Godfrey Mwakikagile (born 4 October 1949 in Kigoma^[1]) is a Tanzanian scholar and author specialising in African studies. He was also a news reporter for The Standard (later renamed the Daily News) — the oldest and largest English newspaper in Tanzania and one of the three largest in East Africa.^[2]

Mwakikagile wrote Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era — a biographical book on the life of former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere set in the backdrop of Africa's early post-colonial years and the liberation wars in the countries of southern Africa in which Nyerere played a major role.

Growing up in the 1950s, Mwakikagile experienced a form of apartheid and racial segregation in Tanganyika, what is now mainland Tanzania, and wrote about it in some of his works, as he did about the political climate of Tanganyika during the colonial era, in books such as Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties and Life under British Colonial Rule.^[1] As Trevor Grundy, a British journalist who worked at The Standard, later Daily News, during the same years Mwakikagile did, stated in his review – “Julius Nyerere Reconsidered” – of Professor Thomas Molony's book, Nyerere: The Early Years, on africaunauthorised.com, 4 May 2015, the British established and practised apartheid in Tanganyika but did not officially call it apartheid or give it any other name. That was their secret to justify racial segregation and discrimination as if it did not exist.

Nyerere was a victim of such discrimination when he and some of his colleagues were denied service at the Old Africa Hotel in Dar es Salaam in 1953 the year before he became the leader of the nationalist party that campaigned for independence from Britain. He was also denied service, a cup of tea, at a hotel in Mwanza, capital of the Lake Province around Lake Victoria, in 1952 not long after he returned to Tanganyika in October the same year he finished his studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Early life and family

Mwakikagile was born on 4 October 1949 into a middle class Tanganyikan family in the town of Kigoma, Western Province of Tanganyika – what is now mainland Tanzania.^[3] His father Elijah Mwakikagile, who once worked at the Amani Research Institute in the late forties, was a medical assistant during the British colonial era and was one of the few in the entire country of 10 million people. There were fewer than 300 medical assistants and fewer than 10 doctors in Tanganyika in the forties and fifties and only 12 doctors at independence from the United Kingdom on 9 December 1961. Medical assistants underwent an intensive three-year training after finishing secondary school and worked as a substitute for doctors. Godfrey's mother Syabumi Mwakikagile (née Mwambapa), a housewife, was a pupil of Tanganyika's British feminist educator, and later Member of Parliament, Mary Hancock, who taught her at Kyimbila Girls' School in Rungwe District in the Southern Highlands Province in the early 1940s. Mary Hancock was a friend of Nyerere and his family since 1953 and supported him during the struggle for independence.^[4]

The eldest of his siblings, Mwakikagile was named Godfrey by his aunt Isabella, one of his father's younger sisters, and was baptised at an early age.^[1]

His father played a critical role in his early life and education. He was a strict disciplinarian and taught him at home when he was attending primary school from Standard One to Standard Four and during the first two years of middle school, Standard Five and Standard Six, before he left home to go to boarding school in 1963, three miles away, when he was 13 years old. He also taught him when he was out of school and went home during holidays in his last two years of middle school in Standard Seven and Standard Eight. His mother, who taught Sunday school and was a volunteer adult education teacher for some time teaching adults how to read and write, also taught him at home when he was in primary school.^[5]

His father was active in the Tanganyika African National Union – TANU – which led the struggle for independence and was friends with some of the leading figures in the African independence movement. They included John Mwakangale, his classmate from Standard One at Tukuyu Primary School to Malangali Secondary School, where Elijah was appointed head prefect, in the Southern Highlands Province. They came from the same area, five miles apart, in Rungwe District and knew each other since childhood. Mwakangale became one of the prominent leaders of the Tanganyika African National Union and of the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), later renamed the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECSA), formed in Mwanza, Tanganyika, in September 1958 under the leadership of Julius Nyerere to campaign for the independence of the countries of East and Central Africa and later Southern Africa. He also became a Member of Parliament (MP) and a cabinet member in the early part of independence under Nyerere serving as Minister of Labour.

John Mwakangale was also the first leader Nelson Mandela met in newly independent Tanganyika in January 1962 – just one month after Tanganyika emerged from colonial rule – when Mandela secretly left South Africa on 11 January to seek assistance from other African countries in the struggle against apartheid and wrote about him in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Tanganyika was the first independent African country Mandela visited and the first one where he sought such assistance. It was also the first country in the region to win independence and the first one he visited, as Tanzania, when he was released from prison on 11 February 1990. He travelled to other African countries using a document given to him by the government of Tanganyika which stated: “This is Nelson Mandela, a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. He has permission to leave Tanganyika and return here.”

