Frederick Mwita Werema was a High Court judge and the Attorney General who passed away at 69 on Monday 30th December 2024.
The grim news was shared by Salome Ntaro, the Secretary of the Lay Council at St. Martha Parish in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dar-es-Salaam.
Mr. Werema has left behind a controversial legacy that will take time to cobble up a national consensus.
This discourse grills at some of those controversies as an AG informing of his seminal yet erratic public service career.
Posting on her X page, Fatma Karume aka “Shangazi wa Taifa” reminisced what she had come to recognise and acknowledge as a good man out of Mr. Werema.
She recalled: he was an affable man and went on to describe a memorable incident that shaped her generous assessment.
She recounted at one time while he was still a High Court judge where she had a court case before him, and knowing she was outside his office, he invited her in his Court Chambers.
The two enjoyed a scrumptious meal together that was meant for him. Having perused those views, I implored Fatma whether an isolated incident was sufficient to draw up such lofty findings? By the time, I am jotting down his legacy, she was yet to respond to my visceral reservation.
Fairly or not, as humans we tend to paint a more “larger than life” picture of a deceased out of pity more than allowing ourselves confronting human frailties which condemn us of weaknesses.
This is not new. In one of the celebrated Talk Show host Oprah Winfrey’s shows that I happened to watch there was a heated debate about the legacy of the legend and pop music superstar, Michael Jackson.
The question before the audience was how would the King of pop and Rock be remembered?
Many in that highly agitated auditorium preferred to cling to his musical global contributions but there was a handful who were transfixed over his paedophilic allegations.
At the end of the discussion there was no consensus but the more they debated the more each side grandstanded to their views.
Too humanely, I must enthuse. Michael Jackson either epitomised good or evil, and he couldn’t have espoused both.
In African culture and values, a dead person is revered and in many ways is connected to familiar spirits, and demonizing the the departed is presumed to court curses.
It explains why during funerals, obituaries lean on being hagiographies.
We praise the deceased with encomiums that we would unhesitatingly withdraw no sooner God resurrects the departed.
African obituaries reflect upon our own low conduct laden with hypocrisy.
We refuse to embrace the truth. In fact, we abhor the gospel truth that portrays the deceased in despicable light.
The deceased is deemed holy in our own crooked eyesight. This article excoriates that kind of distorted African reverence towards the dead.
In wrapping up the discussion, Oprah retorted: “what the heck, after all he is not with us any more to respond to these allegations….”
Exactly, that is how humanity deals with posthumous evaluation of legacies. Former US president, Bill Clinton, once was asked by a reporter how did he think he would be remembered for. Clinton looking perturbed summarised the “dugout” of legacies. This is what he said: “…..legacies can only be fairly appraised in twenty to fifty years after a person is dead. This is because humans are biased, and present circumstances may cloud their judgment…..but those who come thereafter are most likely to provide a fair reconnaissance of what this individual was all about…..”
Former president Clinton circumvented the question but provided a firm template of appraising a legacy of anybody implying present generation may garnish some foundation of that assessment but shouldn’t be taken as a comprehensive one.
Present generations are defrauded by human biases.
We tend to pick what we would like to see on the departed, a man behind a mirror.
Fatma Karume remembered Werema’s sense of humility and sumptuous generosity as the judge of the High Court but this article will beam at two legacies he has bequeathed us as an attorney general.
Learning from Bill Clinton’s counsel, both legacy appraisals are by no means compendious but will provide clues of how future generations will choose to remember him.
In my own clouded judgment of present circumstances, I will pick just two seismic issues to pen down his obituary.
I am sure, other writers will either disagree or come up with their own versions of who was this man in front of a mirror.
Frederick Mwita Werema (born 10 October
1955) served as Attorney General of Tanzania from 2009 until his resignation in 2014.
Before his appointment, Werema was High Court of Tanzania Judge in the Commercial Division.
It is to be recalled that during his tenure as A.G two monumental events occurred: the first was the enactment of the two legislations called the Constitutional Review Act (2014) and the Referendum Act (2011).
The second thing was his counsel to the establishment of the Tegeta Escrow Account at the B.O.T. For now, I will constrain myself into those two isssues.
On amendment of the constitution, ordinary laws were crafted in contradiction of the incumbent constitution having established a constitutional process to amend it.
The question many legal scholars have tried to answer has been why dodge the legal constitutional process and go for illegal means to amend it.
One has to retrace the composition of the Parliament in those days to get to the bottom of the matter. The composition of the Parliament (2010-2015) was well summed up by one Pemba CUF leader: “…..sijui huko bara lakini huku visiwani hawawezi kupata theluthi mbili labda waibe kura zetu bungeni…. Nawaambieni huku visiwani hawatoboi…..”
