No Long at Ease Tanzania Island of Peace in pieces!

I don’t believe in miracles. For those who do, a miracle happened on 29^th October 2025 in Tanzania, fondly known as the ‘Island of Peace’ for its cohesion and peaceability. The Island of Peace is in pieces after Tanzanian Gen Z pulled the fast one and stood up against their besieged government.

             Unexpectedly, Gen Z woke up from their deep and long slumber and jammed the cities and streets agitating for credible, fair, and transparent elections. They daringly caught the country, the region, and the world unwary. The impossible, ultimately became possible and the untouchable were shaken in their boots to the core!

        When Tanzania convened uchafuzi or uchakachuaji, namely shoddy elections as Gen Z call it, didn’t know they’re opening the Pandora’s Box. For the first time, Gen Z invoked Idi Amin Dada moniker calling their female president Idi Amin Mama! Her son, Abdul, the like of Keine in Uganda, wasn’t spared since he’s on the receiving end. 

            The Gen Z were actively online asking for his whereabouts and residence so that they’d ‘visit’ him, which covertly means to harm him or vandalise his property. What Tanzanian Gen Z did is totally against what Kenyan ones who used to debase them called them. Jomo Kenyatta used to quip that Tanzanians were politically dead. Beware. They’ve been resurrected.

            If Julius Nyerere, Tanzania and Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) founder, and Idi Amin could be resurrected, won’t believe what happened. Being a Tanzania myself, it’s unthinkable to believe that what transpired would. Guys, it happened. Who’s safe under the Sun, especially in Africa, full pregnant with dictators and venal rulers?

            The CCM, that’s ruled and misruled the country since independence in 1961, was comfortably confident about ‘winning' its own elections wherein the candidates were the incumbent, Samia Suluhu and some decoy candidates aka CCM B. 

            Out of the blue, it’s pulled down a peg or two. Gen Z took to the streets confidently and loudly chanted revolutionary songs full of braggadocios and obscenities against the government as silently soldiers looked on. What’d they do? Soldiers are humans. After all, victims of venality are their own kin. Again, the goings-on in Tanzania sent me back to Chinua’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease and my own books Born with Voice, Gen Z and the Internet Revolution, and Saa ya Ukombozi.

    In Dar-es-Salaam or haven of peace, call it Dar-Si-Salaam(Tanzania's largest city and heartbeat), thanks to its grinding traffic jams and noises from street vendors and sirens the top enchiladas apportioned to themselves, it was no longer at ease but Saa ya Ukombozi. Some businesses owned by party cadres and public officials were set ablaze.

        In Mwanza, youths vandalized some properties since they’re the proceeds of their tax money pilfered from their coffers. Further, they intercepted a truckload full of marked votes disguised as corn bags. It's hard to fathom. What a hard nut to crack for the authorities! 

        Now, how do we read the tea leaves or smell coffee here? Let everybody know. People are naturally unpredictable like a dormant volcano. It can erupt anytime. Those living around or on the top of a volcano, be warned. It can erupt and cause a mayhem be wary. To catch my drift, it’s obvious. Tanzania and Africa won’t be the same again.

Here, the nuggets of wisdom are:

Firstly, the precedent Tanzanian Gen Z have created will motivate many volcanoes to erupt, especially if we remember how the late President John Magufuli showed them how to govern their country responsibly and profitably.

            Secondly, nothing is impossible for the downtrodden if they wake up from a slumber and take those who abuse and exploit them on.

            Thirdly, this generation is totally different from others. It’s enigmatic oomph and birr can break rocks and uproot baobab trees.  

Geopolitically, this wave is menacingly looming all over Africa. It started in Kenya, then in Madagascar, and now in Tanzania. Who’s next? It isn’t hard to tell. My family and I were in Tanzania two months ago. 

        We’d obviously feel the anguish and the frustrations by just looking at how many young people daringly waste their lives operating perilous motorbikes. They don’t obey traffic rules. We hired a driver. We couldn’t drive lawlessly as it is a norm in Dar. It’s abhorrent and discouragingly chaotic and dangerous.

Fourthly, common earthlings we wrongly think don’t know what we arrogantly know, know more, especially their rulers than their rulers know them. If they didn’t know who does what, how’d they torch bigwigs’ properties? We'd wrongly think that Gen Z were vandals, why did do it selectively if they're?

To conclude, there cannot be perpetual peace amidst prevalent and perpetual corruption, injustices, and venality. Thus, power abusers must know. Power and pomp are but vanity. They belong to the people. Humans aren’t capons whose eggs you can steal and eat as they idly watch. He who has ears should hear and he who has eyes should see. Woe unto you who take your people for a ride.

Source:The Daily Monitor Today Sunday.