Why Dodoma is still controversial as Tanzania’s capital

On May 6th this year (2023 Anno Domino),the MWANANCHI kiswahili daily newspaper reported that ‘PrecisionAir’ flight number PW-602 failed to make a scheduled (?) landing at the Dodoma Airport after 18:30 Hours (six-thirty PM) on May 1st this year, during a flight from the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) in the nation’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

The official reason given for this abject failure was NOT mechanical, technical (failure of the aeroplane, etc).human error/failure, or anything as ‘ordinary’ as that. It was purely administrative faux pas, based on the fact that civilian aircraft are not permitted to land at Dodoma Airport at night.

The reason that is also given for this administrative prohibition is that the airport in the country’s political capital has not yet been installed with the requisite lights and other thingamajigs considered essential for safe operations of the airport that’s virtually located slap-bang in the nation’s centre! In the event, the aeroplane had to make a forced turn and fly back to Dar es Salaam, with all the 72 passengers who were scheduled to fly to Dodoma that evening. According to the Director-General of the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA), Mr. Hamza Johari, the PrecisionAir flight departed from JNIA in Dar es Salaam at 18:11 hours, and arrived in the air over Dodoma at 19: 13 hours the same evening. [See ‘Sintofahamu uwanja wa ndege Dodoma kutokuwa na taa;’ MWANANCHI, May 6. 2023].

Fair enough, we reservedly say. But why, indeed, did an Aviation Authority official allow the PrecisionAir flight to leave Dar es Salaam for Dodoma on a flight that normally takes a little more than an hour – and at a time when the Dodoma Airport was officially required to close down its operations only 19 minutes (yes: NINETEEN MINUTES) later? Why, indeed?

Secondly, we’re told that more than 50 years after Dodoma was conceived as the nation’s capital by the founder of Tanzanian nationalism, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere (April 13, 1922- Oct. 14, 1999) – and, nearly seven years after the President of the 5th-phase Union Government, the late John Pombe Magufuli (Oct. 29,1959-March 17, 2021), ordered shifting the Government to Dodoma as the country’s capital in July 2016 – Dodoma Airport facilities (including lights) have not been installed in full and as appropriate!

But, apparently, such facilities have already been installed at the remote Songwe and Chato Airports. These are rarely used in meaningful, all-inclusive socioeconomic and other developments. Why is that the case, pray?

Indeed, some major activities by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) were moved to Dodoma by Rashid Kawawa, Edward Sokoine, Cleopa Msuya, Salim Ahmed-Salim and Joseph Warioba as Prime Ministers. But, the Office was shifted back to Dar es Salaam in 1991 by the-then Prime Minister John Malekela.

But, again, that was until the current Prime Minister, Majaliwa Kassim Majaliwa, shifted it back to Dodoma on the late President Magufuli’s directive in July 2016.

The Union Parliament is located in Dodoma, some 453-kilometres west of Dar es Salaam – and whose original name ‘IDODOMYA’ roughly means ‘The Place of the Sinking Sands’ in ki-Gogo.

Following a national referendum (of sorts), the President Nyerere Government decided to centralize the national capital in Dodoma. But, apparently half-a- century later, Dodoma Airport is yet to be of international quality standards! Indeed, the capital is more political than functional – and is yet to justify its selection as a national capital.