Why justice should be our trusted shield and protection at all times
President Samia Suluhu Hassan made history after she became the first female President of Tanzania. Here the national Anthem is played after she had been sworn in at State House Dar es Salaam.
Her Excellency President Samia Suluhu Hassan, 61, has taken up her new role as Tanzania’s Head of State with gusto – much like fish takes to water. Indeed, she has made it clear that things have to change. That’s perhaps why, for starters, she has called upon the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to review its files and decide which cases merit court action – and which ones should be scrapped.
Let us be candid on the rule of law. There is no way Tanzania can become a developed country socioeconomically if we do not let ustice be our guidance and protection.
It is fair and just governance that makes human beings different from other living creatures. But, for far too long, Tanzanians have been building a nation in which those with power every which way can – and usually do – lord it over their ‘powerless’ countrymen and women.
The situation is made even more ominous by persons masquerading as government operatives with power – usually money – who can get away with murder in broad-daylight!
What’s more, they would cover their tracks because they have long tentacles for destroying evidence, covering their tracks – or botching up cases at the courts – thus derailing Justice from its rightful course.
Knowing that they can easily get out of the clutches of the security systems, such cocky chaps can ride roughshod over anyone who stands in their way – claiming as they usually do than they have the Law in their pockets.
Put simply, President Samia Suluhu Hassan seems to imply that the days of sacred cows in government are numbered. She is not given to hubris; she speaks so gently, and has the mien of your average mother, aunt or whatever – if you will.
Yet, her gentility notwithstanding, she is as hard as steel: a characteristic which, I think, many of her colleagues in the cabinet and other bureaucrats will find hard to reconcile with – used as they are to her non-confrontational approach.
The minister in charge of regional administration and local government was recently given a taste of what is coming in another open rebuke couched in polite language. It went something like: ‘You had been informed twice by the late President. I am giving you one more chance – and, if you can’t do it, ask for my assistance.’
Oh, boy; that’s wonderful!
The idea that Air Tanzania Company Ltd (ATCL) was in the red was arguably true – as confirmed by the Sh60 billion loss.
This column has said it before, and will say it again: we need a business case study for ATCL, including its mid- and long-term goals.
In setting the goals, we must make it clear that the airline –much as it is a national pride of the United Republic of Tanzania – is not being operated on the whims and caprices of politicians as their pet project, but is being run as a serious business operation that weighs in on both the pros and cons.
To continue beating a dead horse – Justice and related issues – too many people have had court cases against them that did not merit court prosecution, and were unceremoniously thrown out of court, much to the chagrin of the government.
The time to bring to an end the use prosecutorial powers and Courts of Justice as political sledgehammers is surely now, under the country’s first-ever female President in 59 years of political independence.
Courts and the entire Judiciary must fiercely remain truly independent, never again to sway to the prejudices of the Executive or Political Judases.
It may sound simple; but it is most important: courts are the final arbiters in matters between citizens and their government. No person – including the President – should be above Courts in dispensing Justice
Therefore, let President Samia Suluhu Hassan be the new broom of the United Republic that sweeps clean regardless!
