Stinking Thinking

I have heard of so many reasons as to why Tanzania is still poor. Some have blamed colonialism, while some have blamed imbalances in the world trade. Very few have plainly put the blame on us. I tend to lean towards placing the blame on us. The reason for my inclination is very simple: there are success stories in the African continent, despite sharing the same historical experiences. Truthfully, we have failed to utilize our mental faculties, not mentioning the fact that our leaders have become overly shortsighted and selfish. Those are things you cannot pin on a long-gone mkoloni.

I am not exposed to any other spiritual book other than the Bible, so I will make my reference there. All truths is God’s truth, my pastor likes to say. So let’s get to it. Proverbs 23:7 says, “ As a man thinks so is he…” I simple terms, you are a reflection of your mental outlook and attitude. You become what you think. You will always be defeated or victorious once you start viewing yourself as such.

My conviction is that we succeed by overcoming obstacles. Dreaming is OK, but at some point one has to lift their butts off and work. Try customer service in Tanzania and you will agree with me that we are stuck in wrong attitudes. And certainly bad attitude does not move you anywhere, regardless of whether you have plenty of resources (like in Tanzania) or not.

I believe that as a society, Tanzania stinks because our attitude and thinking is the same. That of course, is generally speaking. There are plenty of brilliant minds in Tanzania. If it weren’t for a crappy system; these minds would have taken Tanzania to the moon. Seriously.

Recently, DHW reported that Tume ya Kurekebisha Sheria has proposed the introduction of duo citizenship in Tanzania. According to DHW , the Ministry of Internal Affairs has ratified the proposal. The expected next move is presentation of the proposal before the Ministerial Cabinet, followed by the Bill formulation.

It all sounded good until the stinking thinking I was referring to, kicked in. The culprits being some officials from the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

According to DHW, the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, pointed out that they are not in a hurry to present the duo citizenship Bill, citing “ high costs of educating regular mwananchi on duo citizenship and implementation of the changes” as the reason. That kind of reasoning makes my jaws drop in amazement.

Wait a minute, pals. There is a plethora of Bills and policy changes in Tanzania that were introduced without consulting or educating wananchi first. So how do we make a determination on issues to educate people on and otherwise? Beats me. See, I am not against consulting and getting stakeholders’ views, but such a step should be taken when there are strong arguments. For instance, would you go back to consult your village health officer, if a PhD holding surgeon recommended surgery on your foot?

The point is this: Tume ya Kurekebisha Katiba is comprised of technical professionals whose recommendations shouldn’t be politicized. I would like to believe that they are working for the interest of Tanzanians. As such, we should educate wananchi on the Tume’s responsibilities and not on every judgment they make. Taking the later option is nothing more than insanity. Besides, aren’t we paying the Tume to come up with recommendations for changes in the Law?

Let’s get real for a second. Statistics claim that 80% of Tanzanians are farmers, mostly lacking even a Secondary School certificate. Given that fact, why expect to get any meaningful feedback from an individual who have not even traveled outside his or her own District? I am not trying to belittle the hard working farmers, but it is safe to presume that the concept of duo citizenship is complex for an individual who have not found a use for a Tanzanian passport.

The Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs pointed out that tabling of the duo citizenship Bill would be suspended, as the priority is creation of the national identification cards. That is fine on the surface. Getting down to it, national IDs is not even within this Ministry’s jurisdiction. Correct if I am wrong, but I believe that national identification cards is the responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs. That strikes out the Ministry of Justice’s reasoning ( I know they can hit back with a collective responsibility card, but that is a bunch of crap in itself).

Furthermore, the Ministry contends the exercise that will be costly to the Tanzanian government. Citing high costs is a load of crap. For one, the Ministry has utilized the “high costs” as a blanket statement to mask lack of thorough thinking. If not, why give a general statement? What is the actual cost? In other words, how high is high? Secondly, how much would it cost the Tanzanian government, for instance, to allow a Tanzanian in Sweden to become a Swedish citizen? My quick calculation: Zero shillings to the Tanzanian government. Zero. Nada. Bure kabisaaaaaaaa.

Sana sana, applicants who want to become Tanzanian citizens will have to part with application and processing fees, enough to cover government printing and processing costs. You know what? The government can even make a few shillings from the process. If there are any initial financial outlays, that could be recouped from applicants. Sasa, where did these folks come up with the conclusion that it would cost the government plenty of money to implement the duo citizenship Law?

Honestly, I think folks smoke something in the Tanzanian government. It seems like you the general qualification for being a government official in Tanzania is inability to think and an expertise in coming up with weak excuses. Seriously.

Thinking in Tanzania, generally speaking, is definitely stinking. I have not seen anything to prove me wrong on that. Tanzania is not going anywhere, progress wise, unless we change how receive, perceive, process, and utilize information.