EDITORIAL: Give us a break, Muhongo!

If we were to describe the African continent in brief, it would probably be “where there are trees but no builders.” It has plenty of human and natural resources, but the majority of its people languish in abject poverty.

Listening to politicians campaigning you a picture you get is that after October, Tanzanians will be living in heaven. Candidates’ promises paints a flawless Tanzania in which no one will labour for anything.

People power witnessed in 2014 and 2015, for example in changes of government in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, will be proved limited in 2016.

>Police frequently disrupt demonstrations by opposition parties, even when they are peaceful. Journalists on duty also get the same hostile treatment. This is unacceptable.

>Members of the Constituent Assembly (MCAs) want to maintain the clause in the Constitution that forbids a petition against the winner of the presidential vote. This is truly shocking. What the MCAs are proposing is that once the winner of the presidential votes is announced, no one has the constitutional right to appeal.

Suicide is a disturbing incident because, unlike death caused by, say, an illness or an accident, the decision by someone to take their own precious life is extremely disturbing and negative. It is one of the reasons why suicide is considered sinful in some cultures where the “culprit” is denied befitting funeral. One of the latest reported cases in Tanzania relates to 25-year-old Charles Bruna, a resident of Kitunguru Village, in Mara Region’s Serengeti District.

>It isn’t surprising that, as the 2015 General Election tempo builds up, rough play is emerging. It is like some among us are bent on proving—as it oft said—that politics is a dirty game. Electioneering is a component of politics in which crooked conduct comes to the fore as individuals vie for political posts that are up for grabs from the grassroots to the national level.

>Deaths on our roads are increasingly ceasing to be newsworthy material. A very sad situation indeed, but that is where we have reached, given that no week passes without a report on scores getting killed or maimed through road accidents. Everyone is concerned, but what are we doing about it?

>With  the advent of HIV/Aids in the early 1980s, there has been too much attention towards this scourge at the expense of virtually every other medical concern. As everybody, including policy makers, worried themselves sick about HIV/Aids, which affects “only” a couple of millions in Tanzania, a lot more millions people faced death from diabetes and all manner of cancers.