Warioba Blames Tanzania’s Political Problems on Eroding Founding Values and Offers a Way Out

Former Prime Minister Joseph Sinde Warioba says Tanzania’s present political and social challenges cannot be understood without confronting the erosion of the values that shaped the country at independence.

Speaking at the Tanzania Centre for Democracy’s national conference in Dar es Salaam, Warioba said the country’s founders deliberately built Tanzania around national unity, equality, patriotism, honesty and self-reliance. Those principles, he argued, helped the country avoid divisions based on tribe and religion.

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We need to return to the Tanzania we knew, a Tanzania of peace, equality, patriotism, honesty and self-reliance.

He warned that their weakening had allowed political, religious, tribal and regional divisions to re-emerge, threatening the social cohesion that once held the country together. “We need to return to the Tanzania we knew, a Tanzania of peace, equality, patriotism, honesty and self-reliance,” he said.

Warioba pointed to the objectives of the Tanganyika African National Union, formed in 1954, as an example of the country’s original direction. TANU sought to prepare Tanzanians for self-government and independence while removing tribal discrimination and other barriers to African unity. “The first objective was to prepare our people for self-government and independence, and to remove tribal discrimination and anything else that prevented Africans from being united,” he said.

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The first objective was to prepare our people for self-government and independence, and to remove tribal discrimination and anything else that prevented Africans from being united.

He also recalled an earlier standard for public leadership, under which office was treated as a trust rather than personal property. Leaders were expected to reject corruption and speak the truth. “Leadership was regarded as a trust. Public office was not meant to be a personal possession,” Warioba said.

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Leadership was regarded as a trust. Public office was not meant to be a personal possession.

He credited those principles with helping Tanzania build a shared national identity despite its ethnic and religious diversity. But he said that achievement now faced renewed pressure. “We succeeded in building national unity, but today we are seeing tribal groupings, religious divisions and regionalism returning,” he said.

Warioba singled out multiparty politics as a particular challenge, warning that parties could become vehicles for narrow group interests. “The coming of multiparty politics turned the country into new type of discrimination, political parties became new tribes,” he said. He argued that Tanzania should retain multiparty democracy while preventing political competition from turning citizens against one another.

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We succeeded in building national unity, but today we are seeing tribal groupings, religious divisions and regionalism returning.