Tanganyika was chosen by African leaders to be the headquarters of all the liberation movements when they met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963 to form the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Professor John Iliffe in his book, A Modern History of Tanganyika, described John Mwakangale as a "vehement nationalist." He did not even want American Peace Corps in Tanzania. In his book Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey, Godfrey Mwakikagile wrote that John Mwakangale accused American Peace Corps of causing trouble, including attempting to overthrow the government, and bluntly stated: “These people are not here for peace, they are here for trouble. We do not want any more Peace Corps”, according to a report, "M.P. Attacks American Peace Corps," which was the main story on the front page of the Tanganyika Standard, 12 June 1964.

Other colleagues of Elijah Mwakikagile were Austin Shaba, his co-worker as a medical assistant and earlier his classmate at the Medical Training Centre (MTC) at Tanganyika's largest hospital in the capital Dar es Salaam later transformed into the country's first medical school who served as a Member of Parliament and cabinet member in the first independence cabinet— serving as Minister of Local Government and later as Minister of Health and Housing, and as Deputy Speaker of Parliament; Wilbard B.K. Mwanjisi, his classmate from Standard One at Tukuyu Primary School to Malangali Secondary School who became a doctor, prominent member of TANU and, before leaving government service, was president of the Tanganyika Government Servants Association, a national organisation for African government employees during colonial rule; Jeremiah Kasambala, Elijah Mwakikagile's classmate at Malangali Secondary School who became head of the Rungwe African Cooperative Union responsible for mobilising support from farmers to join the struggle for independence and who went on to become a cabinet member in the early years of independence—taking over the portfolio for Commerce and Cooperatives and later serving as Minister of Industries, Minerals and Energy; Robert Kaswende - he and Elijah Mwakikagile knew each other since the early 1940s - who became police chief for Rungwe District in Tukuyu soon after independence and who later became deputy head of the police for the whole country and thereafter head of the National Service which became a part of the Ministry of Defence renamed Ministry of Defence and National Service; and Brown Ngwilulupi, who became Secretary General of the Cooperative Union of Tanganyika (CUT), the largest farmers' union in the country, appointed by President Nyerere.

One of their teachers at Malangali Secondary School was Erasto Andrew Mbwana Mang'enya who later became a cabinet member under President Nyerere, Speaker of Parliament, and Tanzania's Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Brown Ngwilulupi later co-founded Tanzania's largest opposition party, Chadema, and served as its first vice-chairman under Edwin Mtei during the same period when he was a relative-in-law of Tanzania's Vice President John Malecela who also served as Prime Minister at the same time under President Ali Hassan Mwinyi. Ngwilulupi's daughter was married to Malecela's son. Malecela was also the first African to serve as District Commissioner (D.C.) of Rungwe District in the town of Tukuyu soon after independence in the early 1960s when Elijah Mwakikagile was a member of the Rungwe District Council where he was a councillor for many years. Brown Ngwilulupi also worked in Tukuyu during the same period with Jeremiah Kasambala at the Rungwe African Cooperative Union.

Ngwilulupi and Elijah Mwakikagile came from the same village four miles south of the town of Tukuyu, knew each other since childhood, were classmates from Standard One at Tukuyu Primary School to Malangali Secondary School and later became relatives-in-law when they married cousins. Their wives, who came from the same area they did, were first cousins to each other.

Elijah Mwakikagile was also a first cousin of one of Tanzania's first commercial airline pilots, Oscar Mwamwaja, who was shot but survived when he was a co-pilot of an Air Tanzania plane, a Boeing 737, that was hijacked on 26 February 1982 and forced to fly from Tanzania to Britain. His mother was an elder sister of Oscar's father. And his son Godfrey is a first cousin of Brigadier-General Owen Rhodfrey Mwambapa, a graduate of Sandhurst, a royal military academy in the United Kingdom, and head of the Tanzania Military Academy, an army officers' training school at Monduli in Arusha Region. Owen's father was an elder brother of Godfrey's mother.

Books

Mwakikagile's first book, Economic Development in Africa, was published in June 1999. He has written more than 70 books, mostly about Africa during the post-colonial era. He has written about history, politics, economics, as well as contemporary and international affairs from an African and a Third World perspective.

