If-only-we-have-nigerian-politicians-like-the-tanzanian-president-nigeria-and-its-people-will-be-better-of
September 7, 2020 | News
IF ONLY WE HAVE NIGERIAN POLITICIANS LIKE THE TANZANIAN PRESIDENT, NIGERIA AND ITS PEOPLE WILL BE BETTER OF
It is no news that corruption, inept and self-centered political leadership have been the bane of Nigeria’s development as a supposed ‘giant of Africa’, despite the country being blessed with vast and enormous human and natural resourcefulness. Every time we take a critical look at the Nigeria of our today, it is sad to note that the dreams of our Nigerian Founding Fathers have all been crushed. It makes one to wonder what happened to us? The close to two decades of Military dictatorship plus the advent of Civilian administration since 1999, have left a Nigerian populace that is more disappointed with its political leaders than before. Nigeria is currently 57 plus, but all we see around us as Nigerians, is the rising hunger, hardship and poverty, high-profile corruption at all levels with reckless abandon and impunity; gross nepotism and injustice, increasing insecurity flamed by our political leaders and threatening the unity of the nation; every sector replete with dysfunctional attributes that make them serve only the interest of the political class to the detriment of the common man, and the list is endless.
Though, Nigeria has had its fair share of very few admirably-good political leaders in sensitive public office positions, but the number of those who are the bad eggs, far outweigh that of the good. Which is why we are wishing, if only our Nigerian political leaders at all levels of Government and the Legislature, are like the Tanzanian President, John Pombe Magufuli, we are very certain that the Nigeria of today, would be the Dubai of Africa in all ramifications. But we can pray we get to that point someday. But mean time, there is so much the Nigerian political leaders can learn from the Tanzanian President on how to govern.
The son of a peasant farmer, a former school teacher, industrial chemist and outgone works minister John Pombe Magufuli, practically rose from the ashes and won the late 2015 Presidential election to become Tanzania's next President on his 56th birthday. Nicknamed "The BULLDOZER" and a devout Catholic with a corruption-free reputation, Magufuli was never part of the inner-circle of the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, so it came as a surprise to his critics that he secured its candidature for the Presidency. His nomination angered CCM stalwart and ex-Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, who crossed to the opposition to challenge Magufuli for the presidency. With the backing of the formidable CCM machinery, Mr Magufuli won the 29th October poll with 58% of the votes to Lowassa's 40% in a fiercely contested election.
President Magufuli of Tanzania is called the Bulldozer because he is practically bulldozing corruption, laziness, ineptitude, and all the ills preventing the country’s development out of his administration. On assumption of Office, it was reported that the first thing he did was to suspend the country’s Independence Day celebration. He asked what are they celebrating when people are dying of cholera as at that time? Surprisingly, during the said period, only 74 persons have died of Cholera in Tanzania. Whereas, thousands of people have been killed in Nigeria by the Boko Haram sect and Fulani Herdsmen yet nobody has been suspended in positions of authority. At that time, they were supposed to spend 4 billion Tanzanian shillings for the said Independence celebration, but President Magufuli said that money should be used for the expansion of the 4.3 kilometers section of the road from Morocco to the country in other to ease traffic congestion. And to celebrate the said Independence Day, President Magufuli commanded that everyone should come out and clean their streets and neighborhood. The Tanzanian President himself joined them in cleaning-up the streets. That to us, is the height of leadership by example. And because of what he did, his own Government officials also got up to join in cleaning the streets. We can imagine what will happen in Nigeria the day we will see the Senate President, Sen. Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye or Senator Ben Maurice Bruce, or other top officials of the Presidency, coming out to clean the streets of Abuja.
The one that shocked us the most was that President Magufuli banned all foreign travels by public officials of Tanzania, except when it is very essential and they have to get permission from him or from the Chief Secretary. In fact, that same period, a list of 55 persons was submitted as those to go on a tour of Commonwealth countries, but President Magufuli was said to have cut down the list to only Four (4) persons, thereby saving millions of monies for his country that would been spent on flight tickets, hotel accommodation and other luxuries and logistics. President Magufuli believes that they have High Commissioners and Ambassadors abroad that should be representing Tanzania whenever they are invited for such world conferences. That makes a lot of sense because since they are already abroad, why waste more money for those in Tanzania to travel abroad too to attend a meeting? He also ordered that there will be no more First Class and Business Class for all public officials, except Mr. President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister, only just these three persons. That means the rest Government officials will be flying Economy Class. This reminds us of Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso.
