Tanzanians remember Nyerere

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Tanzania's founding President Julius Nyerere, is still regarded an icon and paragon of virtue, two years after his death from leukaemia. 

The man who ruled Tanzania from 1962 to 1985, with an astute political acumen, which ensured relative peace for the country, was remembered Sunday as Tanzanians observed the second anniversary of his death. 

Thousands including President Benjamin Mkapa, whom the late Nyerere groomed for presidency gathered in Churches across the country to commemorate the occasion. 

Hundreds of youths from various political parties, their political shades galvanised by the man they knew as Mwalimu (teacher), also took part in marches across the country in honour of Nyerere. 

The Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, which he founded and dedicated to fostering peace, unity and development in the continent, is today part of his legacy.
"People in Tanzania and beyond wish to remember Nyerere for the work he did for Tanzania, Africa and the whole of humanity," said the Foundation's Executive Director, Joseph Butiku. 

"It is necessary to remember always the principles which he believed in, and which guided his thinking, word and action," he added.  Nyerere's legacy lingers at home and abroad as his admirers look up to his successors to emulate the principles of equality, dignity, peace and justice he once stood for. Criticised as a die-hard socialist, his admirers, however, viewed him as an enlightened and forward-looking politician.
In a speech in 1986, Nyerere had called for greater participation by the private sector in the country's development strategy, admitting that an unprecedented economic crisis had forced the government to beat a hasty retreat from socialism. 

He said although it was once believed that public ownership was the sole solution to exploitation and social inequality, experience had taught that this was not necessarily so.
Three years before his death, Nyerere told an audience that he hoped people following his principles would be kind and honest and learn from his mistakes. 

Apart from being one of Africa's greatest Statesmen, Nyerere was also a proponent for regional integration and founding member of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). 

In the 1950s, he was said to have willingly agreed to delay the independence of what was then Tanganyika, in favour of an East African federation comprising Kenya and Uganda, a dream that is yet to be realised. Even Tanzania and its federated Island of Zanzibar are wracked by political crisis

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