He takes an interdisciplinary approach in his works combining history, political science, economics, philosophy, cultural and international studies and other academic disciplines in his analysis of a wide range of issues focusing on Africa, especially during the post-colonial era. His books are used in various academic disciplines up to the post-graduate level including doctoral studies. He has also written some books about the African diaspora, mainly Black America and the Afro-Caribbean region including Afro-Caribbean communities in Britain and the United States.

His books on race relations include Shattered Dream: Race and Justice, Patrick Lyoya killed by the police: What did I do wrong?, Across The Colour Line in an American City, On the Banks of a River, In the Crucible of Identity and Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey which is a comparative analysis between colonial Tanganyika and the United States in terms of race relations that also focuses on problems in race relations in the American context in contemporary times.

Controversy

Mwakikagile has been criticised, along with some African and European scholars including Professor Ali Mazrui, Christoph Blocher, Mahmood Mamdani, Peter Niggli, and R. W. Johnson, as someone who advocates the recolonisation of Africa through supervision of failed states by the African Union and the United Nations.^[15][16]

Academic reviews

Mwakikagile's books have been reviewed in a number of academic publications, including the academic journal African Studies Review, by scholars in their fields. They include Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, which was reviewed in that journal by Professor Claude E. Welch of the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York, Buffalo; and Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, reviewed by Nigerian Professor Khadijat K. Rashid of Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.^[17]

Other books by Mwakikagile have also been reviewed in the African Studies Review and in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation which were reviewed in the African Studies Review. Nyerere and Africa was also reviewed in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

His book, Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall, was reviewed by Professor E. Ofori Bekoe, in Africa Today, Vol. 64, Number 4, Summer 2016, Indiana University Press.

Mwakikagile has also written about race relations in the United States and relations between continental Africans and people of African descent in the diaspora in his titles such as Black Conservatives in The United States; Relations Between Africans and African Americans; and Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Professor Kwame Essien of Gettysburg College, later Lehigh University, a Ghanaian, reviewed Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2011, an academic journal of Columbia University, New York, and described it as an "insightful and voluminous" work covering a wide range of subjects from a historical and contemporary perspective, addressing some of the most controversial issues in relations between the two.

