By Amb. Juma Mwapachu
50 years ago, on 17th September, 1962, Hamza Kibwana Bakari Mwapachu, father to Harith Bakari Mwapachu, Rahma Mark Bomani, Juma Volter Mwapachu, Wendo Mtega Mwapachu, Tunu Mwapachu and Jabe Jabir Mwapachu died in Dar-es-Salaam at the early age of 49. He was at the time a Principal Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Born in Tanga, the late Hamza attended primary and secondary schools in Tanga. On completing standard 10, at that time the highest secondary school education standard in Tanganyika, he pursued medical studies at the Sewa Haji Hospital Medical School in Dar-es-Salaam qualifying in 1935 as a Medical Assistant. In 1937, he was posted as a Tutor to the Mwanza Medical School which trained medical support staff. In Mwanza, Hamza met Juliana Volter whom he married in 1938.
An ambitious Hamza succeeded to be admitted at Makerere College, Uganda in 1943 to pursue a Diploma in Medicine. Makerere had not started offering degrees of any kind at that time. As history would have it, Hamza and Julius Kambarage Nyerere joined Makerere at the same time beginning a journey of a very close friendship and political relationship despite a nine years age difference between them. At Makerere, the two befriended Andrew Tibandebage, a fellow education student to Nyerere who was a year senior at the College and the trio established a politically charged Tanganyika Welfare Students Organisation in late 1943. They applied for recognition as an affiliate of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA), but received no response from its head office in Dar-es-Salaam.
On completion of their studies in 1945, both Hamza Mwapachu and Julius Nyerere found themselves in Tabora; Hamza at the Government Hospital and Nyerere at St. Mary’s Secondary School where Tibandebage was already a teacher. The trio joined the TAA Branch in Tabora and in 1946 took over its reins with Hamza as President, Nyerere as Secretary and Tibandebage as Treasurer.
At that stage, Hamza had increasingly found his medical profession lacking in the intellectual depth needed to understand the complex dynamics of politics and constitutionalism for an informed attack against colonialism. Thus in 1947 he quit medical practice and joined the University College of South Wales at Cardiff to read a Diploma in Social Work. Whilst in the UK, Hamza was attracted to the Post Second World War Labour Party politics and socialism. He joined the Fabian Society then known as Fabian Colonial Bureau and established a network of close friends who, until he died, were frequent suppliers of books and reading materials to Hamza.
Back in Tanganyika in March 1949, Hamza was posted as Assistant Welfare Officer at Ilala District Office in Dar-es-Salaam. Late Rashid Mfaume Kawawa who completed Standard twelve at Tabora in 1948 worked with Hamza as a Welfare Clerk. Steeped in knowledge of law, constitutionalism and politics and immediately re-linking with his friend Nyerere in Tabora who was by then President of the Tabora TAA Branch but also preparing to leave for Edinburgh to pursue a degree course later that year, Hamza became the intellectual voice and conscience in TAA politics in Dar-es-Salaam.
Joining hands with Abdulwahid Kleist Sykes, a man who became like a blood brother to Hamza, they constituted an Action Group to transform the TAA from a welfarist organization into a political one. They inducted into their group Dr Lucian Tsere, Dr Vedast Kyaruzi, Stephen Mhando and Paul Rupia. Early in 1950, Abdul and Hamza dual-handedly stormed into the TAA Headquarters in Dar-es-Salaam and using fists and flying chairs engineered a leadership coup. They installed Dr Tsere as interim President of TAA. However, following Dr Tsere’s transfer to Tanga, TAA held proper elections. Dr Vedast Kyaruzi was elected President, Abdulwahid Sykes became Secretary General, John Rupia was Treasurer, Hamza was elected Secretary for Economics and Stephen Mhando became Secretary of Education.
The new TAA leadership proceeded to review the TAA constitution in mid 1950 giving the institution a tinge of a political party. The first major political act of that leadership was to prepare a Memorandum submitted to the first United Nations Mandated Trust Territory Mission to Tanganyika at the end of 1950 which demanded a clear road map towards Tanganyika’s independence. The Memorandum was a collective document of the leadership of TAA but its principal author was Hamza Mwapachu.
Following the submission of the Memorandum, Governor Edward Twining isolated two individuals for the wrath of the colonial state. Dy Kyaruzi was transferred from Dar-es-Salaam Sewa Haji Hospital, then a national hospital, to Kingolwira Prison Health Centre in Morogoro to treat prisoners. Hamza Mwapachu was “exiled” to Ukerewe Island in the heart of Lake Victoria! Dr Kyaruzi has described his posting as “imprisonment in disguise.”