President Magufuli also canceled all meetings, workshops and conferences by public servants inside fancy hotels. He said every Ministry has Ministerial Board Rooms, hence they should start using them for such meetings and conferences. Another notable thing that happened soon after he became President, was that President sacked the Chief Medical Director and broke up the governing board of the State-owned Muhimbili National Hospital after discovering the main scanning and diagnostic machines were not working and seeing other poor conditions and how the hospital was being run. He went to the said Hospital unannounced and saw all the things they normally hide from public officials like all the dirty places, unwholesome practices, equipment not working, patients lying on the floor, etc,. After sacking the Director, he ordered that all the stated machines not working should be repaired if not, he will fire the newly appointed Director as well. It happened that the sacked Director and some of his board members knew some of the hospital equipment were not working. But instead of repairing them to treat patients, they were referring the patients to their own private hospitals. Something like this is obviously going on in Nigeria but who will cry out and who will have it addressed like the Tanzanian President has done. President Magufuli gave them two weeks to repair the said machines. But guess what happened, the same machines were repaired in just three days.
On the State’s Dinner by the Parliament that was supposed to cost 300million Shillings, President Magufuli said they should reduce it to just 25million Shillings and that they will eat whatever that amount would get. And he said the remaining money should be used to buy hospital beds and uplift the national hospital he visited. With that money, they bought 300 brand new beds and 600 machines. Can we imagine, they would have eaten that money and that would have been the end of it. Now they have 300 new beds to admit more people. We can imagine how many lives can be saved in Nigeria if our public leaders would control their huge appetites and wasteful habits in the name of doing government work. President Magufuli also ordered that there will be no more sitting allowances for public officials. He says why should they be getting allowances for a job which they get monthly salaries on? This applies to members of the Parliament as well. The day after he was sworn-in, the State officials were showing President Magufuli around and his new official residence but he was not impressed by all of that, instead he decided to take a walk to the Ministry of Finance where he told them to get their acts together and take their jobs seriously. He asked why some of the employees were not in their office yet. Since that day, the traffic jam on the road leading to the said Villa increased because people no longer show late to work after Mr. President visited. No more Tax exemptions for the big people, everybody must pay tax. The other day he was going to officially open the Parliament, instead of him to fly the 600km trip, the man decided to drive. Magufuli drove the whole 600km. He also reduced his own convoy, even the presidential delegation that travels with him.
He surprised everybody when he chose a Female Vice President. All the big wigs and heavy-weights in Tanzania’s politics were shocked. It is really a new day in Tanzania. He also chose the Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa, whom nobody has heard about, but they said that the man in question has a reputation for hard work and zero-corruption. All the big power blocs in Tanzania that thought that they will be made Prime Minister were still in shock by the way. After his visit to the Ministry of Finance and that hospital, all the other Ministers of the Government have since fastened their belts and now hardworking, including the sector that many people consider most corrupt – that is the Ports, where people normally pay bribes to get their imported stuff. We hear that it has suddenly become the most efficient, no loads get missing, things are done quickly, and you can now get your container without paying a bribe. All the individuals and firms that bought State companies that were privatized, they have been told to get serious and go to work, or hand over the sector they bought with immediate alacrity back to the government. Some of them were said to have not done anything for like twenty years, but now all of a sudden, they are all awake and doing stuff. We can see that President Magufuli has literally pressed the ‘Reset button’ in Tanzania, as it is a New Dawn in Tanzania. His motor is: HERE, ALL WE DO IS WORK, WE SERVE, NOTHING ELSE. His people are happy, but of course, the corrupt elements and big power brokers in Tanzania are not.
Without a doubt, all the political leaders at all levels in Africa, especially in Nigeria, should learn from this man – John Pombe Magufuli on how to efficiently and effectively manage State resources for the benefit of the people, and at the same remain accountable and transparent in the process. Agreed that too often in Africa, exciting new leaders with a radical agenda and supposedly impeccable moral credentials have started off promisingly, only to ossify into ineffective autocrats. That said, Mr. Magufuli, embarking on his first five-year term, is creating a buzz of expectation that at last Tanzania has found a leader capable of awakening the “sleeping giant” of east Africa, one with huge, largely unexploited, gas and mineral resources. “He walks the talk,” says Samuel Wangwe, principal research associate at the Economic and Social Research Foundation in Dar Es Salaam. “When he says something, he follows through. He’s not a liar.” Like Nigeria, the Tanzania Presidency commands huge Constitutional power — and Mr. Magufuli has not been afraid to use it. He has waltzed into government offices and fired people on the spot. He is even rumoured, like a Chinese emperor, to travel in disguise in order to sniff out malfeasance. That is a political leader that is not willing to give any room for loopholes. Laziness and incompetency under his administration. Let us reiterate that “he was for many years Minister for works, supervising the execution of mega projects worth trillions of shillings, but was never implicated in any corruption scandal," Joseph Warioba, a former prime minister and veteran CCM politician, recently reported. "He could have been the richest politician in the country." The new President of Tanzania John Pombe Magufuli has started well but our prayer is that he should end well. He should not be like former African Leaders who outlive their usefulness and relevance.