References

Selected bibliography

• Economic Development in Africa, ISBN 978-1560727088, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. June 1999
• Africa and The West, ISBN 978-1560728405, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 2000
• The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, ISBN 9781560729365, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2001
• Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, ISBN 9781560729457, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2001
• Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, ISBN 978-1560729679, Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 2001
• Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, ISBN 9781931768740, Protea Publishing Co., Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2002
• Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done (2004), ISBN 0980253470, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2006
• Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections on an African Statesman, ISBN 978-0980253498, 2006
• Black Conservatives: Are They Right or Wrong?, ISBN 978-1596820036, 2004
• Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era: Expanded Edition with Photos, ISBN 9781593440954, 2005
• Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, ISBN 9780980253450, 2007
• Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties: My Reflections and Narratives from The White Settler Community and Others, ISBN 9780620359818, 2006
• Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, ISBN 978-9987160129, 2009
• African Countries: An Introduction, ISBN 0-620-34815-1, Continental Press, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2006
• African Countries: An Introduction, ISBN 978-0620348157, 2009
• Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood, ISBN 9789987160143, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2006
• Life under Nyerere, ISBN 978-0980258721, 2006
• Black Conservatives in The United States, ISBN 978-0980258707, 2006
• Africa and America in The Sixties: A Decade That Changed The Nation and The Destiny of A Continent, ISBN 978-0980253429, 2006
• Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans: Tensions, Indifference and Harmony, ISBN 978-0980258745, 2007
• Investment Opportunities and Private Sector Growth in Africa, ISBN 978-0980258776, 2007
• Kenya: Identity of A Nation, ISBN 978-0980258790, 2007
• South Africa in Contemporary Times, ISBN 978-0980258738, 2008
• South Africa and Its People, ISBN 978-0981425832, 2008
• African Immigrants in South Africa, ISBN 978-0981425825, 2008
• The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Product of The Cold War?, ISBN 978-0981425856, 2008
• Ethnicity and National Identity in Uganda: The Land and Its People, ISBN 978-9987930876, 2009
• My Life as an African: Autobiographical Writings, ISBN 978-9987160051, 2009
• Uganda: The Land and Its People,ISBN 978-9987930890, 2009
• Botswana Since Independence, ISBN 978-0980258783, 2009
• Congo in The Sixties, ISBN 978-1448665709, 2009
• A Profile of African Countries, ISBN 978-9987160167, 2009
• Africans and African Americans: Complex Relations – Prospects and Challenges,ISBN 978-9987930852, 2009
• Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, ISBN 9789987160075, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2009
• Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, 5th Edition, ISBN 0980253411, Pretoria, South Africa: New Africa Press, 2010
• Zambia: Life in an African Country, ISBN 978-9987160112, 2010
• Belize and Its Identity: A Multicultural Perspective, ISBN 978-9987160204, 2010
• Ethnic Diversity and Integration in The Gambia: The Land, The People and The Culture, ISBN 978-9987932221, 2010
• Zambia: The Land and Its People, ISBN 978-9987932252, 2010
• Belize and Its People: Life in A Multicultural Society, ISBN 978-9987932214, 2010
• The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa, ISBN 978-9987160235, 2010
• South Africa as a Multi-Ethnic Society, ISBN 978-9987932238, 2010
• Life in Kenya: The Land and The People, Modern and Traditional Ways, ISBN 978-9987932276, 2010
• Botswana: Profile of A Nation, ISBN 978-9987932290, 2010
• Uganda: Cultures and Customs and National Identity,ISBN 978-9987160273, 2011
• Burundi: The Hutu and The Tutsi: Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise, ISBN 978-9987160310, 2012
• Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study, ISBN 978-9987160297, 2012
• The People of Uganda: A Social Perspective, ISBN 978-9987160334, 2012
• Uganda: A Nation in Transition: Post-colonial Analysis, ISBN 978-9987160358, 2012
• Obote to Museveni: Political Transformation in Uganda Since Independence, ISBN 978-9987160372, 2012
• Uganda Since The Seventies, ISBN 978-9987160228, 2012
• Civil Wars in Rwanda and Burundi: Conflict Resolution in Africa, ISBN 978-0981425849, 2013
• Peace and Stability in Rwanda and Burundi: The Road Not Taken, ISBN 978-9987160327, 2013
• Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century: What Lies Ahead, ISBN 978-9987160303, 2013
• Statecraft and Nation Building in Africa: A Post-colonial Study, ISBN 978-9987160396, 2014
• Africa in The Sixties, ISBN 978-9987160341, 2014
• Remembering The Sixties: A Look at Africa, ISBN 978-9987160365, 2014
• Restructuring The African State and Quest for Regional Integration: New Approaches, ISBN 978-9987160433, 2014
• Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, ISBN 978-9987160075, Revised Edition, 2014
• Post-colonial Africa: A General Study, ISBN 978-9987160419, 2014
• British Honduras to Belize: Transformation of a Nation, ISBN 978-9987160471, 2014
• Why Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania, ISBN 978-9987160457, 2014
• Congo in The Sixties, Revised Edition, ISBN 9789987160495, 2014
• The People of Kenya and Uganda, ISBN 978-9987160402, 2014
• Namibia: Conquest to Independence: Formation of a Nation, ISBN 978-9987160440, 2015
• Western Involvement in Nkrumah's Downfall, ISBN 978-9987160044, 2015
• Africa: Dawn of a New Era, ISBN 978-9987160488, 2015
• The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Formation of Tanzania and its Challenges, ISBN 978-9987160464, 2016
• The People of Ghana: Ethnic Diversity and National Unity, ISBN 978-9987160501, 2017
• Africa in Transition: Witness to Change, ISBN 978-9987160082, 2018
• The African Liberation Struggle: Reflections, ISBN 978-9987160105, 2018
• Life under British Colonial Rule: Recollections of an African and a British Administrator in Tanganyika and Southern Rhodesia, ISBN 978-9987160426, 2018
• Conquest of the Mind: Imperial subjugation of Africa, ISBN 978-9987997817, 2019
• Colonial Mentality and the Destiny of Africa, ISBN 978-9987997824, 2020
• Across The Colour Line in an American City, ISBN 979-8654395894, 2020
• On the Banks of a River, ISBN 979-8666516584, 2020
• In the Crucible o Identity, ISBN 979-8675721689, 2020
• Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 978-9987997831, 2021
• Growing up in a Border District and Resolving the Tanzania-Malawi Lake Dispute: Compromise and concessions, ISBN 978-9987997848, 2022
• Patrick Lyoya killed by the police: What did I do wrong?, ISBN 978-9987997800, 2022
• Shattered Dream: Race and Justice, ISBN 9789912992627, 2023
• Julius Mwasanyagi: A forgotten African nationalist, ISBN 979-8852200389, 2023

External links

• Godfrey Mwakikagile: Eurocentric Africanist?

 This article incorporates text by Godfrey Mwakikagile available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The text and its release have been received by the Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team.