Dar es Salaam, July 14 -- AS Tanzania heads to the general elections, a haunting question looms: are we choosing leaders, or enabling looters?

Corruption, that silent cancer, has metastasised in every corner of our national life. It no longer hides, it thrives in plain sight, sneaking into contracts, swindling public funds and smirking in the faces of the poor it has robbed. Enough is enough. Corruption is not just a financial crime; it is the theft of hope.

When a citizen pays a bribe to receive what is rightfully theirs, say a hospital bed, a passport, a land deed, it is not simply unethical. It is the denial of dignity, the erosion of citizenship and the quiet betrayal of the nations soul.

Every shilling stolen from the public purse...