Of Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists

There seems to be a serious shortage, if you will, dearth of Pan Africanists and Pan-Africanism in Africa today.

From Buy Uganda Build Uganda to our very own Bidhaa za Kitanzania (Tanzanian-made products) , Kenya has recently joined the bandwagon of Buy Kenya Build Kenya with its political brand identity, Kenya Kwanza as a political vehicle that took the new President William Samoei Ruto to State House Nairobi.

The dearth of Pan Africanists was brought alive in the recent interviews for contestants vying to be selected to represent Tanzania and the regional East African Legislative Assembly and none, showed this trait better than contestant Ado Shaibu exemplified it.

In as good English as it gets (considering some of the contestants struggles in the language), Shaibu, an Advocate of the High Court of Tanzania declared that he was a pan Africanist in practice. Shortly after he was asked a question, he answered with no trace of irony, if there is conflict between what is good for East Africa ad what is good for Tanzania, I will invite the heavens to open up for what is good for Tanzania.

This is allowing room for some fertile imagination in paraphrasing but in short, what Addo Shaibu was saying is what pretty much all the contestants except Ngwaru Jumanne Magembe said.

Shouaibu did not get the job (these are jobs these days) just like the voluble Habib Mnyaa who, it seems, was struggling to express himself in English compared to how he normally flows easily in Kiswahili. Any way So Shaibu did not get the job with the contradiction not being obvious on the august hose which, it seems , wanted to hear words and phrases such as nationalism, loyalty, no betrayal, Tanzania Kwanza and many phrases that would have made the late former President and Professor Palamagamba Kabudi proud.

Those of us old enough to remember recall there was a teacher and later statesman called Julius Kambarage son of Nyerere. The said Mwalimu and many of his generation saw no conflict in being Tanzanian and at the same time being diehard pan Africanist just like Nelson R. Mandela of South Africa.

The trouble with achieving the sort of analysis we heard from candidate Ngwaru Jumanne Maghembe is that it takes a lot of studios hard work but it also takes true belief, the sort of things that are not just taught, but it seems one is either born with or not.

We are either believers in gender equality or not. It’s either we believe in human rights be taught but they sin better when one has intrinsic values that we hold dear. The more that we have access to data, information and news, the more we seem to be becoming bigoted against persons that we think are different.

We seem to have lost the common cause we all fought for which included emancipation of all Africa from bondage. These days we have created a lot of Common bodies in an attempt to have a common African outlook lakini wapi?

It is only Dr Ngwaru who gave a hint that East African Legislative Assembly is not just another platform for us to fight the grabbers (and you know whom we think of when we throw these jabs in the dark), but also an opportunity for us to truly do the moral thing and foster closer integration through channels and bodies that have been created for this purpose.

This explains why many of our regional and continental bodies are but mere talk shops because we all seems to go there with set minds on what we want to get. We want Tanzanian goods to have entry into Kenya but we do not want Kenyan goods to enter Tanzania. Don’t get me wrong you can replace those countries with Malawi and Zambia, Uganda Versus Kenya, DRC and Rwanda but the theme of brinkmanship will remain.

Our UK frenemies (deliberate acronym of friends/enemies) have come and assisted us with one stop centers at borders but they still operate like our police stations, places people dread to enter because the unfriendly attitude remains. So much for East African Community.