The path to constitutional reforms in a manner CCM wanted was dead on arrival at Parliament.
Therefore, an alternative path to legalize CCM long held positions on constitution had to be sought, and the learned lawyer, Mr Werema dreamt up how to bypass the Parliament and achieve what CCM wanted.
CCM despise constitutional reforms because of what they portend: her own ouster from the high table.
It narrates why even now CCM top brass brazenly state constitutional reforms are not their priority.
CCM priority is to bring development to the people which in itself is another contradiction.
CCM says in her constitution, she esteems upon self reliance, and “bringing development to the people” rubbishes the statement of intent towards “kujitegemea”.
Focusing on elitist development, CCM has alienated the majority of the poor because of the unequal development paradigm now being pursued with ferocious zeal.
Under Werema’s watch two pieces of constitutional process were enacted namely: the Constitutional Review Act (2014) and the Referendum Act (2011).
Essentially, what those laws perspired to achieve was to corrupt the constitutional powers of the parliament in a manner would conceal and obscure the legality of bypassing the parliament while in actual sense the constitutional “checks and balances” were watered down.
Of more damning provision in the Constitutional Review Act (2014) and the Referendum Act (2011) was to create new creatures that were not recognized in the current constitution!
There was what was called “constituency assembly” and “national referendum” to ratify the constitution. Both of these creatures were not stipulated in the present constitution rendering them nugatory. Constituency assembly was a “sleight of a hand” to overcome constitutional hurdles of getting a two third majority from either side of the union.
The election of members of the so called “constituency assembly” was not subjected to NEC supervision. Nobody can decide on issues of amending the constitution unless he has been elected as an MP in the existing constitutional framework. This “constituency assembly” was illegal because it empowered constitutional aliens to usurp constitutional reform powers solely vested on the parliament.
In order to add confusion to an already vortex situation, Werema was instrumental in advising the creation of “national referendum” to decide the fate of whatever constitution reforms the “constituency assembly” would propose.
While a national referendum on surface atones a fraught process since it empowered the electorate to be a final arbiter of the proposed motherland law but here too there was an irreconcilable flaw: our current constitution does not recognise a refendurum as part of the process leading to constitutional reforms enactment.
Since the two laws were unconstitutional the whole process was bad law, to put it mildly, and no wonder the process was marked with complaints of massive rigging in the election of members of the assembly.
How the actual vote was conducted in the illegal “constituency assembly” and development of cold feet to complete the whole process through a bogged down national refendurum.
Those two pieces of legislations were not by any stretch of imagination a national consensus, and that was later parlayed by the succeeding CCM administrations as a cudgel to perpetually defer the enactment of the proposed illegal constitutional reforms.
The Tegeta Escrow account too was the brainchild of Werema. In that account about Tshs 220 Bill from Tanesco were banked pending a power purchase agreement being sorted out.
The idea on peripheral impressed as brilliant until when the money was released even before the arbitration process was completed raising too many red flags of huge official corruption in the energy sector.
Werema’s defense was that he was grossly misunderstood but never elaborated in specific terms in what ways.
The bootleg was bagged by influential people in our orbit of power.
One former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Energy professor Dr. Mark Mwandosya remarked in Parliament as a minister for Transport: “…serikali haiwezi kufumbia macho watu wanaonekana wakibeba sandarusi zimejaa hela lazima uchunguzi wa kina ufanyike ili ijulikane undani wa hili suala…..”
Such wisdom was quietly shied away because in CCM’s code of conduct nobody wants to scratch the back of another lest his back get similar treatment.
The matter was ultimately shelved forever despite a modicum to the contrary.
What is least reported is what Werema said in Parliament against the then NCCR-MAGEUZI MP from Kigoma South David Kafulila whom he had slurred as “tumbili” following a parliamentary spat over how the BOT had released the Tshs 220 billion from the escrow account.
Under parliamentary pressure, Werema called it a day together with senior ministers in the then president Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete’s cabinet.
Some will regard this part of his history as Werema had squandered an opportunity to stamp out his authority but others will excuse him for pandering to the politics of the moment to keep his job. Please don’t laugh, he too had too many mouths to breastfeed just like most of us.
That ultimate call to national fidelity and loyalty was too much for him to embrace and brandish with a delightful flourish. I could be wrong, and would love to stand up, and be corrected.
Well, now he is deceased we would probably never know why he thought he was greatly misunderstood but I must reluctantly agree with what Oprah’s opinion on legacies now he is departed: “what the heck?”
Well, somehow, it is not a heck because Werema’s legacy could proffer lessons for future mulling over Tanzania public service, and elsewhere.
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