Hamza, on the other hand, saw his posting as yet another opportunity to get close to where he always believed to be the nerve centre of Tanganyikan nationalist politics-the Lake Victoria Zone. For example, writing to Nyerere in Edinburgh in late 1951, Hamza noted his pleasure at discovering a brilliant young Paul Bomani in Mwanza who would be an important “asset in our struggle”. Moreover, Hamza’s house in Ukerewe became a bee hive of political visits throughout the years 1952-1954 which included discussions about Nyerere taking over the leadership of TAA in 1953 and the formation of TANU. It was in this light that the colonial government refused him the permission to travel from Ukerewe to attend the meeting in Dar-es-Salaam that launched TANU on 7th July, 1954! But to all intents and purposes, Hamza was a founder of TANU; in absentia.
Ostensibly promoting him to Assistant District Officer, a position well below his Tanganyikan juniors, Hamza was in early 1955 posted from Ukerewe to Tukuyu, Rungwe District, again a remote part of Tanganyika, far away from the nerve centres of nationalist politics. However, in Tukuyu he linked up with Yatuta Chisiza, then a Police Inspector, and the politics of Malawian independence fired the spirits of the two freedom fighters. Chisiza was later transferred to Iringa and young Juma Mwapachu used to stay with him as he travelled from boarding school in Tukuyu to Morogoro in 1957. Chisiza was independent Malawi’s first Minister of Home Affairs. He was killed whilst attempting to overthrow a corrupt and Apartheid South African surrogate regime of Kamuzu Banda.
With the advent of Responsible Government in 1958, Hamza was transferred from the Local Government School, Mzumbe, Morogoro where he had become a close friend of Khalfan Mrisho Kikwete, President Jakaya Kikwete’s father as well as of Cecil Kallaghe, later an Ambassador, to Dar-es-Salaam to become Nyerere’s first Personal Assistant as Chief Minister. What goes round comes round! Nyerere wanted his friend and confidant to be his principal advisor on the eve to Tanganyika’s independence.
Then tragedy struck. Hamza began to develop a serious heart ailment in mid 1960. Hamza had been a chain smoker all his life. So indeed was Nyerere till Hamza died! Nyerere did all he could to save his friend. Hamza was sent to the best hospital in the world, Hammersmith Post Graduate Hospital in London where he underwent heart surgery. However, by September 1962, the weak heart could no longer withstand the continued work pressure and Hamza’s ardent commitment to the service of his newly independent country. Hamza passed away at Princess Margaret Hospital, now Muhimbili National Hospital, on 17th September, 1962.
Writing to Mrs Juliana Mwapachu on 28th September 1962, a week after Hamza’s death, the Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr Dunstan A. Omari could only state:
“I have known Hamza as my personal friend for many years and I can say that I could not have wished for a more charming and co -operative colleague. His death is a loss that Tanganyika call ill afford.”
May Almighty God continue to rest his soul in eternal peace. Amin.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun.
(2:156)
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Tribute from a grand-daughter
Our grandfather, Hamza Mwapachu, grew up in a time when this land was not our own; his parents and their parents came to be when our language was the last bastion for autonomy.
In those years, belonging in a nation meant being children and grandchildren of a colony. Thousands envisioned and struggled for the right to speak and breathe and live our history. Babu Hamza was part of the core that brought this into being.
What binds us is not blood; family comes through struggle, reflection and intimacy which, in turn, are built through common partnerships. The same partnerships that Babu Hamza formed with the Sykes and the Bomani family still continues.
Our heritage is within the stories that should not be lost to history. Babu Hamza worked to confront historical erasure in both his authorship and organizing. We must find a way to hold onto this history; to learn it thoroughly and to teach it so that the ones that follow believe that everything we have is through a level of sacrifice that came before us and before them.
Achieving Uhuru is never static; as a student of socialism, Babu Hamza would have known that equality cannot be named until it is shared by all.
Loss is supplanted with inheritance but the two can never be reconciled; one describes what we can never have again, the other, what we are left with.
Most of us never knew Babu. We have only heard of his charisma, his intellectualism, and the way he continued to shape who he was and what he was expected to be; that there were no barriers to what he thought he could do. From consuming and sharing challenging ideas to trying on multiple professions and finding his fit within the boldness to write a blueprint that helped liberate his country.
We see some of these passions in those of us who are here and the ones we remember.
-Hadiyya-
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We thank Hadiyya J.M. for sharing these important anecdotes with us.
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So much came from those personal interactions. Even though we live in a world where we are physically separated, what can we use to mirror those interactions previous leaders had? More importantly, how can our interactions manifest in real movement in our home country?