Nairobi — Julius Kambarage Nyerere, whose death 10 years ago was commemorated in a number of countries on October 14, is likely to remain enigmatic for many reasons.

One of them is that he did not deem it necessary to leave the world with anything in the form of an autobiography.

On a number of occasions, he stated that he was averse to writing his memoirs, sometimes claiming his life amounted to nothing to write home about and on occasion wondering whether he dared to freeze in print what he knew and how that would play out with the other leaders he had interacted with.

He seemed to be concerned mostly with what had transpired during the tense years leading to the liberation of Southern Africa, roughly between the mid 1970s and 1990s.

But he may also have been more than slightly uncomfortable with his domestic scorecard: The sick economy he left behind, partly occasioned by blanket nationalisations and forcible removals of peasants; the undemocratic practices under his regime, including the banning of political parties, the abolition of co-operatives, local governments, trade unions and other civil society organisations; the muscular clampdown on student protests, and so on.

Even events that his most committed detractors could not accuse him of having caused, such as the 1964 army mutiny, would have been embarrassing episodes to narrate, as would have been the calling in of British forces to quell the mutiny for him hardly three years after he had sent his erstwhile colonial masters packing.

Maybe it is as well, after all, that he did not write his own story.

It has been said that people write autobiographies to tell lies about themselves and their deeds, and fiction to tell the truth.

Our loss, then, that Mwalimu never wrote a novel.

The lack has provided would-be biographers with a gold mine to explore and exploit -- for, apart from two well written, if beholden works published three decades ago, we are left with precious little material on which to base our appreciation of Kambarage.

So then, let the gold diggers get to work.

They can take courage from one observation some of us made in the last years of the great man's life, when we wanted to know from him whether he was writing his life-story and drew the polite negative.

Never once did he suggest that he would not let anyone write his biography or that he would not talk to whosoever wanted to do the job, only that he himself would not do it.

Once, during an exchange on the subject, I asked whether he would receive me in Butiama, and his answer was, typically, "I haven't banned anyone from Butiama."

But what would a biographer look for that would paint a complete picture of this man -- without being unnecessarily iconoclastic yet doing justice to him?

Julius Nyerere will defy easy characterisations because, though he donned simplicity in his garb and demeanour, he was far from being a simple person in his thought and his action.

Nor was his life one long, linear existence of your regular politician: Evolving from the poor schoolmaster of lore, through the first tentative bites at the political cherry, whetting his appetite faster than his ethics; being swept to power on the crest of popular inebriation from the heady wine of Independence; sinking deeper into corruption and authoritarianism, and eventually dying a revered man.

Nyerere's legacy is likely to be extremely complex because he was so many things to so many people, and led so many lives that he made the proverbial cat green with envy.

First, let's take the linear: Schoolteacher turned political organiser and agitator, campaigning for Tanganyika's independence; absolute ruler of Tanganyika/Tanzania for 24 years in an imperial presidency par excellence; retirement at an age when his peers were consolidating power and wealth. Simple enough, wouldn't you say?

Now, onto that skeleton frame, weave the threads that complete the fabric of the man: Consider the "teacher" tag, fit for a man who started his working career as a schoolteacher, but which now has to refer to those lectures he gave to the nation and the world when he was president and, especially, after his retirement -- lessons that Tanzanians and others seem to digest better today as they see what he warned them against happening.

Consider his persona as an "authoritarian" leader, which can hardly be disputed, but also think of the amount of energy he invested in cajoling his successors into accepting the inevitability of multiparty politics.

In his "retirement," he did more than any other person to chaperone Tanzania into plural politics, often in the teeth of opposition from bigwigs within his party.

Take a look at his uncompromising stance on many things, including his singular commitment to Ujamaa.

Yet it was the same man who stated, circa 1990, "I don't hate capitalism. In fact, I believe capitalism can be beneficial for our nation. But give me captains of industry, not these agents, bent on making us other people's vassals!" (to quote loosely).

On several occasions during his presidency, Nyerere sent his armed forces abroad, either to expel and topple an invader (Uganda under Idi Amin), to stabilise a friend (Seychelles under threat from Pretoria), or to shore up another friend (Mozambique, threatened by Renamo).

Yet he, the unapologetic martial mind, was the man seen as the most fit to initiate the Burundi peace talks that eventually ended the longstanding civil war in that country.

Then consider that he, long after his retirement, was at the centre of plans to topple Mobutu Sese Seko and install Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa in 1996, working conspiratorially with leaders in Kampala and Kigali, when we know that Kabila was not necessarily his cup of tea, the two having fallen out in the late 1970s over the activities of Kabila's goons in Tanzania.

But then, having made sure that Kabila was in Kinshasa and Mobutu headed for the netherworld, Nyerere found time to travel to New York to call for a meeting of the UN Security Council to tell the West to cut Kabila some slack over the holding of early elections, before heading to Kinshasa to tell Kabila and his government to stop behaving like Mobutuists.

If you think the fabric is complete, it may be because one needs pause, but a little colour could add to the sometimes-confusing persona of the man under scrutiny.

For instance, was he involved in the attempted Moi ouster in 1982?

Why did he, world-renowned benefactor and protector of refugees, hand over the Kenyan exiles, condemning them to sure death?

Could he have been involved in the attempt to oust Kabila once the Mobutu job was done and Kabila proved to be still... Kabila?

There was a conspiratorial side to Julius Nyerere that makes some people wince when his name is mentioned in connection with sainthood -- and not only because politicians, by their very nature, cannot be saints.

But there is a problem in trying to place a man who was favoured with a long life, multiple theatres of operation and the dexterity to play opposed roles (almost) at the same time, always with an intellectual gravitas denied his peers.