By JENERALI ULIMWENGU
Ordinarily, a regional chief of a youth organisation of a political party would be small fry, and whatever he did would not add up to much in the general scheme of things political.
Still, when James Ole Millya, chair of the Arusha CCM regional youth wing, made a personal decision last week, it was something to write home about.
The young man called a press meeting to state that he was resigning all his party leadership positions, quitting the party he had been born into and — the shocker — joining the main opposition party and CCM’s current nemesis, Chadema.
But why would this relatively unimportant young man in a provincial setting have the chattering classes agog by simply changing party allegiance in a system where parties actually mean nothing?
For starters, Tanzanian officials never resign from office no matter what goes wrong on their watch.
A ferryboat capsizes, killing hundreds of voyagers and nobody in the transportation sector takes responsibility; a train is derailed and passengers are killed, and nothing happens; an ammunitions dump explodes, killing civilians, seriously damaging property and sowing panic and nobody in the defence ministry seems gravely concerned, et cetera et cetera.
That is when something has gone awry in an area for which someone is supposedly responsible.
There is also the case where someone has been abused by a superior or a system, where they know they are being treated shabbily and that there might be a better world outside the abusive setup, but they simply do not quit, for quitting is un-Tanzanian.
Like the nail on the wall, they keep receiving the hammer blows until the whole edifice crumbles with them in it.
So, why was this young man doing what is not the done thing in our culture, people are still asking.
For one thing, it is well known that this youth is a close ally of former prime minister Edward Lowassa, who resigned five years ago over an energy procurement scandal, but who is consistently reported as having presidential ambitions for 2015.
Lowassa is also known to harbour a grievance against President Jakaya Kikwete because he believes the latter left him holding the bag when they had both been involved in the controversial deal (in fact, in a recent top party caucus chaired by Kikwete, Lowassa said as much).
Lowassa’s unhappiness has not been lessened by efforts within his party to make him the sacrificial lamb in a hypocritical campaign against corruption.
There has been speculation that Lowassa, who has a huge following within the ruling party, could leave the party if he suspects it will not choose him as its presidential candidate.
So is Ole Millya a forerunner, a water tester sent to check the temperature both within Chadema and in the reaction of the public before Lowassa joins in?
Or is he — as a section of the press has suggested — a spy embedded within Chadema to gain firsthand knowledge of the main foe Lowassa will face in case his party picks him in 2015?
But statements that have been made thus far suggest that there may be more defections from the ruling party to Chadema in the coming few months, especially during the internal party elections taking place this year, in which the spurious debate over who is corrupt and who is not — in a party that has itself become synonymous with corruption — will create many casualties who may then jump to Chadema.
If that becomes the trend, it may not be long before Chadema is inundated by masses of immigrants from CCM, soon making that opposition party the ruling outfit and sending CCM the way of the Kanus and UNIPs of this world.
Indeed, could Lowassa be saying, if they don’t pick me I’ll strengthen Chadema and help it form the coming government, even if I am not in it?
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