When will Nigeria ever have such political leaders like the Tanzania President in all the various levels of government? When will our political leaders realize that what makes any nation great, and its people, is the ability to solve problems confronting them and humanity. Nothing explains this logic better than a recently well-circulated video on different social network forums, where the author noted that: “Wealthy people do not necessarily look for money, they create solutions and money will follow them. Larry Page and Sergey Brin went all out to help humanity find things faster on the internet and billions of dollars followed them. Mark Zuckerberg created platforms for socialization, and over 21 billion dollars followed him. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went all out to produce the size of computers and billions of dollars followed them. You! what problems are you solving for humanity? Some people spend weeks on the mountains praying for financial breakthrough without knowing what to do to be rich. They just want to be rich anyhow. It does not work that way. Real wealth comes from solving problems. Real wealth comes, when we take a critical look around us, see the challenges before us and proffer solutions to them.
“One of the major reasons why many in Africa live below the poverty line is our belief that magic wands will suddenly create money for us. How many cups of mustered seed that Mark Zuckerberg eat that made him an instant billionaire? How many bottles of anointing oil that Jeff Bezos drank that turned him into an overnight amazon? If all can listen to the voice of God and do the right thing for humanity, God will be happier with us. This is how potential billionaires pray:
“Dear Lord, Nigeria has an electricity problem, our roads are death traps, Healthcare system is in shambles, our youths are sold for slavery because there is no job for them. Twenty-five million Nigerians are disabled, Lord, please baptize me with fresh ideas on how to solve some of these problems. And connect me to the right partners to make it happen. Thank You Lord. God will definitely download creative ideas into their minds. Dear friends, it is time to change our thinking and prayer pattern. Stop looking for shortcuts to the top. Let us start looking for problems to solve to save humanity. Money is actually a reward for solving problems. So, keep solving.” This should always be our prayers and mindset as political leaders, and as a people in this entity called Nigeria.
Zik Gbemre, JP.
It is no news that corruption, inept and self-centered political leadership have been the bane of Nigeria’s development as a supposed ‘giant of Africa’, despite the country being blessed with vast and enormous human and natural resourcefulness. Every time we take a critical look at the Nigeria of our today, it is sad to note that the dreams of our Nigerian Founding Fathers have all been crushed. It makes one to wonder what happened to us? The close to two decades of Military dictatorship plus the advent of Civilian administration since 1999, have left a Nigerian populace that is more disappointed with its political leaders than before. Nigeria is currently 57 plus, but all we see around us as Nigerians, is the rising hunger, hardship and poverty, high-profile corruption at all levels with reckless abandon and impunity; gross nepotism and injustice, increasing insecurity flamed by our political leaders and threatening the unity of the nation; every sector replete with dysfunctional attributes that make them serve only the interest of the political class to the detriment of the common man, and the list is endless.
Though, Nigeria has had its fair share of very few admirably-good political leaders in sensitive public office positions, but the number of those who are the bad eggs, far outweigh that of the good. Which is why we are wishing, if only our Nigerian political leaders at all levels of Government and the Legislature, are like the Tanzanian President, John Pombe Magufuli, we are very certain that the Nigeria of today, would be the Dubai of Africa in all ramifications. But we can pray we get to that point someday. But mean time, there is so much the Nigerian political leaders can learn from the Tanzanian President on how to govern.
The son of a peasant farmer, a former school teacher, industrial chemist and outgone works minister John Pombe Magufuli, practically rose from the ashes and won the late 2015 Presidential election to become Tanzania's next President on his 56th birthday. Nicknamed "The BULLDOZER" and a devout Catholic with a corruption-free reputation, Magufuli was never part of the inner-circle of the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, so it came as a surprise to his critics that he secured its candidature for the Presidency. His nomination angered CCM stalwart and ex-Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, who crossed to the opposition to challenge Magufuli for the presidency. With the backing of the formidable CCM machinery, Mr Magufuli won the 29th October poll with 58% of the votes to Lowassa's 40% in a fiercely contested election.
