Dar es Salaam, June 30 -- DEAR fellow Tanzanians, let us have a family meeting with no shouting, no name-calling, just good old common sense served with a dash of humour.

We are in election mood, or just call it season. It is that special time when politicians become poets, manifestos flood our timelines and suddenly, everyone becomes an expert on everything from agriculture to aerospace.

It is exciting. It is energetic. But let us not let it become explosive. Elections come and go, like rainy seasons and WhatsApp forwards from all sorts of our youth.

But Tanzania? Tanzania stays. It is the soil that holds us, the sky that shelters us and the flag that waves for all of us, regardless of our political leanings. This is a love letter to ...