Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born on April 13, 1922 in Butiama, on the eastern shore of lake Victoria in north west Tanganyika. His father was the chief of the small Zanaki tribe. He was 12 before he started school (he had to walk 26 miles to Musoma to do so). Later, he transferred for his secondary education to the Tabora Government Secondary School. His intelligence was quickly recognized by the Roman Catholic fathers who taught him. He went on, with their help, to train as a teacher at Makerere University in Kampala (Uganda). On gaining his Certificate, he taught for three years and then went on a government scholarship to study history and political economy for his Master of Arts at the University of Edinburgh (he was the first Tanzanian to study at a British university and only the second to gain a university degree outside Africa. In Edinburgh, partly through his encounter with Fabian thinking, Nyerere began to develop his particular vision of connecting socialism with African communal living. On his return to Tanganyika, Nyerere was forced by the colonial authorities to make a choice between his political activities and his teaching. He was reported as saying that he was a schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident. Working to bring a number of different nationalist factions into one grouping he achieved this in 1954 with the formation of TANU (the Tanganyika African National Union). He became President of the Union (a post he held until 1977), entered the Legislative Council in 1958 and became chief minister in 1960. A year later Tanganyika was granted internal self-government and Nyerere became premier. Full independence came in December 1961 and he was elected President in 1962.
Nyerere’s integrity, ability as a political orator and organizer, and readiness to work with different groupings was a significant factor in independence being achieved without bloodshed. In this he was helped by the co-operative attitude of the last British governor — Sir Richard Turnbull. In 1964, following a coup in Zanzibar (and an attempted coup in Tanganyika itself) Nyerere negotiated with the new leaders in Zanzibar and agreed to absorb them into the union government. The result was the creation of the Republic of Tanzania.
Mwalimu Nyerere, widely referred to as the Father of the Nation, will always be remembered for his tireless struggles for human rights, another good thing about Mwalimu is that he was an enthusiastic sportsman. And, unlike other politicians who use sports to gain powers, the late Nyerere used sports to unite the people of Tanzania, Africa and the world at large. Indeed, sports, culture, education and health posthumously decorated Nyerere, the founding father of the nation.
Nyerere was a sportsman, politician of principle and intelligence. The great teacher he was, Nyerere had a vision of education and social action that was rich with possibility. He effectively and successfully used sports, particularly football and BAO, an African equivalent of chess, to plot the overthrow of colonial powers. Certainly, Mwalimu used sports objectively and never used sports for self interest. He never took it for granted as his government went ahead to promote and develop all sports disciplines even after achieving independence. He encouraged self disciplined and healthy nation. The foundation for sports development was also laid under the school’s games popularly known as UMISETA for secondary schools and UMITASHUMTA for primary schools.
Talents were aplenty and readily available for identification and promotion. It should be remembered that it was during Mwalimu’s reign when the country for the very first and last time competed in the African Cup of Nations in Nigeria in 1980. It was during that era when athletics was athletics. Remember Filbert Bayi winning 1,500 metres world record in Christchurch’s Commonwealth Games in 1974. Then Bayi and Suleiman Nyambui won silver and bronze medals in Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, the only medals that Tanzania has ever received in the history of the quadrennial games.
Remember the heroics of such athletes as John Steven Akhwari, who made headlines around the world in 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Despite a serious injury he had suffered during the race, he eventually finished in unbearable pain. Asked why he had not given up under such conditions, he replied: “My country did not send me only to start a race, it sent me to finish the race.” All those achievements in sports were the product of immense support from the private and public institutions and more importantly the government that sincerely aimed at developing sports.
No self interests were put forth. Government officials, sports officials and athletes alike were self motivated and had the country’s interest ahead of everything. BAO was Mwalimu’s number one sport. He played often, with fellow elders especially during leisure time. He viewed sports as a unifying factor and he used that tool effectively. Mwalimu led Tanzania to stand out as the only country in Africa, which was formed from a union of two independent states.
No other union has been consummated on the entire continent because unity is simply hard on to earn. One way to describe it all is that the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is unique to the world, where everyone feels at home wherever they go. During his reign, schools provided a good environment to identify sporting and artistic talents. He ensured that there were compulsory sports programs for schools at all levels.
Even after retirement, Nyerere sustain his influence to Tanzanians, with his belief that socialism was an attitude of mind that barred discrimination and entailed equality of all human beings. Ujamaa therefore can be said to have created the social environment for the development of hip hop music culture. Like in other countries, hip hop emerged in post-colonial Tanzania when divisions among the population were prominent, whether by class, ethnicity or gender.
Rappers’ broadcasted messages of freedom, unity, and family hood, topics that are all reminiscent of the spirit Nyerere put forth in ujamaa. Mwalimu championed the use of Kiswahili as another factor to unify the people of Tanzania, where he succeeded maximally. The Kiswahili language is getting more attention in Africa, with the African Union adopting Kiswahili as one of its working languages. Kiswahili, in the Great Lakes Region, is increasingly becoming the lingua franca as governments in the region encourage the use of Kiswahili in their respective countries. Nyerere supported the presence of foreign cultures in Tanzania saying, “a nation which refuses to learn from foreign cultures is nothing but a nation of idiots and lunatics.”
