Wednesday 29 October. Elections in Tanzania. A national holiday. I took my usual 6am morning walk around the neighbourhood. A polling station had set up next to the local government office located two blocks from my flat on Binti Matola Street – four tables with a dozen poll workers, two security guards, plus half a dozen what I took to be voters, waiting for it to officially open at 7am. All shops were closed; even Besta Polyclinic/mini-hospital was gated shut. Very quiet on Kinondoni Road, the main thoroughfare.
The “fujo” – ‘chaos’ – started around 11am. A gang chased out the Binti Matola poll workers. Tables, chairs, and especially ballot boxes set on fire, as well as a car parked next to the government office. Fujo all up and down Kinondoni Road. Gunshots – bang-bang, and also some boom-boom – maybe bombs, maybe cannon. We can’t see Kinondoni Road from the flat, only hear the noise.
Changanyikeni, out past the University – a lot of fujo. Boko, on the northern outskirts of Dar – a lot of fujo. South of the airport – fujo. Only Kigamboni was reasonably quiet, but it is fairly isolated, southeast of Dar harbour with access only by ferry or over the new bridge, which had a squad of soldiers guarding it.
Fujo breaks out across the country
In Iringa, 500km southwest of Dar, Maggie the housekeeper’s mama was frantic. A gang had burned down the local government office just a few metres from her house. Arusha (650km north) – fujo in the city, but fairly quiet in the surrounding villages. Mbeya (near Zambia and Malawi) – fujo. The fujo doesn’t seem random or spontaneous; rather planned and coordinated.
Borders closed. No air traffic in or out. Worst of all, the internet shut down. No social media. No BBC – only local TV and radio. Most radio stations played music.
We turned on the 8pm TV news in Swahili. Everything had gone smoothly on election day in Tanzania. The foreign minister said there were “isolated pockets of incidents”, but nothing to fret about.
Oh, there is a 24-hour curfew through Thursday.
Sporadic bangs and booms through the night.
Thursday 30 October: no internet
Loud bangs and booms during the day. More reports of fujo. Those who had not stocked up were running out of food, fuel and LUKU (electricity).
Local radio and TV focused on election results coming in. The ruling party was doing very well. (It’s been doing very well for 64 years).
And oh, the 24-hour curfew would stay in effect through Friday.
Friday 31 October: security, shortages, no internet
Only a few bangs and booms. I decided it was probably safe to go for a stroll along the same route as on Wednesday. Nothing left of the polling station but some scraps of banners, the burnt-out hull of the car next to the local government office, which had a smashed window but no sign of a bomb blast. Besta Polyclinic still locked up. No shops open, but those on Kinondoni Road looked unscathed.
Mid-morning, Sele the night watchman made the 12km from his place south of the airport through four military checkpoints to get here. He told us soldiers were everywhere and anyone on the streets had to put their hands in the air. All bags thoroughly checked.
Eric downstairs called in the afternoon to say he’d almost run out of food and would try to drive to a supermarket. Could he bring us anything? We ordered three items. When he returned, he’d brought us just one of them. He said there was a long queue to even enter, and most of the shelves were empty. No fruit or veggies. He’d spent all the money he had – they only accepted cash, and the ATM was out.
Meanwhile Maggie found us some chicken – she has market contacts all over the city. Sele would fetch the chicken from Mwananyamala market. He could also pick up some fruit and veggies for Eric. I lent him the money. A kilo of tomatoes cost three times the normal price.
The rumour mill starts
We heard a rumour that Dar city water system had been poisoned. After checking with several people who had also heard it, I called my friend in Kigamboni who knows high level government officials. Yes, she had heard the rumor and contacted someone in the ministry. It was a hoax.
Chemists at the department had checked and there was no contamination whatsoever. She suggested the ministry make a public announcement to stop the panic. They were waiting for the minister. She said, no need to wait, the head of communications could do it just as well. Sure enough, on the 8 o’clock news, the ministry announced Dar water was 100% safe for humans.
The news also showed some of the damage caused at various locations around Dar, and talked to residents who all said much the same thing – they wanted peace, security, transport and business back to normal.
Only one distant boom before bedtime.
