Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli. The president believes it would be “shameful” to spend huge sums of money on Independence Day celebrations when Tanzanians are dying of cholera. AFP PHOTO | DANIEL HAYDUK
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Two-and-a-half years into President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, Kenyans are waking up to the reality that hashtags and selfies do not a government make. Even before he has settled in long enough to change the drapes at State House, new Tanzanian president John Pombe Magufuli has done more tangible work than Uhuru.
Turns out “he’s such a cool president” is not an acceptable response to questions on tangible deliverables for a government. This truth was hiding in plain sight mostly because the other East African leaders are either objectively terrible, or had fallen out of the radar of constant scrutiny.
Every day a new announcement or directive has come from our neighbour to the south, cementing President Magufuli’s image as a true reformer hell-bent on eliminating waste and corruption in the government.
Anybody who doubted him should have stopped waiting for the “just kidding” caveat when he cancelled Tanzania’s Independence Day celebrations, the first time in 54 years.
The president believes it would be “shameful” to spend huge sums of money on the celebrations when “our people are dying of cholera,” state media reported.
Shocking as it might be, it is still a practical step because independence day celebrations are needlessly expensive yet do little for the average citizen.
There seems to be a handbook that is followed by every country and every government to make the things painfully boring and predictable: once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
The fact that #WhatWouldMagufuliDo has blown up on Twitter represents a tacit admission by Kenyans that extreme buyer’s remorse is seriously kicking in. Lots of people are looking again at the menu of options that were available in 2013 and thinking that maybe they should have given them a chance, or at least listened a little more attentively to what they were offering.
This is made worse by the fact that Magufuli is essentially an establishment candidate — like Uhuru in 2013? —from Chama Cha Mapinduzi, which has ruled Tanzania longer than anyone cares to remember. He was supposed to represent the status quo, all that was broken about leadership in the country.
They won’t admit it, but there are people who have looked into the possibilities of changing citizenship, or at least finding loopholes that would allow Magufuli to run for president in Kenya after finishing his term.
President Kenyatta, the 47 governors and all the other overpaid elected representatives were the big ticket items we bought in 2013. We were immeasurably proud of our purchase for a time, convinced that we had made the right decisions and invested judiciously.
But then the shine wore off and we started to look around and saw this new item our perennially under-achieving neighbour bought called Magufuli and we want it. Except we can’t have it because Product Magufuli was a limited edition item that sold out as soon as it was available.
“I wanted to travel the US but then thought to myself #WhatWouldMagufuliDo so I got the accent instead!” tweeted Faith Mulungi. “President’s shock therapy wins over East Africa,” wrote The EastAfrican on the hashtag and its universal appeal across the region.
“I bet the Pope had a #WhatWouldMagufuliDo moment before deciding to ride in that simple Honda,” wrote another user, Osir Ojok. Among the former works minister’s “greatest hits” are cutting foreign travel for government officials, scrapping workshops
and seminars in expensive hotels and banning sitting allowances for officers who earn a salary. It is the age of austerity in Tanzania and President Magufuli “The Bulldozer” is not sparing anyone.
If he keeps it up, the entire Tanzanian government is going to be cheaper and more efficient to run than one Kenyan county.
“I wonder how much debt burden would have been avoided, how many businesses would still be alive & thriving if we asked #WhatWouldMagufuliDo,” wrote Lilian Katiso on Twitter.
A lot, Lilian, a whole a lot. African governments are unnecessarily large and embarrassingly wasteful. There are no private sector-type checks and balances and everyone is on the take anyway, so just about anything goes.
That is why Magufuli’s radical approach seems so revolutionary when it should be the norm.
As for Kenyans and their buyer’s remorse, there’s an election not too far away. Maybe this might be the season you really interrogate the candidates, their manifestos, histories and what they’re offering and settle on some promising choices.
Tanzania has led the way in electing a living, breathing leader that many Africans believed was a myth. It is still early, so everyone should be cautiously optimistic that he will keep this up for his entire term but the early signs all point in the right direction.
Your move, Kenya.
from: http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/MagufuliDo-a-clear-sign-of-buyers-remorse-haunting-Kenyans/-/957860/2978194/-/1yh1qn/-/index.html
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