Tanzania: Samia sends strong signal against tribalism with ouster of Magufuli loyalists

Samike was a key member of the Magufuli inner circle nicknamed the “Sukuma Gang” in reference to his ethnic kinsmen wielding power during his tenure in office.

Magufuli’s open and untamed promotion of people from his ethnic community to key government positions marked a turning point for a country that was acclaimed for its harmony among its more than 120 ethnic groups.

The late president hailed from the Zinza ethnic group, a small community in Southwestern part of Lake Victoria, but publicly identified himself with the Sukuma tribe, the largest ethnic group in Tanzania, traversing five regions of Mwanza, Shinyanga, Geita, Simiyu and Tabora. The Sukuma people thus form a significant political voting bloc in the country.

The former president aligned himself with the Sukuma for his national identity and to build a strong political base, according to journalist Ezekiel Kamwaga, former editor of Raia Mwema, a weekly political newspaper, where he wrote extensively about Magufuli.

“It was a calculated strategy given that he knew the Sukuma tribe had never produced a president due to the political beliefs since independence that presidents should not hail from the larger, and mo[re] educated ethnic communities,” Kamwaga tells The Africa Report.

“This was encouraged as a means to tame tribalism so Magufuli envisaged a situation where he would become the Sukuma tribe’s political supremo,” he says.

Developing his hometown

After winning the presidency, Magufuli built an international airport in his hometown of Chato at an estimated cost of $22.65m without parliamentary approval, as is required by law. The project lacked commercial justification and was often cited as an example of the former president’s tribal inclination.

Magufuli also had a 3.2km bridge constructed from his home base; the bridge links the Lake Zone region with neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda. The same CAG audit raised a red flag over the project’s tendering process.

During the height of evictions of hawkers and road reserve intruders, as ordered by Magufuli, from cities like Dar es Salaam, the former president raised eyebrows when he stopped the eviction of hawkers and artisanal miners in Mwanza and Shinyanga regions pointing out that they had “helped him win the presidency” in 2015.

He did it by targeting the Sukuma elites in the political arena while seeking means to please the masses

In another unusual twist, in February 2022, the ministry of finance and planning asked all civil servants to submit their updated CVs with their religious and ethnic information. The aim of the unprecedented exercise was unclear, but the government defended it as a “normal exercise” after civil servants protested against it.

These examples and many other decisions raised concerns about nepotism and ethnic favouritism overseen by the president himself.

In December 2019, opposition leader Tundu Lissu accused Magufuli of appointing the army chief, attorney general, auditor general, solicitor general and the chairman of the electoral commission from his Sukuma ethnic group. Lissu compared this tendency to that of former Zaire leader Mobutu Sese Seko.

To become the unchallenged political supremo in Sukuma land, Magufuli sought to suppress all other potential competitors through any means available.

“He did it by targeting the Sukuma elites in the political arena while seeking means to please the masses, mostly the underprivileged. Magufuli spoke to the Sukuma people at political rallies in the local dialect,” says Kamwanga.

Magufuli would ironically lecture Kenyans on the ills of tribalism during a state visit, in November 2016, imploring them to learn the Tanzanian example of tribal cohesion.

In Kamwaga’s opinion, however, he was right to make such calls in Kenya owing to the severity of the vice, which is in stark contrast to Tanzania.

Building of an ethnic empire

For former Tanganyika Law Society president and Zanzibar’s first daughter, Fatuma Karume, Magufuli’s tribal ways were tenacious. Karume recalls visiting the High Court of Tanzania during the Magufuli period to find civil servants and visitors conducting business affairs in the Sukuma language.

“Tribal dialect became [the] norm in public offices where official languages are Swahili and English only,” she says.

Samia seems to have understood the gravity of the problem from the beginning of her presidency. She announced on 6 April 2021 that she would not be using the Christian greeting “tumsifu yesu kristu (praised be to Jesus Christ)” and Islam’s “assalamu alaikum (peace be upon you)”, which Magufuli would often chant to excite faithfuls at political rallies.

Instead, Samia introduced a new greeting slogan “Nawasaliamia kwa jina la Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania (I greet you in the name of the United Republic of Tanzania)”.

On 12 October 2021, Samia said there were no ethnic groups in Zanzibar where she comes from. “We are all Zanzibaris and only identify ourselves with the areas we come from. I will therefore discipline civil servants without caring about their ethnicity,” Samia said after swearing in new appointees.

Samia’s weakness is the lack of a natural constituency on the mainland, but it is also a strength given that she rises above tribal politics.

Karume explains that not identifying with any tribes, and the fact that Samia ascended to the presidency from local politics is both a strength and a weakness. She notes that Samia’s predecessor had left a heavily divided country not seen before, with ‘Sukuma gang’ leaving a tainted legacy.

“For the first time, politics was infused with tribalism. Samia’s weakness is the lack of a natural constituency on the mainland, but it is also a strength given that she rises above tribal politics. It all depends how she claims it,” Karume says.

As Samia approaches the local government elections in October 2024, political analyst Absalom Kibanda tells The Africa Report she has fired almost every bureaucratic government official and political leader from their position, but without using an overarching strategy.

“The lake zone still matters, and the main question remains how she will win the votes from the powerful Sukuma community in [the] 2024 and 2025 general elections,” says Kibanda.