BY SPECIAL REPORTER
ON 22 October 1959, the founding father of our nation, then a young African leader, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere made a commitment on behalf of his people, who had not yet acquired their independence from their colonial masters.
“We, the people of Tanganyika, would like to light a candle and put it on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro which would shine beyond our borders giving hope where there was despair, love where there was hate and dignity where there was before only humiliation”.
Through this commitment was highly associated with the Tanzania fully and meaningful involvement in the struggle for independence and fierce fight against minority apartheid rule in South Africa, lest you forget the effort was very much internalized in support of the pledge of building a nation on the basis of human equality and dignity. Immediately after independence the basis of our nation’s actions was an honest attempt to honour the dignity and equality of human – nationally and internationally.
This obligation, which was passionately carried by our founding fathers enable us today, six decades down the lane after independence to not only feel proud that we do have a nation based on the principle of human equality, but we have also made great progress towards making that equality a reality. We have a Woman President.
If we are agree in principle that Women’s right is human rights, then we have another milestone to celebrate as a nation as we hit 60, and that cannot be anything else than having a woman as the Head of the Nation, a President and Commander In Chief of our armed forces, we managed to have a united nation in less than 25 years of independence and now we are having a woman president.
How good, pleasant and satisfying would be before our founding fathers to see on December 9, 2021, at 60 anniversary of our independence, the first woman Command In Chief Inspecting the guards of honour.
To them this event would be a dream coming true, an accurate manifestation of the purpose of independence according to Mwalimu Nyerere, “that of building a united nation on the basis of human equality and dignity .”