On June 29, 2025, I was driving peacefully along a one-way road somewhere in Dar es Salaam in my little car when I was confronted by a massive bully, Maviii 8, coming the other way. I was reluctant to move out of the way because, after all, it was a one-way street, but he started hooting, gesturing, insulting, How dare I block him from going down a one-way street the wrong way?
Who was I to prevent him, a Maviii 8er no less? Didn’t I know he belonged to the “kings of the road?” Yet only 50 metres away, he could have gone down the designated one-way street without any difficulty. Why does he insist on breaking the law? Laziness? Sense of power (I can do what I like!)? Disregard for fellow citizens? Dharau? Or all of them put together?
I harked back to my literature teaching days. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian literary genius, liked to use the road as a metaphor of life and death, a journey fraught with possibilities and threats. Bearing in mind the terrible death toll on Nigerian roads, who was ever sure they would reach their intended destination?
But what about us here in Tanzania? Does it express our own Bongo reality in the same way?
Impunity becoming impunitious
Let me start with this Maviii 8 breaking the law with impunity and even insulting and threatening me for following the law and standing up to him. Is this what happens in our country? Do our leaders act with impunity? And is this impunity becoming even more impunitious?
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Take the cavalcades, the misafara, which brook no delay. It started with a very few highest of the high, probably for security reasons (though why a road has to be closed for more than an hour before that highest of the high is due to rush past, heaven only knows!)
But now it has spread lower and lower … and lower and lower so that even someone with a ka-status believes they have the right to go down the wrong side of the road, endangering the lives of law-abiding citizens as if flashing lights were sufficient to justify the breaking of the law.
If the top high can do it, why not I, a middle high? Am I not important? Or rather, am I not more important than your average citizen? Let the less important sweat, I belong to those with the right never to sweat.
So I repeat, how much further down will we go? Maybe we will have to close our village roads because the Ward Executive Officer is about to pass on her or his bicycle or motorbike? Is this a reflection of what is happening in our society?
Who are the first to act with impunity, and does that impunity gradually trickle or flood down lower and lower? If the big potato can do it, why can’t I? After all, don’t they say that the fish rots from the head? And then I guess so many will be flouting the law that we will end up with a traffic jam of law breakers.
Guardians of the law
Then, of course, we have the guardians of the law. Who do they guard the law against? I am one hundred per cent certain that Mister or Ms Bully Maviii 8 will never be stopped and questioned, however often they break the law, however dangerously they drive.
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So they have to justify their existence (and prolong their existence to) by stopping the small cars and the carriers of small people in the daladala and tuktuk and on the bodaboda (N.B. the names, all repeated to make us smaller, for example, why don’t we talk about the MaviiiMaviii?)
And since they harass us with petty infringements, even invented ones, of course, there are those of us who know the law but prefer not to be harassed by the guardians of that ‘law’ will offer some shoe brushing incentive to move on.
A good supplement to their meagre salaries, but the subsequent disrespect for the guardians of the law continues to be applied to disrespect for the law itself, let alone the possibility of more death and destruction on the roads. And if we don’t supplement their salaries and pay the ‘fine,’ we contribute to some coffer somewhere. Our guardians of the law have turned into guardians of the Treasury, required to ensure daily contributions, even to pay for the petrol of the bully Maviii 8s.
Potholes kill
Of course, we should not forget the state of the roads themselves. Potholes also kill. Unrepaired roads, usually not those used by the Maviiis (remember how some were repaired overnight for the advent of big meetings, remember how roads are repaired before the msafara of some big shot or other), cause damage and serious accidents. But usually they are filled up to give the impression of concerned action, so they repothole themselves in a very short time.
But no doubt, all this only applies to road users. We don’t have any bully leaders in real life who believe they can act with impunity, do we? Our leaders care, they are concerned that their actions might cause death and destruction and would never resort to such tactics, would they?
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And there is no way that if they do believe so, they are actually correct, as no one would dare touch them in their impunitious state? Surely, the guardians of the law will step in immediately if any bully leader misuses their power, for they know that such misuse of power endangers their fellow citizens. And of course, they would never turn against the smaller people to protect the bullies, would they?
And in real life, any pothole in our health or education or any other system is addressed immediately and effectively. So, for us here in Bongoland, there is no way that we can see the road as a metaphor and symbol of our lives. All we have to do is avoid the road, and then we can live happily ever after!
Richard Mabala is an educator, poet, and author. He is available at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X as @MabalaMakengeza. These are the writer’s own opinions, and they do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Do you want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.
