Saumu Jumanne
CROSSROADS
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Sweet Tanzania, my motherland will never stop to amaze me. I could not believe it when deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Lucy Nkya, told Bunge in Dodoma on Wednesday that there is no traditional medicine that can cure diabetes, including the now famous Loliondo miracle cure.
Though the honourable lady told the truth, my disbelief was caused by the fact that she serves the same government, which just the other day, it’s who is who, were all trotting to Samunge village in Loliondo, Ngorongoro District, for the miracle cure, that was claimed to be healing myriad diseases including diabetes.
We saw ministers, regional commissioners, members of parliament and top civil servants joining the common mwananchi to partake the cup of Babu wa Loliondo, that is, Rev Ambilikile Mwasapila.Where was Dr Nkya when the whole nation was fed to a lie of the miracle cure? Where were the other medical doctors who are parliamentarians like former minister of health Prof Mwakyusa? Here Dr Nkya had a chance to redeem herself and tell the nation the truth about the miracle cure
So can the ministers and MPs who went to Babu now come out openly, with their medics and prove they got healed? I have a close relative suffering from cancer, and apart from hope the cup, never offered her anything else. And many doctors will tell you their patients who went to Loliondo, never improved, leave alone being healed.
Dr Nkya told the parliament, the same song the government has been singing- tests have shown Babu’s medicine made from mugariga tree roots, has no bad effects on human beings. We also know many other things that are not harmful to human beings, and you don’t need a degree for that.
The government knows a good number of people who have taken the cup.
If it was serious about doing tests, it should have compared their medical records, before taking the cup, and afterwards. Just because Babu laced his herbal medicine with claims of a dream from providence, it does not mean it should not be questioned.Dr Nkya and the whole government should stop playing politics, with the lives of Tanzanians.
The miracle cure lie, helped to create political expediency, that was warmly welcomed by the government and business community in Arusha, as it was highly beneficial to all, but miserable and desperate patients .
According to Dr Nkya the government cannot intervene and ban Babu’s miracle cure because patients go there for the cup on their own volition. Good words, good doctor.
So the people, if they are collectively wrong, harming themselves, a good government, should do nothing about it. To me, it seems that is what the deputy minister was saying.With that kind of talk in parliament, we should not be surprised when quacks advertise of being able to heal diabetes, HIV/Aids and every other disease.
In every urban area today, you find healers, claiming to have almost equal powers with God, and the society allows them to practise the lie. It’s more than dangerous to tell people lies like this.
Up to now I can’t understand why the government does not stop this hocus-pocus. But this is Tanzania, this is Africa, where self-proclaimed healers at times have more power than the government and the scientist, which is very dangerous. Another thing, the story was good fodder for the media, which has not cared to do a follow up, on those who claimed to have been healed. So the lie continues.
Saumu Jumanne is an Assistant Lecturer, Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE)
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