Polls that gave Tanganyika self-internal government

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 — updated on November 01, 2020 - 5 min read

Chief minister Julius Nyerere (seated-third left), Governor Richard Turnbull (fourth left) and Attorney General John Sydney Richard Cole (third right) with other members of the cabinet that was formed after the 1960 elections.

What you need to know:

The Cabinet was sworn-in on September 4, 1960, one day after Nyerere had been sworn in as Chief Minister

Dar es Salaam. The first Tanganyikan cabinet that included locals was created after the August 30, 1960 General Election, which the Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) won 70 out of 71 seats contested.
The cabinet was formed with Mwl Julius Nyerere as Chief Minister and Richard Gordon Turnbull as Governor. He was deputised by John Fletcher-Cooke.
Mwl Nyerere had contested the Dar es Salaam south constituency, shifting from Eastern province where he had contested and won a seat in the previous elections.

Africans in the cabinet
Africans in the self-internal government included Chief Abdallah Said Fundikira, George Kahama, Paul Bomani, Nsilo Swai, Oscar Kambona and Rashidi Kawawa.
Fundikira was appointed minister for Lands, Surveys and Water. He was a Makerere alumnus, where he had graduated with a Diploma in Agriculture in 1944.
He was installed as Chief of Unyanyembe in Tabora in 1957. He had been elected member of Tabora constituency in 1960.
Kahama, (32), who had been elected member of Legco for Bukoba constituency, was appointed the minister for Home Affairs.
He had been educated at Tabora and then at the Loughborough College in England between 1952 and 1954. He worked with Bukoba Cooperative Union till 1956.
He entered Legco for the first time after 1958 elections.
Bomani was member of Legco from Mwanza. He was appointed minister for Agriculture and Cooperative Development. He had been a leader in the Victoria Federation of Co-operative Unions (VFCU) in Mwanza. Like Kahama he had Bomani was educated at the Loughborough College. He had been elected unopposed in the 1958/59 elections.
Swai, who was appointed minister for Industries and Trade in the internal self-government, had been educated at Makerere University, in India and in Pittsburg, US.
He was also chairman of Tanu subcomitte on Economy.
Kambona was appointed minister for Education. The son of cleric, he had been educated at Dodoma and Tabora. He was Legco member for the Morogoro constituency.
Kawawa was, elected Legco member for Nachingwea was minister for Local Government and Housing.
The cabinet was sworn-in on September 4, 1960, one day after Nyerere had been sworn in as Chief Minister.
Africans who were nominated to the Legco after the 1960 elections were Ms Lucy Lameck, Chief E. Mbamote, Mr J. Namfua and Sheikh Thabit Ali bin Said.

Non-Africans in the cabinet
The cabinet had four whites and one Asian. There were two ex-officios that had been civil servants in the colonial government. One of them was John Sydney Richard Cole who became the Atthorney General.
Cole, born in Ireland, was one of the whites who entered the Legislative Council after the 1960 elections. He had studied at the University of Belfast, northern Ireland and Trinity college in Dublin, now the republic of Ireland.
He came to Tanganyika in 1956 after working in Mauritius, Nigeria and in the Bahamas as AG. The other was M. J. Davies. He came to Tanganyika in 1940 after studying at the Univeristy Oxford.
He was the principal secretary of two Governoros in Tanganyika before being recalled to London to take the position of secretary at the colonial office in London.
When he returned to Tangantika he was appointed Area Commissioner of Mikindani in Mtwara and later Arusha.
Between 1958 and 1959 he was sent to New York to work as special assistant at the UN’s Tanganyika office. He then came back to Tanganyika where he was appointed to the colonial Cabinet in 1959.
He was then appointed as minister for Information Services in the Tanganyika self-internal government with Nyerere as Chief Minister.
Ernest Albert Vasey, who had been appointed as minister for Finance, was a nominated member of the Legislative Council. In total nine members of the Legco had been nominated.
Vasey came to East Africa in 1936 as a businessman. Two years later he was elected as a councillor in Nairobi.
Between 1941-42 and 1944-46 he served as mayor of Nairobi. He, then, entered Kenya’s Legco and in 1950 served as minister for Education, Health and Local Governments.
Between 1951 and 59, Vasey served as Kenya’s Finance minister and in 1960 he was appointed by Nyerere as Tanganyika’s Finance minister.
Derek Noel Maclean Bryceson had been a farmer. He was supported by Tanu (since Tanu did not admit non-Africans as members) in elections since 1958/59 when he was elected Legco member from Dar es Salaam. After being re-elected in 1960 in the Dar es Salaam north constituency he was appointed by Nyerere as minister for Health and Labour. Bryceson had come to Tanganyika from Kenya in 1952. He had studied at Cambridge University and served at the Royal Airforce in the World War II where he was partially paralysed in the legs.
He would serve in the post-independence Cabinet as minister for Agriculture before being appointed, in 1972, as director of Tanzania National Parks Authority. He married Dr Jane Goodall, the world-famous primatologist and anthropologist. He died in 1978.
The only Asian in the Cabinet was Amir Habib Jamal had been supported by Tanu and won the Morogoro constituency. He was appointed minister for Communications, Power and Works.
Jamal was born in Tanganyika and educated in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam.
He went to the university in Calcutta where he graduated in 1958 with a degree in Economics. Before entering the governemnt he was a director of Habib & Company Ltd.