Why Suluhu's despotic disposition is bad for democracy in Tanzania

Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan. [Photo/AFP]

History reminds us of Wu Zetian, the second wife of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty, who later became the only female Empress in China's history.

When Gaozong died in December 683 AD, Zetian schemed her way to the throne in defiance of tradition. She inveigled herself into a position of influence and by 690 AD, had appropriated powers of the monarch, consequent to which she carried out a wave of atrocities against the Chinese people.

Zetian sustained her hold on power through a brutal campaign that targeted her rivals and didn't spare family members, including her own children.

She eliminated opponents by executing them, sometimes having them incarcerated on tramped up treason charges. She did not stop at anything in her quest to consolidate power. Her excesses, however, birthed the Shenlong coup that toppled her in 705 AD.

After so many centuries, Zetian has reincarnated in Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan. Suluhu got the presidency by happenstance, and having tasted power, she is determined to maintain it by hook or by crook.

The just concluded Tanzania presidential election gave her the opportunity to flex her muscles, only that she went overboard and became the butcher of her own people in the exercise of power that those same people gave her.

It takes a heart chiselled out of stone, or a serious mental disorder to orchestrate killings and not be moved by the sight of death, to the point of justifying the killings by claiming the dead are foreigners.

It's chilling when those masterminding such cruelty are women. And that is because women are the embodiment of compassion, love, forgiveness and understanding. Suluhu is devoid of these attributes. She is cold, vengeful and very much the vampire. She amplifies the four dark personality traits, namely, narcissism, sadism, psychopathy and machiavellianism.

Her narcissistic inclination is manifested in her boast that "they (Kenyans, especially) will know I am the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and a fierce lioness". Despite the hundreds killed by her security forces, Suluhu has not shown any empathy.

She lacks the ability to connect with the feelings of others as long as they don't align with her plans. To blame foreigners for the chaos in Tanzania, thereby ignoring the genuine concerns of Tanzanians, demonstrates Suluhu's lack of remorse and her animalistic inability to feel guilt.

The murder of citizens clamouring for democratic space is a mark of sadism. To revel in the pain of others is the ultimate show of inhumanity. Machiavellians prioritise their selfish interests over ethical considerations. To them, the end justifies the means.

The cold-blooded murder of Tanzanians challenges us to ask why Suluhu's campaign poster featured the slogan 'UTU'. This is the Kiswahili word for humanity and care. One wonders; Does Suluhu understand the meaning of utu, especially after the abduction of critics, jailing of opponents and the latest case of killing citizens just to maintain power?

The abductions did not spare the clergy whose brief is not dabbling in politics per se, but to give moral guidance to society, leaders included. Suluhu must have borrowed lessons from Mary I, alias 'Bloody Mary', the Queen of England who, in her defence of Catholicism, ordered the murder of 300 religious dissenters and the burning of their corpses at the stake for their protestant beliefs.

Suluhu may have gotten her pyrrhic victory because she can afford to hide behind the state's instruments of violence, but for how long? Lessons glimpsed from Uganda during Idi Amin Dada's reign, and Zaire during Mobutu Sese Seko's madness prove that dictatorship has an expiry date.

Little wonder that netizens call Suluhu 'Idi Amin Mama', a version of the former joke that was president of Uganda. The man who stupidly expelled Asians from Uganda and collapsed the country's economy. Five decades later, Uganda's economy is yet to recover.

Suluhu should read history and sober up.