Faustine Kamuzora’s article looks at the vision that guided Mwalimu Nyerere’s economic policies. “Since the majority of the citizenry lived in rural areas,” the article notes, “rural development was accorded high priority in economic policies.” These policies had mixed results whereby “while a number of indicators of human development indices improved appreciably, productivity in some sectors did not improve resulting into an economic growth decline.” “Nevertheless,” the article concludes, “the underlying philosophy of Nyerere’s economic policies of building an egalitarian society has enabled Tanzania to attain a stable nation status.”

In this interview with Annar Cassam on 29 September 2009 in London, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the former secretary-general of the Commonwealth Secretariat, reflects on Nyerere’s influence on international diplomacy. In “his many interventions and initiatives on behalf of Africa and the Third World in general and on behalf of the liberation struggle of South and Southern Africa in particular,” Anyaoku reflects with Cassam, Nyerere “came into serious conflict with the British government of the day, for the Commonwealth connection did not turn out to be the cosy network they had perhaps once imagined.”

Drawing from Mwalimu Nyerere’s thoughts on colonialism and post-colonialism, Marjorie Mbilinyi critiques the current state of leadership. “Corruption and the lack of patriotic leadership”, she observes, “has increased during the last 20 some years, but not in a vacuum.” This is so because an “enabling environment was created for corruption, individualism and compradorial tendencies by neo-liberal ideology and macroeconomic reforms which successfully took a dominant position in Tanzania – and much of the rest of Africa – in the mid-1980s.” To bring an end to this leader-centered group leadership, Marjorie calls for a people-centered leadership whereby “group-centered leaders … are grounded within their organizations or institutions, or movements; and the groups/organizations/movements they lead are identified not by a particular individual, but rather by the collectivity and its vision and mission.”

Ng’wanza Kamata critically reflects on Nyerere’s foresight on the land issue. To Nyerere, he notes, “land cannot, under any grounds, be transformed into an item for sale in the market.” That is why he advocated for a leasehold system instead of a freehold one that would create a perpetual class of landlords and tenants. However, he laments, Nyerere’s government did not go one step further to abolish the colonial Land Ordinance’s tenet of vesting land in the control of the state and not the people. As a result bureaucrats “were and are able to evict people from their lands.” Kamata thus recalls Nyerere’s earlier clarion call for the masses to resist a method that enables a few people to claim ownership of what belongs to all – land.

Pambazuka News brings to you the first Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Lecture delivered by Haroub Othman on 14 October 2005 at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Haroub reminisces on the glorious days of the ‘Dar es Salaam School’, the massive impact it had on the liberation of Africa and the role that Mwalimu Nyerere played in shaping its development away from a colonial and Western intellectual mould. On his last visits to the University of Dar es Salaam, Haroub recounts, Mwalimu made “one very important point, that Africa South of the Sahara was on its own” and as such we “have to rely on ourselves, and to cooperate among ourselves.” Taking a leaf from that spirit of Pan-Africanism, Haroub reminds us that “the Southern African-subcontinent is facing a deep crisis”, urging its “present intelligentsia to transform our societies and to give content to human dignity”.

Salma Maoulidi unpacks Nyerere's legacy in the realm of racial and religious tolerance. “As Nyerere became more exposed to politics and other races,” she observes, “he attained the sophistication of tolerating mutual coexistence where acknowledging the humanity of others in lieu of settling scores informed a more encompassing political strategy.” However, despite all his efforts and those of the liberation struggles, prevailing racial and religious tensions continue to find expression in post-independence Tanzania. Salma concludes that “Tanzania’s inability to overcome the vestiges of racial and religious exclusion exposes the government’s and the ruling party’s inability (or unwillingness) to address racial and religious discrimination that continues to dominate Tanzania’s political culture in a forthright and objective manner.”

In this memoir, Ambassador Mohammed Sahnoun, first assistant secretary-general of the then Organization of African Unity (OAU), recalls Mwalimu Nyerere’s historical role in the creation of its Liberation Committee. Nyerere’s “lucidity and his strategic skills”, he reminisces, “were remarkable at all levels, as was his courage, bearing in mind that his own country was newly independent [1961] and that its state institutions were also at their formative stage.” When “conflicts occurred, as they inevitably did at the OAU and in the area of liberation politics, Nyerere, as the mwalimu that he was, used his gifts of analysis and reasoning to reach the right resolutions”. Sahnoun thus affirms, “It was a unique privilege to have worked with such a leader.”

