Let’s rekindle the New Draft Constitution process

President John Magufuli. He has been urged to revive the New Katiba process.

What you need to know:

  • No sane person with commons sense would’ve committed such a sacrilege knowingly how poor our country’s apart from needing such money lost in such a charade. No person with a normal heart and mind would think about committing such a crime let alone committing it.

I was in a cocktail-party phenomenon as I mused about how Tanzania embarked on having a New Constitution. I remember the goodies the doc. promised; and how it’d have changed Tanzania. I was over delighted to note that things were moving. Suddenly, I couldn’t believe; our demigod president would spend humongous amount of money and time to collect views to come a cropper.

No sane person with commons sense would’ve committed such a sacrilege knowingly how poor our country’s apart from needing such money lost in such a charade. No person with a normal heart and mind would think about committing such a crime let alone committing it.

Again, then was then. After bad apples in the upper echelons of power brutally and shamelessly butcher the document what’s left of it is but empty wishes. A little bird told me that the butchers of this progressive document were afraid of being brought to book; and falling from grace to end their days behind bars after vacating the office.

Definitely, those behind bogus agreements–freebooters use legally and ruthlessly to rob the country–wouldn’t be safe under the new doc. Those who turned Tanzania into a No Man’s Land wouldn’t buy into the idea of having a progressive constitution made by the hoi polloi contrary to the hoity toity to end up taking on their plunderage.

Double-edged document

Those who slept at the wheel wouldn’t cachinnate and celebrate the birth of such a double-edged document that sought to put a stop on all abuses the country has suffered since Mzee Nyerere relinquished powers; to evidence the country go to the dogs.

When somebody or something noble dies, it is naturally entombed either admirably or detestably. Today, apart from announcing the death of the New Draft Constitution, I’d like to ask the powers that be to officially recant my assertion or concur with it; and therefrom start the process of inhuming this noble document that Tanzanians, mainly the paupers, made and loved to end up being butchered by our big bad eggs.

Again, I wonder; how sane people would aberrantly gloss over such an eventful thing. Is it because the document pruned the raja’s the power–being above the law; and misuses the power? For a true and responsible leader, being above the law doesn’t mesh well with any progressive reasoning; instead, chimes with the monarch who isn’t only above the law but also s/he is the law itself.

Interestingly, were all braggadocios and chest beatings we evidenced something or just making a big deal out of nothing? To some of us, the New Draft Constitution was, and still is, a big deal.

Currently, Tanzania’s an archaic, flimsy and wanting constitution jam-packed with patches. This being the crude reality, methinks; would have forced our rulers to dot their i’s and cross their t’s vis-à-vis the New Constitution of the people. This constitution is incapable of addressing the needs of the nation. For instance, the president’s still above the law as if he’s God or an angel.

This causes a lot of contradictions. Refer to how president can employ discretionary power and being above the law to protect some unwanted elements such as it happened in forgery scandal in which some corrupt and bad apples are watertightly implicated; but the raja doesn’t purge them simply because they’re his consigliore.

Refer to how the raja’s always maintained that can’t exhume scandal graves for fear of being unable to cover them. Refer to how former corrupt biggies–who through their greed and myopia sank the country in abject poverty–rake in fat retiring pecks.

Those who read the New Draft Constitution know how it strongly aimed at making sure; those who abuse a public office are not only shown the door but also losing all retirement rights, chiefly untouchable former presidents currently rewarded even when it’s obvious; they’re but letdowns and saboteurs. Such delinquents would have been behind bars had Tanzania been South Korea where recently former president Park Geun-hye’s indicted for allowing her friend to abusively use her office to mint and print money.

Robbing public coffers

What’d South Koreans do with presidents such as those who got in power by robbing public coffers to finance their campaigns not to mention those who burnt billions of schilling globetrotting as they went abroad enjoy themselves under the guise of begging while the country sits on immense precious resources international criminal gangs are now plundering?

In a nutshell, I’ll be the happiest person to evidence the closure of the fate of our New Draft Constitution. I know. Our leaders are telling us that they want to bring about change, positive changes, I don’t know how without a progressive constitution. Thus, I beseech President John Magufuli to distance himself from his predecessors by rekindling a fire of the New Constitution or officially inter it.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian writer based in Canada