President Magufuli of Tanzania is called the Bulldozer because he is practically bulldozing corruption, laziness, ineptitude, and all the ills preventing the country’s development out of his administration. On assumption of Office, it was reported that the first thing he did was to suspend the country’s Independence Day celebration. He asked what are they celebrating when people are dying of cholera as at that time? Surprisingly, during the said period, only 74 persons have died of Cholera in Tanzania. Whereas, thousands of people have been killed in Nigeria by the Boko Haram sect and Fulani Herdsmen yet nobody has been suspended in positions of authority. At that time, they were supposed to spend 4 billion Tanzanian shillings for the said Independence celebration, but President Magufuli said that money should be used for the expansion of the 4.3 kilometers section of the road from Morocco to the country in other to ease traffic congestion. And to celebrate the said Independence Day, President Magufuli commanded that everyone should come out and clean their streets and neighborhood. The Tanzanian President himself joined them in cleaning-up the streets. That to us, is the height of leadership by example. And because of what he did, his own Government officials also got up to join in cleaning the streets. We can imagine what will happen in Nigeria the day we will see the Senate President, Sen. Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye or Senator Ben Maurice Bruce, or other top officials of the Presidency, coming out to clean the streets of Abuja.
The one that shocked us the most was that President Magufuli banned all foreign travels by public officials of Tanzania, except when it is very essential and they have to get permission from him or from the Chief Secretary. In fact, that same period, a list of 55 persons was submitted as those to go on a tour of Commonwealth countries, but President Magufuli was said to have cut down the list to only Four (4) persons, thereby saving millions of monies for his country that would been spent on flight tickets, hotel accommodation and other luxuries and logistics. President Magufuli believes that they have High Commissioners and Ambassadors abroad that should be representing Tanzania whenever they are invited for such world conferences. That makes a lot of sense because since they are already abroad, why waste more money for those in Tanzania to travel abroad too to attend a meeting? He also ordered that there will be no more First Class and Business Class for all public officials, except Mr. President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister, only just these three persons. That means the rest Government officials will be flying Economy Class. This reminds us of Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso.
President Magufuli also canceled all meetings, workshops and conferences by public servants inside fancy hotels. He said every Ministry has Ministerial Board Rooms, hence they should start using them for such meetings and conferences. Another notable thing that happened soon after he became President, was that President sacked the Chief Medical Director and broke up the governing board of the State-owned Muhimbili National Hospital after discovering the main scanning and diagnostic machines were not working and seeing other poor conditions and how the hospital was being run. He went to the said Hospital unannounced and saw all the things they normally hide from public officials like all the dirty places, unwholesome practices, equipment not working, patients lying on the floor, etc,. After sacking the Director, he ordered that all the stated machines not working should be repaired if not, he will fire the newly appointed Director as well. It happened that the sacked Director and some of his board members knew some of the hospital equipment were not working. But instead of repairing them to treat patients, they were referring the patients to their own private hospitals. Something like this is obviously going on in Nigeria but who will cry out and who will have it addressed like the Tanzanian President has done. President Magufuli gave them two weeks to repair the said machines. But guess what happened, the same machines were repaired in just three days.
On the State’s Dinner by the Parliament that was supposed to cost 300million Shillings, President Magufuli said they should reduce it to just 25million Shillings and that they will eat whatever that amount would get. And he said the remaining money should be used to buy hospital beds and uplift the national hospital he visited. With that money, they bought 300 brand new beds and 600 machines. Can we imagine, they would have eaten that money and that would have been the end of it. Now they have 300 new beds to admit more people. We can imagine how many lives can be saved in Nigeria if our public leaders would control their huge appetites and wasteful habits in the name of doing government work. President Magufuli also ordered that there will be no more sitting allowances for public officials. He says why should they be getting allowances for a job which they get monthly salaries on? This applies to members of the Parliament as well. The day after he was sworn-in, the State officials were showing President Magufuli around and his new official residence but he was not impressed by all of that, instead he decided to take a walk to the Ministry of Finance where he told them to get their acts together and take their jobs seriously. He asked why some of the employees were not in their office yet. Since that day, the traffic jam on the road leading to the said Villa increased because people no longer show late to work after Mr. President visited. No more Tax exemptions for the big people, everybody must pay tax. The other day he was going to officially open the Parliament, instead of him to fly the 600km trip, the man decided to drive. Magufuli drove the whole 600km. He also reduced his own convoy, even the presidential delegation that travels with him.
