting our conversations so often? Sadat answers that they are security guarding them.

The Shah retorts angrily: “Tell the clowns to go home. You think you have security? I had the Savak, you understand, Savak? And where am I today, and I was overthrown by a cleric who just sent an audio cassette from Paris!”

A couple of years later, true, Sadat was assassinated in a Cairo stadium crawling with military and security officers.

After they were done, the shooters simply jogged back to the trucks they had descended from, with no one so much as bothering to pursue them!

Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]