I have been racking my brains to answer a burning question: is CCM a mass party, or has it shifted gears into a vanguard one? At least on paper, CCM still clutches emblems of a mass party. However, the betrayal is palpable and passim.
This discourse traces the abandonment of the original CCM creed of a mass party unto a party of very few and how that change has pummelled her political fortunes.
CCM, born in 1977, was already a shell political party by 1985, and we know this because the first president, Mwalimu Nyerere, had said so.
After retiring from the presidency, Nyerere travelled the whole country in what was called the “revitalization” of CCM.
It was a mission impossible and unattainable for one person to achieve. Much later, Nyerere conceded CCM at the branch level was dead and buried.
At the grassroots level, leaders sleep on their jobs once elected and seldom conduct meetings or attempt to invigorate the party.
Most leaders were more interested in having power for its own sake. Sadly, Nyerere’s observations did not address the core issues of why the grassroots level barely survived.
After independence from the British, this Africanization ideology unified us as a nation, filling us with a sense of pride and purpose. As a result, we forged our unity.
TANU was alive and active at the grassroots level in those days because national causes reflected grassroots aspirations. Much later, however, a dichotomy became a straw that broke a camel’s spinal cord.
National planning became hostile to grassroots aspirations, and over time, the CCM credentials of a mass party were forsaken and replaced with a cortex of appeasing the interests of a cabal of very few at the expense of the majority.
Top-down, heavy decision-making impoverished the downtrodden without any opportunity to listen to grassroots needs.
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Perhaps the transformation of CCM from a mass party to a vanguard party was more conspicuous during the Mkapa administration than in any other.
Suddenly, a Western liberal ideology, baked by the Bretton Woods Institutions, dictated where the country was heading.
Under the Mkapa administration, CCM has now reduced this great nation to an imperialistic satellite. Through poorly cooked privatisation policies, CCM reversed all our gains since independence.
We sought independence because we believed we were ready for self-rule, but suddenly, we capitulated and realized that we would probably never be ready!
Those trusted to empower us and who had miserably failed refused to take responsibility, instead turning to outsiders to achieve what they could not achieve with us!
We became disposable products in our collective chagrin.
The failures of nationalization policies were touted as a reason to reverse them without considering that the problem was a cry for internal reforms more than a direction we had taken.
Nationalization assets suffered from accountability issues because the people were not involved in the decision-making.
Politicians and faceless bureaucrats were the ones who were calling the shots, not to advance national interests but to selfish ones.
Think of the mess in the pension funds. The members are not involved in the decision-making, but mercenaries who are not members are running those schemes onto the ground!
Politicians love to remind members that pension funds belong to them, but they ensure they are always sidelined!
Ministers picked friends, relatives, tribesmen, concubines and of similar calibre to manage national assets without safeguards from the people.
The parliament was packed with a blending of ministerial and parliamentary positions, with more MPs doubling as government executives.
Instead of solving the real problems of nationalization, we jumped at what we had perceived as a sinking Titanic ship. We embraced wholesale Western liberalisation policies that were predicated on condemning us to the horrors of poverty.
Once CCM had given up her pre-independence reason for existing, it resorted to anti-democratic stances to secure illegal relevance in our political spectrum.
CCM is telling us that 63 years after independence, we cannot run simple organizations like our own ports, build infrastructure, or even manage agriculture.
Before our bewildered eyes, we are being told:
“MPISHE MWEKEZAJI NA FIDIA ITAKUFUATA BAADAYE!”
CCM has reduced her citizens to second-class citizens, possibly third ones. As far as CCM is concerned, we are that pesky problem that needs to be sorted out once and for all.
What shocked me the most was what our parents used to say during the clamour for independence.
This is what they were saying: “KUTAWALIWA NI FEDHEHA.”
Now, what CCM is telling us through western baked privatisation policies: “KUTAWALIWA SIYO FEDHEHA!” It is a concession that CCM tenure could soon be over!
Her reason for governing Tanzania may be over because she has ceased to serve us but has become a marionette of Western imperialistic ambitions.
Once CCM reprogrammed her mission statement to serve former colonial masters, she vacated her position as a mass party and became a vanguard one.
The mass party serves its populace but is a vanguard one that caters to the interests of a few individuals.
When the CCM government issues a government notice and gives the affected parties a paltry six days’ notice to object, you instinctively know that whoever is behind the notice is self-serving and is not a representative of us.
He is exploiting his government position to impoverish us for his gain.
The reason given for the notice is not stated, but the affected parties are expected to challenge the legality of that notice!
What is most disturbing is the decision to expropriate land of over 233,000 square meters in Dar es Salaam’s Kinondoni and Ubungo municipalities for the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit (DART) infrastructure development.
When the affected parties are not told the objective of the acquisition, one wonders if this is interactive participation.
Well, it is not! A government that has the interests of its people at heart will first seek the affected people’s views on government plans before issuing the government notice. And certainly not vice versa.
The government should have held public meetings with the affected parties to recommend what should be done before land acquisition.
You may be surprised that the affected people could have recommended other areas for land acquisition and avoided being condemned to poverty.
Now, the Minister for Lands, Housing, and Human Settlements Development, Deogratius Ndejembi, officially communicated the takeover intention on November 6, 2024, before publication in the Government Gazette on November 29, 2024.
The government notice outlines the plan for acquiring the land. It specifies that the areas, which include residential land at the intersection of Bagamoyo Road and Kunduchi (Mbuyuni), will be used for public purposes.
Properties to be acquired include land on Sam Nujoma Road, near the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Mlimani City, as well as land owned by Ubungo Municipality at the Simu2000 and Boko Basihaya areas.
The government has set a six-week deadline, starting from the date the announcement was published, for individuals claiming ownership of land rights to present their proof to the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Human Settlements Development.
It is even more hurtful to realize that DART – Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit—is in talks to be endorsed by the Emirates.
So, the real intent is to dole out land for free to the aliens at the expense of our people! Later, the same area earmarked for DART will be converted into hotels, supermarkets and prime offices to let.
Our people who fought to be independent and enjoy the fruits of independence will find themselves to have sacrificed to benefit foreigners but not themselves.
Public transport has no reason to have headquarters or parking in the city center. To serve people well, such a public transporter should reside in the city’s outskirts but not the centre.
Through public interaction, options may be considered, but not when a few self-seekers make decisions without people’s participation.
Then the government claims that the victims of this land expropriation will be compensated! Do they understand what is at stake?
How do you compensate people for a lost prime location? The compensation the government talks about is one of development on land but never the value of the land itself, and targeted beneficiaries are aliens who take it for a song!
Another compensation alternative was to give automatic shares to affected parties that would take care of the lost value of land primarily due to location.
I have long advocated that land compensation ought to be perpetual and not lump sum because land value is difficult to estimate and tends to grow over time.
Lump Sum compensation is outright theft, and it is regrettable it is the government that was supposed to serve them that is perpetuating their untold miseries!
No wonder CCM’s fate and odds at the ballot box are dwindling at such an alarming rate now that terror is a tool for staying in power.
The government has set a six-week deadline, starting from the date of the publication of the announcement, for individuals claiming ownership of land rights to present their proof to the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development.
Directives say those who fail to comply or obstruct the process could face fines up to Sh5,000 or imprisonment for up to two years, or both.
If you ever doubted whether CCM is still a mass party, now you have the answer: It is not! CCM is now a Western tool for the recolonization of Africa, period!
