Not many people can say that they’ve lived to read their own obituary, but for Erick Kabendera, this harrowing fact is part of his reality. Kabendera is a retired investigative journalist from Tanzania. He is currently living in England and is about to finish his PhD at King’s College London on the topic of Fatou Bensouda’s tenure as the International Criminal Court’s first African prosecutor. His inaugural book, ‘In the Name of the President: Memoirs of a Jailed Journalist‘, details his firsthand experiences and struggles in his nation as dictator John Magufuli rose to power.
Kabendera generously devoted some of his time to sitting down with me and answering my questions. I started off by asking at what point he first thought of writing a book. ‘I began to think about writing a book back in 2016-17, about the state of the country in general. Then things changed. There was the autocracy, the human rights violations. I started writing about those, but of course, as I was doing that, I was imprisoned. In prison I kept diaries. It was quite hard, because you’re not allowed to keep a diary in prison, so we had to do lots of smuggling of notebooks on a daily basis. When I got out, I had so many things to deal with, yet my friends, family and everybody else said ‘You’ve got to write a book.’ So despite the conflicting priorities I had, I felt the moment I arrived in the [United Kingdom] it was important to document not only what had happened to me, but to also incorporate my initial ideas about writing a book on the country and leadership at the time.’
He wrote his inaugural book with no particular demographic in mind. Kabendera wanted it to reach far and wide, to inform the world about the difficulties faced by the nation while still retaining enough detail about Tanzania to captivate the native audience. ‘In the process of writing the book, I met with a celebrated African author. He told me he’d never read an independently written book on Tanzania. I think it tells you a lot about the country, that there has not been, for 64 years, a mainstream book that actually tells you about the state of affairs.’
We then spoke about his origins. I wanted to understand how it came to be that he was, out of everyone, the person to finally shed light on the Tanzanian regime. He told me his mother was a teacher and emphasised education and literacy throughout his youth. ‘I started writing my first articles when I was seven years old. I started with letters to the editors of the government-owned newspaper, a broadsheet. We’d read it, then she’d help me write a letter to the editor. Every Tuesday, we’d walk to the Post Office and post the letter to the paper’s headquarters. They never published my ideas,’ he said with a smile. ‘I think that helped to conceptualise the country, to be aware of the political dynamics at a very young age. When I went to university, I became an editor of the student newspaper, which was probably one of the oldest in the country. I’d been writing for national newspapers before that, though. I think these things assisted my springboard into journalism, and then eventually writing this book.’
Given the context of consequences levied against journalists in Tanzania, I asked him if he feared repercussions if he were to go back to his nation. ‘Of course there would be repercussions. The country is definitely divided. In many situations around the world, you have a circumstance where one group are supporting the former leader, regardless of human rights violations. They’re committed. But you have the other side to say they were a bad person. These divides can clearly be seen by how people have commented on the book. Some say the moment I step foot in Tanzania I’ll be prosecuted. Others say that this was a very important piece of our history. So I can’t say until I go back, which hasn’t been in close to four and a half years.’ Continuing on the topic of repercussions, Kabendera told me about the unfortunate story of one of his colleagues. ‘Azory Gwanda was a journalist who was covering complex government-led operations to deal with Islamic insurgents in the south of the country. We would speak quite often. I would call him to give him guidance and advice on how to go about that kind of work, as he was an amateur journalist with no formal education in journalism. He was kidnapped by the state, who believed that he knew quite a lot about the insurgents, and might’ve been involved. When they found out that he was actually doing legitimate work as a journalist, they also realised that the camp where he was detained had a lot of these insurgents, also kidnapped by the government. So, he was killed. Had he been released at the time, he would have become a key witness of the atrocities that were committed against the insurgents in the camp. I believe from my investigation and from the information I put in the book that the reason he was killed is because he knew too much about those crimes. There were other human rights defenders who unfortunately disappeared. We now know they were killed.’
When Kabendera was imprisoned, his situation looked so dire that one of his friends and colleagues wrote and published an obituary for him in a regional newspaper called the East African. ‘Joachim Buwembo is a veteran political commentator in East Africa. He and I were very close. After recruiting me in the late 90s, he mentored me to work as a journalist. When I was imprisoned, the government was holding me on economic charges. He wrote my obit because everyone believed these charges were going to change into charges that meant I could’ve easily spent the rest of my life behind bars, or disappear entirely, like the others.’
I was curious about Kabendera’s stance on Pan-Africanism. As Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s late President, was one of the fathers of modern Pan-Africanism, I thought it to be particularly relevant. ‘In Tanzania, Pan-Africanism is viewed with mixed feelings because of the autocracy I mention in the book. I think uniting the continent was a profound idea, but it should not be the governing principle internally in the country. That was a big failure. The government used it to cover up for accountability, to not invest in strong institutions. If you were to say what they were doing is not right, they would say you are against the spirit of a united Africa. They prioritised this autocracy over actual development that could bring about change.’ When asked about foreign aid in Africa, he commented ‘The problem is that foreign nations giving assistance comes with their own interests. They don’t declare these interests. They take advantage of the lack of strong systems in place, the historic underdevelopment and they continue to rip off the continent. Africa needs to wake up and understand that it is our responsibility to protect our interests. It needs to push for reforms in the global institutions, and work to ensure that there are terms and rules that actually help Africa rise in the global system, otherwise it’s unlikely to develop.’
As Kabendera retires from journalism, he begins a transition to authorship and consultancy. ‘After 27 years in journalism, I’m stepping away. The next phase for me is writing books and providing advice on the continent for governments and international companies. I’ve got three more books lined up, which I intend on publishing within the next five years. The first is about natural resource governance in Africa, written through the lens of disputes between big investors. The second is on the war between Tanzania and Uganda. The last is about my late mother. I’m turning my PhD into a book, too. On a normal weekend, I’ll write about a thousand words for each book.’
Lastly, I inquired into his interest in participating in politics, to which he replied ‘Most people I know think I need to go back to Tanzania and get into politics. I’m not sure. I can never say no. There’s a lot of appetite. Everyone says that I should come back and run for President. I think I want to take a break first, and complete these books. I think they’re quite important. Maybe in five years I’ll decide what’s next for me. But for now? No politics.’
