Tanzania Peoples Defence Force (TPDF), Colonel, Juma Ikangaa strongly believes that Tanzania’s failure to do well in sports, and athletics in particular, is due to our deliberate decision to ban sports in schools during the third phase government.
The former Fukuoka (Japan) marathon winner who is known to the Japanese more than any Tanzanian says when we decided to put a stop on national sports competitions at school level in 1990s, we marked the end of winning ways for the nation.
Indeed, it would be recalled that during 1990s, the then Minister for Education, Mr Joseph Mungai who is ironically himself an avid sports lover and practitioner, banned sports in schools, hence bringing national schools sports competitions such as UMISETA to an end.
Since then, the nation has failed miserably to do well in regional, continental and international sporting arena!
Ikangaa says; “When Giddamas Shahanga won a gold medal during the Commonwealth Games in 1978, he had just been discovered in the national schools championships.”
The former New York marathon winner further says that for any country to do well in sports, it is important that it introduced its children to sports, “we have to catch them when they are still young and there is nothing that is suited for that than schools…”
Ikangaa recalls that during his school days, there were numerous cases of fellow students who were given the opportunity of continuing with their studies in higher forms even if they had not done well in some of their respective subjects.
He said this was done simply because they were avid sportsmen and women.
“During our days, teachers strongly believed that pupils who did well in sports were also more likely to do well in academic subjects.”
The senior army officer says that the country’s present medal drought, especially in athletics, is due to the absence of robust sports organization in schools.
He says there is no reason why Kenyans should be doing fantastically in athletics when both the weather and the physical features of the area they came from is similar to that a section of some Tanzanians come from.
For instance, he says Kenyans who have been doing well in middle and long distances, are herders and come from the Rift Valley which extends into Tanzania, running across the country to the southern highland regions.
“What we ought to do is divide our country into zones…for instance, the coastal belt where both men and women have big thighs are good for short distance running…what we need to do is provide these people with the technical know-how in the form of instructors for sprints,” he says.
He said once the country was divided into different zones, the second move would be to get requisite instructors for different sports in the different allotted zones.
He said there were for instance regions which were known for producing very good footballers.
In the past, he said, such regions included Morogoro, Kigoma, Tabora and Tanga.
And talking about sports instructors, he said this was another area where the nation had sabotaged, probably without knowing what it was doing.
He recalls in the past when the ministry of education took the took a front lead in training of physical education instructors for schools.
“We are no longer churning out physical educationists for schools and this has, to a large extent, led to our present problem, drought in international sports success,” he says.
Ikangaa says the third problem that led to the fall of sports fortunes in Tanzania was caused by the Bretton Woods institutions, namely, the World Bank and the International Monery Fund, IMF.
He said when the World Bank and the IMF came up with what came to be referred to as the structural adjustment programs in the late 1980s, the first casualty was sports.
“Implementation of structural adjustment programs came at a time when public institutions in the country like banks, harbours, insurance, national housing and the likes had very strong sporting teams…” he said.
“Therefore when it was decided to streamline the economy, the foregoing public institutions were forced to do away with their sports teams, hence forcing some of the sportsmen and women who had been engaged purely for sports purposes to be jettisoned,” he said.
However, Ikangaa also takes a swipe at journalists in the country whom he says could have helped in the development of sports if they approached their writing more scientifically which he describes as pin-pointing problems afflicting sports and coming up with solutions to such problems.
“However, for journalists to play the role of sports redeemer effectively, it is important that they first and foremost informed themselves in sports.”
He argues that one cannot write on something that one knows very little or nothing about.
Ikangaa attributes other problems which have contributed to the country’s failure to do well in sports to falling educational standards and more importantly, lack of reading culture.
“It is very unfortunate that whoever you see reading his or her work is directly related to what one is reading, say a journalist or lawyer or one is preparing for this or that examination,” says Ikangaa visibly disturbed.
That being the case, then what is the way out of the malaise? Ikangaa says there is a need on the part of the government to make deliberate effort to ensure that sports become a permanent feature in schools.
Secondly, he says, there is a need to re-introduce sports competitions at district, regional and national level.
He says during Taifa Cup tournaments, Tanzanians were able to get players they had missed through national schools soccer championships through the regional national soccer tournament.
On argument about the need for sporting associations in the country to be led by sportsmen and women, Ikangaa says the argument is hollow as long as such sportsmen and women lack sound academic education.
He says one of the tragedies was that most of sporting associations were being led by people whose primary aim was not development of sports, but rather personal, to lineup their pockets!
By Attilio Tagalile
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