DAR ES SALAAM, Dec. 12 -- RIGHT from the onset of our country's political independence in 1961, disease was one of the three critical enemies that the leadership cited as one of the most critical.
Led by frontline nationalist Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the leadership cited poverty and ignorance as the other deadly enemies.
The point they sought to drive home to their compatriots was that, attainment of political independence was not an end in itself.
The colonial regime had been humbled into accepting the reality that the people of the then Tanganyika, plus, subsequently, Tanzania, were not masters of their destiny.
That was fine, as was the fact that after the colonial masters' departure, the running of the newly independent nation had be...