Police should extinguish own fire!

Over the weekend I wrote an article which was carried by The Citizen on Sunday in which I cautioned our Police Force against politicking.

In that article, I stressed the need for our policemen and women to stick to what they know best, police work, period.

My caution was prompted by a press conference in which officials from the anti-narcotic unit in the police force linked religious institutions in the country to drug trafficking.

Despite my free consultancy to the police force, two days later the police force were at it, this time naming the Catholic Church and Bakwata (The Muslim Council of Tanzania) of being involved in the illicit trade!

Both religious institutions have already issued statements which I had, as a communication expert, long expected, and no one can blame them for the anger they have expressed over the police force’s insensitivity and lack of tactic!

The police is now harvesting for keeping in the force officers who don’t weigh what they want to tell the general public before they blurt out!

As I have already said, I had long expected the emergence of this conflict between religious institutions on one hand and the police, and by extension, the government on the other.

And this is a result of government institutions that have unfortunately refused to stick to professionalism.

In that article, I noted that given Tanzania’s present geo-political changes that has seen the emergence of multiparty politics, it was important the police force stuck to professionalism.

Indeed, it is only by sticking to professionalism that the police force could avoid accusations about siding with this or that side in the political divide.

The latest ugly development is very unfortunate, especially if one takes into account the fact that in the past, the police are known to have appealed to the opposition to weigh carefully whatever they want to tell the public lest their pronouncements led to conflict.

When our police made such appeals, we all supported them for the simple reason that words if not well presented are known to have led to wars between and among nations.

It is important to recall that when President Jakaya Kikwete first linked a section of religious institutions to drug trafficking in his speech he made in Songea during a Catholic Church function, there were immediate responses from both Catholic and Lutheran Churches with a call on the President to name those involved in the illicit trade.

Unfortunately the repeated calls of the two churches to the government to name the culprits and commit them to courts have to date not been heeded.

And it is this kind of conduct on the part of the police force and the government at large that tend to make many people believe that what we are witnessing is aimed at nothing but playing politics, hence the caution!

The million dollar question is those playing these games are doing so at whose behest and for what cost?

It is important for the police force to bear in mind that it is misuse of words, and not weapons that are known to have sent nations to political conflict, and Tanzania is certainly not different from those countries that are presently reeling under civil war.

The founding father of this nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere once warned Tanzania against considering themselves different from other failed states like Somalia.

He argued that if Somalia which had one stock of people and one religion could  witness a brother fighting against a brother, what would stop a country like Tanzania with over 120 tribes and many religions to go to war against itself?

Speaking on the same theme, Mwalimu told elders at the Diamond Jubilee Hall in 1980s that religious conflicts were more dangerous than AIDS!

The point is, whether we want it or not, there certain institutions in our midst that ought to be handled with utmost care, and these include religious institutions.

Therefore the best way of handling such institutions was not continued issuance of blanket condemnations to religious institutions, but rather for the police to name names of members of religious institutions they claim to be involved in drug trafficking.

The police have now no alternative to pluck up courage and apologize for their loose tongues and one of the best ways to dealing with the problem is for the police force to name names and now.

By Attilio Tagalile