Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
THE Chitepo School of Ideology will not stop rallying masses around calls of nationalist and Pan-Africanist consciousness to counter anti-ZANU PF sentiments sponsored by negative-minded people, the school’s principal said yesterday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a two-day workshop on training needs assessment tools being facilitated by Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, Cde Ishmael Mada said negative remarks about ZANU PF will not distract the party or its relations with other regional liberation movements.
The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School is the apex institution for schools of ideology for liberation movements in the region and negative remarks targeting them are agenda-setting narratives coming from the “enemy’s corner”.
“Attacks on ZANU PF and its sister liberation movements are meant to counter that which we are doing as schools of ideology. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Tanzania’s ruling party, has received an equal share of such attacks.
“That is agenda setting, which is meant to counter the positives that we are doing. So, this is coming from the enemy’s corner and it is not true. That will not demoralise us.”
ZANU PF and the CCM, said Cde Mada, will look for scientific methods and evidence-based mechanisms to win elections. Tanzania is scheduled to have general elections in October.
“Scientifically, the CCM has the figures right now of their membership, of how many votes the CCM is going to get come October. This is what we also do as ZANU PF. Before any elections, we will give a projection that ZANU PF is going to come up at what percentage. However, accusing fingers will always come. We will not be distracted by that.
“That is the game of the enemy who is trying just to blemish us because they are against the consciousness that we are developing as ideological schools of nationalism and Pan-Africanism.”
The principal of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School Prof Marcellina Chijoriga said the institution becoming an apex institution for all former liberation movements was a statement of intent towards the region’s Pan-African solidarity in view of the late Tanzania’s founding President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s contribution to the independence of Southern African states.
“The name Mwalimu Julius Nyerere is not just an important name for Tanzania, because the role he played in the liberation front of all these sister parties is felt in various countries. Nyerere’s principle saying was ‘Tanzanians will not be free if our neighbours are not free’. For us, we take Nyerere as a symbol of Pan-Africanism.”
