A raging debate is before us after President Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan ordered the police to investigate politically instigated abductions, tortures and murders.
It all looks to be in good faith until the history of police investigating one of their own came to the surface. Tanzanian police seldom confront the brutality and gratuitous force within its ranks save when under constant public pressure.
Human rights activists and the opposition have been urging international criminal investigations to unearth the rot in the police force and recommend remedial measures.
The police have been urging the general public to volunteer any relevant information that could lead to arrests, criminal indictments, and, where applicable, convictions before a court of law.
The general public has contextualized a different picture: police reluctance to apprehend wrongdoing within its ranks. This article chronicles past police excesses, how it confronted them and whether the police can be trusted to correct their mistakes.
Tanzanian police used to be a darling of the general public until the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in 1992. The police truce with the public came apart, albeit in dollops.
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In the elections of 1995, minimal police intervention and meddling in our elections was noticed. Probably, the police were not feeling much because CCM’s hold on power was not much under fireline.
I still remember 1995, when Augustine Mrema became the de facto leader of the opposition. He was the chairperson of NCCR-MAGEUZI. And there was another mercurial politician called Rev. Mtikila.
The police attempted to stop the University of Dar es Salaam students who had decided to push Rev. Mtikila’s car in appreciation of the speech he had delivered before them.
Rev. Mtikila was unmatchable for coining a political lexicon like “Magabacholi” to refer to Tanzanian Indians he accused of fleecing national wealth in cooperation with our local politicians. Another memorable terminology was “Walalahoi” about hoi polloi.
Rev. Mtikila gained popularity for blaming the local Indian community for taking us for a ride. At one time, during his visit to the Lake region, he was stoned by a young man for insulting his President, Ali Hassan Mwinyi. The police did not do much to arrest the culprit despite boasting in public.
Mrema, who had a credible path to the Presidency, endured harassment and blockage to his entourage, but he faced no police-initiated violence. Mrema, unlike Rev. Mtikila, who advocated for violent reforms, had struck a reconciliatory tone which reassured the regime at that time.
At one time, Nyerere came out of retirement to remind the police to leave Mrema alone. In specific words, this is what Nyerere said: “….kama kuna mtu anataka kubebwa kama maiti MWACHENI msimbughudhi kabisa, MWACHENI.” Nyerere’s moral authority was sufficient to calm the police to observe the election laws.
In the following elections of 2000 and 2005, President Mkapa strengthened himself and expanded his political base, so the election was a foregone conclusion that CCM would triumph, necessitating no need to resort to election violence to intimidate the electorate and the opposition.
However, the brutal killing of the retired Major General Kombe tarnished his legacy. General Kombe was killed by what police had claimed a case of “mistaken identity”. But spraying double digit bullets to anybody suspected of car theft raised our eyebrows. The grapevine wants us to believe he was targeted for political assassination after reaching out
to Chadema. The rumours were men and women in uniforms could not warm up to join the opposition. If that was true it may also explain why the Chadema guy with military background was abducted in broad daylight and later his remains were dumped with his face charred in concentrated acid.
Mkapa’s first term in office led to the dismissal of the entire police apex for unknown reasons. Was it intimidation, or was he responding to police inadequacies?
The sacked police rushed to court, where the Appeals Court awarded them Tshs 70 million after chopping most of their awards granted by the High Court.
Unchecked presidential appointment powers largely to narrate why the police sides with CCM in political issues. Those powers have never been apprehended by any commision setup to peek at police malfeasance and recommend what to do about them.
In the 2010-2020 elections, CCM’s ironclad hold on power was easing, and their role in the elections was also changing to adapt to new realities. The way the police force is structured is to align itself with CCM. The top echelons in the police are there because CCM’s top leadership has decided so.
Henceforth, the security force feels that to keep their jobs, they must serve the parochial interests of the rulers of the day. The security forces have been used to quell legitimate strikes. For example, they made the assassination attempt on the doctors’ strike on Dr. Steven Ulimboka, which then-President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete conceded.
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Dr. Ulimboka was hounded out of his home, taken to the police where he was beaten pulp amd then was thrown in a thicket forest in a forlorn hope he will die and be eaten by hyenas.
However, good samaritans picked him feom the forest and rushed him to the hospital where he received treatment before being airlifted to South Africa under government expense. The then president Kikwete upbraided the security forces for overreaching:
…..Ulimboka alikuwa ni kiongozi wa madaktari na ni jukumu lake kuwatetea. Sasa ninyi mnamteka ma kumpiga ndiyo mtakuwa mmemaliza mgogoro wa kikazi kati ya madaktari na serikali?….muwe mnajitafakari.” Despite such consoling words, Dr. Ulimboka’s assailants have never been apprehended, nor were the doctor’s better pay demands addressed even today!
Many see the police as the one descending upon the nation’s innocence, but the police’s executive subservience points to a major problem compounding the police: lack of tenure security. The top cadre serves at the pleasure of the president, not the Constitution.
The criteria the president uses to appoint top sheriffs are only known to her, and because there are no parliamentary checks and balances, the top cop pivots on cronyism to appease his appointee.
The security force is not necessarily evil, but it is the politicians who manipulate it that make it wicked. The police can play its powerful role if it is guaranteed security of tenure.
This is easier said than done because the ruling party no longer believes it can win a clean election. And the police are a CCM paw to ensure by hooks or by crooks it wins elections of all kinds regardless of voter’s preferences.
During this period, one journalist was covering Chadema meeting in Iringa; the police blew him up with a bomb. He died from his wounds.
The matter stagnated for months before those responsible were apprehended. The bombing of the attorney offices in Dar-es-Salaam have never been resolved by the police with the police perceived being behind that attack on the tenets of democracy.
The assassination attempt of the opposition supremo, Tundu Lissu nobody expect the police to even look at it. They have found a way to blame the victims for want of cooperation.
Our security forces have crafted a strange doctrine: victims know their assailants, and if they refuse to reveal them to the police, they have forgiven them. So, they closed the files as soon as they were opened. There are no cold files, but victims of police brutality are the cold files!
Looking back at how our security forces are structured, it is clear we will never carry out meaningful reforms until we acknowledge that the political violence is a mere symptom of a major twitching problem: election laws.
Fix election laws first, and then we can begin charting a way forward to solve intricate issues inside the police force, like granting them tenure, appropriate training, qualifications for joining it, and how to recruit them.
This chit is also an excoriation to Chadema and others of their ilk. I appreciate that in the current form, they cannot investigate themselves, but outsourcing investigative personnel from our former colonial powers misses a much more important point; external police like Interpol may come and find out all who wronged us but will not resolve political problems that justify police brutality.
This is an inside job that demands insiders root it out. It is our job to differentiate symptoms from the real disease. It is important not to allow emotions to misguide and mislead us, causing us to fail to carry out a meaningful diagnosis and proffer correct remedial actions.