From the perspective of a fellow artist, Vicensia Shule, Mwalimu Nyerere’s role in the promotion of art and the welfare of artists is reviewed in this article. “Mwalimu”, Vicensia observes, “produced various pieces of theatre works” and “in his mission to decolonized theatre” he translated Shakespeare plays into Kiswahili. She further notes that he was able to link his Ujamaa philosophy with fine arts, as the case of renaming the famous ‘Dimoongo’ Makonde sculpture ‘Ujamaa’ illustrates. However, Vicensia asserts, Mwalimu “was not lucky enough to nurture his fellow politicians especially in his party to appreciate art out of political propaganda.” She thus calls for the re-implementation of Mwalimu’s ideas on art.

Following the resignation of Justice Aaron Ringera from the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) last week, L. Muthoni Wanyeki argues that rather than celebrating a supposed triumph of 'popular will', we should actually question the opportunity costs associated with a prolonged stand-off.

Following the troubling deaths of Guineans under the repressive rule of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, Okello Oculi argues that Camara's action represents the latest incident of a 'lethal psychotic disorder' manifested by an African leader. Camara's actions are reminiscent of those of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Oculi contends, and necessitate an immediate response from ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group).

In this week’s Pambazuka News, Okello Oculi reminisces about the relationship between Makerere University alumni, the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem and Professor Ali Mazrui. In particular Oculi contemplates how Tajudeen might have responded to a recently announced joint initiative between Ugandan President Museveni and Makerere University to honour Professor Mazrui by establishing a new centre for Global Studies and scholarship fund in his name.

The West African Students Union (WASU) was a key organisation in the de-colonisation process of the African continent and one of the first pan-African organisations. In his historical analysis, Daniel Yao Dotse brings us closer to understanding the organisation itself and how it nurtured the growth of the great pan-Africanist and President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah. In this week's Pambazuka News, Yao Dotse discusses the heydays of the organisation, its demise and ultimate rebirth in 2004.

The Pan African Reading for All Conference, sponsored by the International Development Committee for Africa, the leadership of African councils of the International Reading Association, took at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in August. The ideas of presenters were distilled into a set of resolutions and recommendations, which will be presented to bodies concerned with improving education in Africa.

Mohamed Bakari reviews Issa G. Shivji's 'Pan-Africanism or Pragmatism? Lessons of the Tanganyika–Zanzibar Union' in this week's Pambazuka News. The first study of the Tanganyika–Zanzibar Union from a Pan-Africanist perspective, Shivji's book represents a very effective interdisciplinary approach, Bakari writes. If the book is perhaps slightly dominated by elitist narratives at the expense of popular discourses, the work is a valuable and comprehensive addition to the literature on Pan-Africanism, Zanzibari politics and the Tanganyika–Zanzibar Union, Bakari concludes.

The centenary of African revolutionary and Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah, Nigerian outrage at the depiction of their countrymen in a new South African science fiction film, and an inventive blackboard 'blog' from Liberia are among the topics covered Sokari Ekine's fortnightly round-up of the African blogosphere for Pambazuka News.

Kenyans have plenty to be angry about with their parliament, Muthoni Wanyeki writes in Pambazuka News, from the ‘outrageous remuneration’ it has given itself, to ‘its refusal to stand up for justice for the families of the dead and displaced’ during last year’s political crisis. But parliament’s disappointing performance is partly down to ‘the limited options available to the House, as representatives of the people’ when ‘either the Executive or the Judiciary behaves badly,’ Wanyeki argues. If Kenya is to ensure government accountability to the people and ‘real checks and balances among the three arms of government’, constitutional reform is imperative, says Wanyeki.

Willy Jackson

Olivier Sagna

As tensions between Uganda's Buganda region and the national state continue, Okello Oculi urges the country to resist the exploitation of ethnic and religious divisions in this week's Pambazuka News.

Commemorating the centenary of Pan-African ‘political prophet’ Kwame Nkrumah on 21 September, Ama Biney pays tribute to ‘a titan of the anti-colonial struggle and African history that all people of African descent – both young and old – should be proud of.’ But what would Nkrumah make of ‘retrogressive developments that have taken place during the last 50 years of Africa’s history’ if he were alive today?

Ama Biney reviews , edited by Anne V. Adams and Esi Sutherland-Addy. Finding the book to be a stimulating work on Sutherland's life and influence, Biney argues that Sutherland's ideas around the role of theatre in community development should be integrated into national curricula across Africa.