Four Lessons From The Third President.
As the third president of independent Tanzania is laid to rest today, I would like to point out four lessons I have learned reading and researching on him since the publication of his autobiography My Life, My Purpose. In honor of the 3rd president of the United Republic of Tanzania, here are 4 takeaways from his life of service.
1. Determination
The odds were stacked against a young Benjamin Mkapa since his birth. He was born in the south at a time when there was no government secondary school in the whole southern region, an area covering over 143,000 square kilometers. There were two secondary schools in the area, one at Ndanda owned by the Catholic church and the other at Chidya owned by the Anglican church. Mkapa was the only one out of a group of 30 pupils to be chosen to progress to secondary school. For senior secondary education he was chosen to attend St. Francis College, one of only three schools at the time to offer Cambridge School Certification Examinations which was a prerequisite of gaining entrance into Makerere University in Uganda, then the only university in the region (My Life, My Purpose, pg 20). Mkapa was one of 166 students from Tanganyika when he entered Makerere. Let that sink in. There were only 166 Tanganyikans attending university during his first year at Makerere. When he was about to graduate, he wanted to join the foreign service. Seeing as there were no available positions at the foreign service he was adviced to join the general service (My Life, My Puporse, pg 42). He refused and held out until a position became available and he entered the civil service in 1962. Against all odds, Mkapa was able to complete tertiary education and become a foreign service officer.
2. Mentorship
It is not only Mkapa's determination which helped him reach great hights. As the old saying goes, leaders are made not born. Mkapa benefitted immensely from working under Mwalimu Nyerere who he first started working with when he was appointed Mwalimu's press secretary in 1974. Nyerere subsequently promoted Mkapa to ambassador and then foreign minister in the span of three years. You can see Mwalimu's influence in Mkapa's later speeches as president and no doubt shared the same intellectual capability as Mwalimu and that is undoubtedly the reason Mwalimu took a close liking to him. No matter how intelligent or talented one is, we all need someone who can take that raw talent and passion that we have and channel it into the right direction. I believe having worked with Mwalimu laid the foundation for Mkapa's own political trajectory.
3. Innovation
Any leader, especially one who holds the office of the president has to be innovative in order to bring about lasting change in the short time they hold the office. President Mkapa was the innovator of some of the following programs and bodies which are now part & parcel of our daily lives; Education: Mpango wa Maendeleo ya Elimu ya Msingi (MMEM), Mpango wa Maendeleo ya Elimu ya Sekondari (MMES), Tanzania Education Authority (TEA), Higher Education Students' Loan Board (HESLB), Tanzania Commission on Universities (TCU), NECTA; Health: National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), TACAIDS; Agencies: Copywrite Society of Tanzania (COSOTA), TANROADS, Tanzania Building Agency (TBA), Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (RITA), Business Registration and Licencing Agency (BRELA), Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA), Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA). It is safe to say that Mkapa was a great believer in institutionalizing the government and the above are examples of his efforts towards that goal.
4. Flaws
No matter how talented one is and no matter what intellectual prowess one holds, we are all ultimately just humans and are susceptible to human shortcoming. Just like his mentor Mwalimu Nyerere, Mkapa's intellectual ability did not spare him from making mistakes. He himself has stated that there were some in political circles who thought he was too arrogant, too self- opinionated and too self-assured (My Life, My Purpose, pg 196). He has even quoted Mwalimu as stating that "You know, Ben is intellectual, you have to qualify that- he is intellectually arrogant (My Life, My Purpose, pg 196). Ironically that same quote could describe the man who gave it. This is where I could compare Mkapa to Nyerere. Both were intellectuals who almost always felt they had all the answers and that could lead some to view them as arrogant or even bullish or undemocratic at times. Intellectuals don't have the patience of waiting for a crowd to democratically arrive at an answer through trial and error and would rather go with their instincts. This is what some would call the "My way or the high way" approach. As admirable as intellectuals are, this is a flaw most of them share, the inability to have the patience to wait for others to derive at answers at a slower pace.
As we bid farewell to President Mkapa and lay him to rest, may we continue having an honest and open discussion about his legacy. Let us learn from his mistakes but also build on the positive aspects of his leadership. In this regard I urge all who read this to read his book My Life, My Purpose published by Mkuki na Nyota to gain a deep understanding of what drove the man's decision at the time he made them. Hindsight is always 20/20 and his years of public service could form the basis of the political philosophy of current and future leaders of our nation. Good bye Big Ben, farewell, and thank you for your service.
Thomas Joel Kibwana
