Nov 4th: Conversation with Nizar Fazal: The Whistle Blower

"Voice of Discontent"

Dar citizens voted Mr Nizar Fazal as "Citizen of the Year", because his intrepid, biting and nakedly candid weekly letters, signed as “Crusader for better Tanzania", to editors of The Guardian and Daily News lament the state of the country, amuse, and enthrall his readers.

His fans complain to the editors if a week goes by without his fiery column. In an odd way he reminds me of the character in the movie the Network, urging his audience and thumping his fists on the chest, shouting, before the camera: "We are mad as hell, we won't take it anymore…"

Perhaps a hyperbole simile, his essence and presence are felt among the denizens of Dar: he echoes, fearlessly, what local residents shy and fear to tell a tale of discontent.

While in Dar, I consumed the local papers—both the Kiswahili and English—at the coffee shops with the best brews. His name and bold signature, “Crusader for Better Tanzania”, piqued my curiosity, and I read his column, titled “What is happening to your dogs”, with befuddlement—and amused embarrassment.

He proclaimed, without offering any substantial evidence, that the recent disappearance of stray and pet dogs in residential areas, and particularly in Temeke district, where a large contingent of Chinese construction workers reside, is because the Chinese are kidnapping and eating our dogs. A similar allegation was echoed by Zambians in Lusaka district, reported in the Economist in an article ‘China in Africa’.

Mr. Fazal’s article created quite a bit of furor, but surprisingly nothing came of it. No recantation; no apologies offered; and no protests from the Chinese diplomats, or vexed letters to the editors from the Chinese community complaining about the nature of its accusatory and disparaging content.

Through a mutual friend, I requested a meeting with him, and was granted. It was agreed, over the phone with him, that we meet at his place of work on Samora Ave, Set-Afrik, across from the new swanky glass high-rise, The PPF Tower.

Upstairs on the second floor, past the African barber shop on the landing, is his nondescript office. Glass walls separate him from his colleague, a young African woman, who is the Chartered Account, and an African male clerk, who busily frowns upon the luminous computer screen. Languishing outside his office is a young African male, smartly dressed, perhaps from up-country, working the odd-jobs: running errands to the bank; making tea; fetching this-and-that, filing. The legacy of office-boys and office-girls, sadly, still exists—workers not qualified, less educated, resort to these tedious, mindless unspecific jobs: kibaruas.

“Karibu, Karibu”, said Mr. Fazal, getting up from behind his desk and extending a handshake. “Please sit down,” he gestured to a chair across from his organized desk, with files piled on one side and open folders on the other.

The white push-button phone rings, and Mr. Fazal says, “Excuse me. I have to answer this call. I am expecting a phone call from the editor of the Daily News.

“Set-Afrik”, he speaks into the mouthpiece.

“Ah ndiyo, nimesha andika. I will fax you the draft later this afternoon. Sawa, jumapili, siyo….Sawa,” he speaks into the mouthpiece.

He laughs sardonically at something said to him at the other end and then rings off.

“That was the editor. I am writing a piece on the Aga Khan Hospital and they want to run it next week in the Sunday Edition,” he declares, nodding.

He is an elderly man, in his late sixties with a receeding silver hair line and bushy gray arching eyebrows that contrast his tanned face. His gray Kaunda suit blends with the bare gray office walls, and is an outdated office attire in the new Tanzania, but then he is of the older generation; yet his ideas and mind are contemporary and sharp, his tongue vitriolic.

“And what is it about?”

“Why the Aga Khan schools and hospitals have become so expensive,” he declares. And then he adds, vituperatively, “There is no justification for such high prices. It defeats the purpose of why these service institutions were created by the Imam!"

“The amount of money they are paying expatriates and administrators from India, Pakistan and abroad instead of hiring local talent is deplorable. Someone has to pay for their exorbitant packages and perks. And it is us, the local citizens, who endure the burden of the rising cost. I have documented evidence of salaries of some of the most incompetent expatriates,” he exhales, as if relieved.

He gets animated when illustrating a certain point with facts and figures that he draws from vast repository of accumulated knowledge over the years.

He is for a full-time bookkeeper for an Abu Dhabi based mobile operator, and the rest of the time, he tells me, he just reads ravenously and writes letters to the editors as a whistle blower: an investigative reporter.

“I look forward to read the piece. You are very bold in your expose, in your letters to the editors about everything happening in Dar or in the country in general. Where do you get all the ideas and information?”

“Are you married?” he asks, whose relevance I failed to grasp.

I dismiss the question.

“You see I am married to my books. I read a lot, and over the years I have cultivated my sources in all sectors of the community as well as in the civil service. They [people] come to me, because they know I will tell the truth. I trust them. They trust me. These are people I have known, and I know what they have to offer is genuine,” he declares somberly.

“Don’t you fear retribution, from the government, from the community, from the accused?”

“No. I don’t fear anyone! The security, the police, the Ismaili council, the corrupt leaders or their Asian cabal,” he says dismissively, with a tone of aged defiance in his voice.

Born in 1946 to parents from Morogoro, he then moved to Dar to attend primary school and only completed, at that time, Cambridge Level Eight. Mr. Fazal admits that he is a self-educated man, and has never attended fancy schools or a university. Everything he knows, he emphatically and boastfully declares, he has taught himself. An avid reader, his intimate knowledge of social and political history of Africa and the world, as well current affairs, is impressive.

“What is the time?” he asks, as if remembering an appointment.

"Almost noon."

He dismisses me and says, “Sorry, come tomorrow, we can talk more about the our oligarchy and mafia in Tanzania. I have to listen to my BBC News Swahili Service,” and gestures me to leave.

I signed a copy of my book for the ‘Watchful Citizen’ in honor of his chutzpa, dedication, and unfettered and relentless investigative journalistic forays into the Tanzanian society.

A sample of Letters to Editors by Nizar Fazal:

1. Organized white collar crime syndicates taking hold (The Guardian 6/9/96)

2. Role of Bureau d’change, banks in money laundering and tax evasion (The Guardian, 28/9/06)

3. World Bank and our government bloated (The Citizen, 8/11/2007)

4. Like Kenya, Tanzania too has Ketan, Somaiya, Kamani Brothers (Sunday Citizen, 14/1/2007)

5. Why Aga Khan schools and hospital have become so expensive (Sunday News, 14/10/2007)

6. Asian role in Tanzania economy (Financial Times, 12/1/2000)

7. Ismailis: Let’s choose leaders on merit. (The Guardian)

8. Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam where the Asians started their first cottage industries (The African, 2/10/2003)

9. Uzawa: Ruffling the feathers in Tanzania (The Guardian, 25/8/2005)