COVID 19 and The Child in the Man

 
This article was first published in The Nairobian in 2020, shortly after the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic. The President of the United Republic of Tanzania and Zanzibar, John Magfuli took a curiously dismissive stand, as discussed in this piece.
 
– Barrack, April 2023
 
Adults confound us when they act like children. Perhaps the urge to remain a child, and to behave like, one never goes away. Not even in the ripeness of age. William Wordsworth, the great English romantic poet famously wrote, “The Child is the father of the Man.” The 19^th century lyrical genius concluded, “And I could wish my days to be bound each to each by natural piety.”  
 
Accordingly, you scratch the adult on the surface and you stumble into the child within. Yet, the adult has  a duty to behave his age even if he does not wish to. He has to allow children their childish space. If you are familiar with the Christian writ, you will have read where it is recorded in Matthew 11:31, “To what, then, can I compare the men of this generation? What are they like? They are like children, sitting in the marketplaces. They complain to their playmates, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.”
 
But you will also have read, in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I felt like a child, I thought like a child; now that I am a man I have put away childish things.”
 
East Africa’s leaders  bring back these reflections. Where they should act like adults, they behave like children. Nothing  brings out the child within a man as does a moment of crisis. Then people lose the capacity to reason. They can’t stay cool. They are jumpy and easily rattled. They scream when they should emphasize their points. Even in the face of a common enemy, they still want to fight one another.
 
In East Africa, Tanzania’s president, H. E. John Pombe Magfuli, is the pick of the basket. A delicate gentleman, it is difficult to understand how he is a political marvel. President Magfuli can be harsh to alternative thought. Students of political science will want to research on how he has managed to keep bias against alternative opinion and political success in the same pods. They rarely go together – not for long anyway. The Tanzanian head of state and government does not hesitate to clamp down on alternative opinion, even in this season of the dreaded new coronavirus.
 
In recent times a Kenyan media house has been made to repeatedly apologies to President Magfuli and his government. The president  is among a very small class of leaders, alongside Brazil’s Jair   Bolsanaro, who have defied WHO guidelines on the new global pandemic. The offending media house carried a broadcast with the Kiswahili theme, “Ukaidi wa Magfuli.” This has a wide range of possible translations, given the way language behaves.
 
Polysemy is the situation in which one word has several different, but also often related meanings. If you want, you could harp on one word to signify that you have been wronged. For “ukaidi” could be “stubbornness, persistence, independent-mindedness, obduracy, inflexibility,” or whatever. They are all pointers to the unique position that Tanzania has taken on the new bug that has stopped the world.
 
Against the advice of both local and global experts, President Magfuli has dismissed the virus as “much ado about nothing.” Life should go on as usual in his country, he says. He has stopped the initial testing for the virus, as well as reporting of the situation to WHO.  And choices have consequences. One of the consequences is that truck drivers from Tanzania are arriving at the country’s international border exit points with the virus. In the case of the Kenya border at five different locations in Isebania, Taveta, Lungalunga, Namanga and Loitoktok, those with the virus are being sent back to TZ.
 
Now Tanzania responds by banning all movement from Kenya into Tanzania. An irate government official addresses the media and say, “We are going to ban all entry of people and goods from Kenya into Tanzania. In fact we are banning entry from today. No, from now, this very moment! They will not be allowed to come in to bring us their corona.”
 
The new pandemic has limited every country in the world. It easily presents the occasion when both the willing and the reluctant need to follow WHO guidelines. There is no dignity to be lost, even by those who doubted and watched from outside the ring. In a sense, it was not extremely bad that they refused to come along with everyone else. Callous as it sounds, they have given the world the other side of the coin. After an extended period of not testing or reporting to WHO, Tanzania could still help East Africans a great deal, by now presenting a truthful picture of the situation in the country.
 
President Magfuli should not be ridiculed for having taken an independent stand from the rest of the world. Nor should we hold it against him that – together with Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi – he spurned a video teleconference by regional leaders, on the virus. It is a learning world. And great men become greater still when they learn something new, especially from their mistakes.
 
President Magfuli can learn something new from how his counterparts have dealt with covid-19. And they, too, could learn something from Tanzania – regardless that the lesson may be on “how not to manage global pandemics.” Unfortunately angry and ridiculous words about each other at the very top cast the regional leadership in the mould of kids mocking each other in the marketplace.
 
Entry and exit points at the border can be managed more efficiently, for the benefit of all concerned. The entire regional economy depends hugely on regional trade. The emerging situation between Kenya and Tanzania is not in anyone’s interest. Kenya must resist the temptation to escalate the situation by hitting back. For his part, President Magfuli needs kulegeza Kamba kidogo. Aturuhusu watu kumkosoa bila kuwanyorosha.
 
What every leader should know is that we in the media mean well, in our criticism of their performance. There is no borderline between criticism and appreciation. Our criticism of the leadership is our appreciation of their tour of duty. Allow us to talk to you without asking for unnecessary apology and threatening to “nyorosha” us. We are your partners. The work we do is for our collective good. Meanwhile, let maturity reign in East Africa. Utoto na kiburi havitatusaidia.