He surprised everybody when he chose a Female Vice President. All the big wigs and heavy-weights in Tanzania’s politics were shocked. It is really a new day in Tanzania. He also chose the Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa, whom nobody has heard about, but they said that the man in question has a reputation for hard work and zero-corruption. All the big power blocs in Tanzania that thought that they will be made Prime Minister were still in shock by the way. After his visit to the Ministry of Finance and that hospital, all the other Ministers of the Government have since fastened their belts and now hardworking, including the sector that many people consider most corrupt – that is the Ports, where people normally pay bribes to get their imported stuff. We hear that it has suddenly become the most efficient, no loads get missing, things are done quickly, and you can now get your container without paying a bribe. All the individuals and firms that bought State companies that were privatized, they have been told to get serious and go to work, or hand over the sector they bought with immediate alacrity back to the government. Some of them were said to have not done anything for like twenty years, but now all of a sudden, they are all awake and doing stuff. We can see that President Magufuli has literally pressed the ‘Reset button’ in Tanzania, as it is a New Dawn in Tanzania. His motor is: HERE, ALL WE DO IS WORK, WE SERVE, NOTHING ELSE. His people are happy, but of course, the corrupt elements and big power brokers in Tanzania are not.
Without a doubt, all the political leaders at all levels in Africa, especially in Nigeria, should learn from this man – John Pombe Magufuli on how to efficiently and effectively manage State resources for the benefit of the people, and at the same remain accountable and transparent in the process. Agreed that too often in Africa, exciting new leaders with a radical agenda and supposedly impeccable moral credentials have started off promisingly, only to ossify into ineffective autocrats. That said, Mr. Magufuli, embarking on his first five-year term, is creating a buzz of expectation that at last Tanzania has found a leader capable of awakening the “sleeping giant” of east Africa, one with huge, largely unexploited, gas and mineral resources. “He walks the talk,” says Samuel Wangwe, principal research associate at the Economic and Social Research Foundation in Dar Es Salaam. “When he says something, he follows through. He’s not a liar.” Like Nigeria, the Tanzania Presidency commands huge Constitutional power — and Mr. Magufuli has not been afraid to use it. He has waltzed into government offices and fired people on the spot. He is even rumoured, like a Chinese emperor, to travel in disguise in order to sniff out malfeasance. That is a political leader that is not willing to give any room for loopholes. Laziness and incompetency under his administration. Let us reiterate that “he was for many years Minister for works, supervising the execution of mega projects worth trillions of shillings, but was never implicated in any corruption scandal," Joseph Warioba, a former prime minister and veteran CCM politician, recently reported. "He could have been the richest politician in the country." The new President of Tanzania John Pombe Magufuli has started well but our prayer is that he should end well. He should not be like former African Leaders who outlive their usefulness and relevance.
When will Nigeria ever have such political leaders like the Tanzania President in all the various levels of government? When will our political leaders realize that what makes any nation great, and its people, is the ability to solve problems confronting them and humanity. Nothing explains this logic better than a recently well-circulated video on different social network forums, where the author noted that: “Wealthy people do not necessarily look for money, they create solutions and money will follow them. Larry Page and Sergey Brin went all out to help humanity find things faster on the internet and billions of dollars followed them. Mark Zuckerberg created platforms for socialization, and over 21 billion dollars followed him. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went all out to produce the size of computers and billions of dollars followed them. You! what problems are you solving for humanity? Some people spend weeks on the mountains praying for financial breakthrough without knowing what to do to be rich. They just want to be rich anyhow. It does not work that way. Real wealth comes from solving problems. Real wealth comes, when we take a critical look around us, see the challenges before us and proffer solutions to them.
“One of the major reasons why many in Africa live below the poverty line is our belief that magic wands will suddenly create money for us. How many cups of mustered seed that Mark Zuckerberg eat that made him an instant billionaire? How many bottles of anointing oil that Jeff Bezos drank that turned him into an overnight amazon? If all can listen to the voice of God and do the right thing for humanity, God will be happier with us. This is how potential billionaires pray:
“Dear Lord, Nigeria has an electricity problem, our roads are death traps, Healthcare system is in shambles, our youths are sold for slavery because there is no job for them. Twenty-five million Nigerians are disabled, Lord, please baptize me with fresh ideas on how to solve some of these problems. And connect me to the right partners to make it happen. Thank You Lord. God will definitely download creative ideas into their minds. Dear friends, it is time to change our thinking and prayer pattern. Stop looking for shortcuts to the top. Let us start looking for problems to solve to save humanity. Money is actually a reward for solving problems. So, keep solving.” This should always be our prayers and mindset as political leaders, and as a people in this entity called Nigeria.
Zik Gbemre, JP.