Nairobi, March 10 -- Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who passed away recently, was a simple, unpretentious man who made a mark on the country he led for a decade after taking over from a man who had not wanted him for successor. At the time of stepping down, Julius Nyerere had wanted Salim Ahmed Salim to succeed him but was defeated by a Zanzibari cabal he had no appetite to fight with, prioritising Union interests instead.

This, coupled with the way he had become Zanzibar's third president and the Union's vice-president, confirmed Mwinyi as the man who occupied the country's two top political positions purely by political accident or serendipity.

It started in 1984, when the vice-president of the Union and president of Zanzibar, Aboud Jumbe Mwinyi,...