Dar es Salaam, Aug. 7 -- You are journalists, not judges. You are storytellers, not the final chapter.

So why do some of you insist on behaving like the unofficial election commission, fortune tellers with a microphone or worse agents of chaos with deadlines?

Election season seems to awaken a strange fever in parts of the media, a condition known as poll-ititis: the uncontrollable urge to publish every opinion poll from “mysterious” sources with more opinions than credentials.

One minute, a poll shows Candidate A leading with 137 per cent support (impressive, considering the laws of math), the next, Candidate B is suddenly “guaranteed” a landslide according to a survey conducted among 12 people and a goat.

Come...