Saturday 1 November: no internet, scarcity, and price-gouging
After chai, a long walk around the neighbourhood and up Kinondoni Road. Just after 6am and not a single vehicle passing.
I asked two men at TX market if it would be open today. One took me around to the back entrance and inside were vast amounts of every fruit and veggie available in the country. What about rice?, I asked. Plenty. I said I might come back later with money: unlikely because TX has among the highest prices of any local market in Dar. Better to check out Mwananyamala, a couple of kilometers away.
The fujo now is not demonstrations or confrontations. Now it is scarcity. Maggie reports huge numbers of people at Mwananyamala market fighting over the few items for sale at triple the normal price. Transport’s a problem with few filling stations open and little fuel left to buy. Banks closed – no way to withdraw money and ATMs empty.
Adding to all the above, those who get paychecks at the end of the month didn’t get paid on the 31st.
“People died like chickens”
Further up the road I saw two men who I guessed were night guards. I went through the usual Swahili greetings and then asked if they thought things would return to normal today. They had no idea. One said that Wednesday was “fujo nyingi: watu walikufa kama kuku” – ‘people died like chickens’. Many? I asked. Many…very, very many.
We still have curfews around the country. No-one except essential workers on the streets after 11am in Dar, 10am elsewhere. Total curfew, 6pm-6am.
Finally, news from an outside source: BBC TV. It’s only a headline crawler: “Hundreds feared dead in Tanzania crackdown on election protests.” (Later, BBC reported 500-700 estimated fatalities.) Indeed, “people died like chickens.”
Outsider interference and landslide election results
A new rumour is circulating: the fujo was caused by outsiders. (From where? Tanzania has borders with Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.) Tanzanians don’t engage in mass violent protests and sabotage. They opt for passive resistance. A number of Tanzanians told me they didn’t vote.
The election had been decided well before 29 October, the winner a foregone conclusion. The question is not who won but how many turned out.
The 8 o’clock news gave official results: President Samia Sululu Hassan re-elected, getting almost 32mn votes – 98% – with an 87% turnout. (By comparison, the hotly contested presidential election in 2015 had a 67% turnout). The SADC observer mission stated turnout was low – at some polling stations there were more security guards than voters.
The TV stations are now ready to show Wednesday’s fujo: burnt-out local government offices and rapid transit bus stations all around Dar; petrol stations and vehicles torched including a police van; shops gutted. The Dar regional commissioner repeated the claim that the fujo was caused by outsiders, but didn’t mention where they came from.
Citizens interviewed had the same things to say as on Friday night: they wanted peace and life to return to normal.
Sunday 2 November: No internet, no fujo.
After chai on the balcony, out for a 6am walk on a different route: across Kinondoni Road and through the old cemetery that gives our little patch its name, Kinondoni Kaburini – ‘Kinondoni by the Cemetery’. Then up the dirt road to Pinda’s church (the Catholic church former prime minister Pinda attended). First mass in full blast,the padre preaching earnestly and the congregation singing enthusiastically. A peaceful Sunday morning in Dar es Salaam – ‘haven of peace’.
I have lived in Tanzania many years and never witnessed anything like these last few days. Tanzanians say “maisha magumu” – ‘life is tough’. We get by on our wits. Things are often “shaghalabaghala” – ‘disorderly’ – but we figure out how to cope. Not always easy or pretty, but we somehow manage. Usually.
All the Tanzanians I have communicated with have problems trying to deal with what happened. They feel bewildered, embarrassed, even ashamed. More than one has said “fujo ile si Tanzania”—that ‘fujo is not Tanzania’. Meaning, that is not the Tanzania they know.
Fujo now has a whole new meaning. It will take a very long time for Tanzanians to come to terms with events on 29 October and the days that followed.
Still no internet, but at least no fujo.
Postscript, Thursday 6 November: Some, but not all, schools have reopened. Bodies are overflowing in the morgues connected to health facilities around Dar. Relatives are checking on missing loved ones. Not a single ‘outsider’ has been found … zero … so far. There were, however, military brought in from Uganda as reinforcements. Maybe a few of them might be the ‘outsiders’ who died?
