Ubabe wa nini?

Stop governmen bullying!
The other day I was watching the Minister in the President’s Office, Hawa Ghasia performing in the Bunge. She was threatening MPs that their privileges and immunities that go with their offices do not cover them against holding classified government documents.

The baby-faced minister was wagging a government finger and threatening MPs that using such documents for political motives were breaking the law, that anyone holding such documents was liable to prosecution – because there is no immunity for such MPs. She was threatening MPs with jail.

Sounds like an idle threat to me. I mean MPs are politicians. If they get rot in government (and there is plenty of it), it is their job to blow the whistle. Some politicians have made quite a name for themselves – simply for doing their job. And may they be blessed for that.

Mama Ghasia should be reminded that the people of the United Republic of Tanzania, would never have heard of the theft of 130 bn /- External Payment Arrears accounts. They would never have heard of rip-offs of Kagoda. They would never even had a whiff of the Tanzanian Embassy premises in Italy, the buying of scrap helicopters of the army, the radar rip-off and presidential jet scam.

The scandals were not announced amid great fanfare to the people by the government of Tanzania. They were announced by patriotic MPs, who have had enough of crap. People can take just enough. Now they are saying enough is enough! That will not go away by crude government bullying.

Everyone knows whom the MPs Mama Ghasia was talking about. The government wants to paint them as some kind of criminals, stealing secrets
and embarrassing our great, benevolent government. That they are terrorists!

Well, the government’s ‘terrorists’ are the freedom fighters of the vast majority of Tanzanians. When they speak they are listened to and trusted by the people. If the government touches them it only makes them instant heroes.

From the way it was described, it is as if the ‘criminal’ MPs were busy stealing government secrets. That’s is very wrong, Mama Ghasia. MPs don’t go spying in government offices.

The fact is the sources of those ‘secrets’ are patriotic government officials who have had it up to their necks, with the muck they see within the government. They leak the stuff to clear their consciences and just try to do something in their humble way to fight the rot. They are the silent heroes, not from a sinister foreign organization, but from the government itself.

It is a surprise that the politics of the 1960s are creeping back in Bongo today. The government should stop the politics of intimidating the MPs. Presently Tanzanians are eagerly waiting the annulment of bad laws which are perceived oppressive and contrary to the constitution and good governance. That is what the government should be talking about. Government bullying in this age is of particularly of bad taste!