Nearly 50 years in the making, now Dodoma finally coming of age

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Let me start by saying: "Samahani," dear reader, this has taken two weeks to write. When one is in Tanzania, the wheels of life grind excruciatingly slowly. I was in Dodoma, designated as the Tanzania's national capital in 1974 and it's still in the making, nearly half a century on.

Dodoma was the vision of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's founding President who's fondly remembered as the father of the nation. His portrait adorns every public place in Tanzania, nearly 25 years since his demise. The spirit of Nyerere is so woven into the fabric of Tanzania, there are monuments virtually everywhere to memorialise the man. Crucially, he did not make the monuments for himself, as is the case here.