Nyerere’s last flight to London: The tear-jerking journey captured by Ambassador Juma Mwapachu

Written By Marc Nkwame

Former Secretary General of the East African Community, Ambassador Juma Mwapachu was among the people who travelled on the same plane with Mwalimu Julius Nyerere during the latter’s final trip from Dar-es-Salaam to London, sometime in September 1999.

In his recent autobiography, ‘A Journey,’ Ambassador Mwapachu records this heartbreaking flight to London, the last one that Mwalimu did.

On the plane, Mwalimu, accompanied by his medical specialist, Dr David Mwakyusa, was travelling first class.

Juma Mwapachu was on the same plane but riding in the Business Class section of the fuselage.

“During the flight, I saw Dr Mwakyusa Walking into the Business Class, heading straight to where I sat,” recalls the former EAC Secretary General.

“Mwalimu wants to see you,” the Medic told Mwapachu.

Normally, passengers in the Business Class section are never allowed to move onto the First Class but the Mwapachu case and situation happened to be an exception.

Plus, it was during the period before September 11, 2001, so security was not very tight.

“Juma,” Mwalimu said upon seeing Mwapachu. “I am very sick!” His voice was weak.

At that point, the Diplomat looked closely at Nyerere then broke down in tears.

He recalls seeing the once strongman looking fragile totally unlike the Nyerere he knew and revered.

Juma Mwapachu grew up seeing Nyerere throughout his life.

His father, Dr Hamza Mwapachu, was among the freedom fighters and founder of the Tanganyika Africa National Union (TANU) party which fought for the country’s independence.

Hamza Mwapachu is the one who endorsed Julius Kambarage Nyerere to be the chairperson of the Tanganyika African National Union, before the previous party leader, Abdulwahid Sykes.

The night when the discussion between Hamza and Abdulwahid took place at the Mwapachu home, the young Juma was present and heard everything.

Fast forward a decade later when Hamza Mwapachu, who died in 1962, started ailing, it was Mwalimu Nyerere, then President, who took him for special medical treatment in London.

Now this is 1999 and here again is Nyerere, formerly a very strongman, looking very weak and flying to London for medical treatment. Juma wept.

Nyerere started seeing Juma Mwapachu when the latter was only a three-year-old baby.

Nyerere always described Juma to be quite like his father Dr Hamza Mwapachu, clever and stubborn.

Juma was among the scholars of University of Dar-es-salaam when the students boycotted studies and marched to the state house in 1966 protesting against mandatory National Service imposed upon them.

They had planned to march to the Second Vice President, Rashid Kawawa, but President Nyerere upon seeing the procession of University students, ordered that they should instead be directed to him at the State House.

Nyerere was so furious with the students that he sent them home where they stayed until their parents and guardians wrote letters of apology on their behalf.

Mwapachu writes that what irked Nyerere most was a placard which read “It was better during colonial days than now!”

But Jum says the students did not know exactly who wrote it, the banner simply turned up amid the protest.

Nyerere was shaking in anger such that his glasses fell down. Former Minister of Finance, Amir Jamal who was present, picked the glasses up for Mwalimu.

“The Germans, the British all left this country without a University, we built the facility ourselves from scratch and these students here have the audacity to claim the colonialists were better?” Mwalimu retorted.

But previously again, when Juma completed High School in Tabora went to visit President Nyerere, in Dar-es-salaam where again he managed to ruffle the statesman’s feathers.

He found Mwalimu in an audience with the Germany Ambassador to Tanzania and therefore had to wait until the foreign official was through.

Mwapachu writes that the purpose of the visit was to inform Mwalimu that he intended to go to Oxford University in the United Kingdom to study history.

Here again Mwalimu expressed disappointment; “Juma,” he said, “we have spent a fortune to build a well-equipped University of Dar-es-salaam and hired some of the best tutors the world could offer and yet you feel it is better to study abroad?”

To which Juma Mwapachu strongly regretted.

Mwalimu and Juma had one thing in common; they both loved books and collected hundreds if not thousands of different publications. They always competed on who had the biggest collection.

Juma was a regular visitor to Mwalimu’s house and usually shared meals at the leader’s table and recalls how the president would force him to eat vegetables since the young man only reached for meat, ignoring the greens.

While Juma Mwapachu has just released his 600 page memoir, Nyerere was however unlucky enough to have died without writing down own life account.

Reports have that during his final days, there were some unknown authors that had started compiling Nyerere’s Biography with his permission but the project was shelved after Mwalimu died.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania who was also the country’s inaugural Prime Minister and founding father of the nation died in Britain on the 14th of October 1999.

It therefore means, October 14, 2024 marks 25 years since the official announcement of the leader’s death, by another former President of Tanzania, the late Benjamin William Mkapa.

Nyerere, popularly known as ‘Mwalimu,’ meaning ‘Teacher,’ in Kiswahili passed away while undergoing medical treatment at the Saint Thomas Hospital of London.

And he was a teacher; in fact, even the late Mkapa was among his students though they both attended Makerere University of Uganda at different times.

A journey, the book by diplomat Mwapachu covers a lot about Mwalimu, not just the final journey to London where Nyerere’s life ended.