Arusha — Veteran politician Rashid Mfaume Kawawa, a household name in Arusha and its environs, and who died recently, was among the last three remaining members of the first Tanganyikan cabinet.

Only two members of the first cabinet headed by Prime Minister Mwalimu Julius Nyerere on the eve of independence on December 9, 1961 are known to be still alive.

They are Sir Clement George Kahama and Mzee Job Lusinde. While Mr Kahama left public office as recently as 2005 as a cabinet minister, Mzee Lusinde retired as a diplomat in the 1990s.

For a couple of years, however, Lusinde was the chairman of the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa). His ministerial portfolio during the 1960s and 1970s covered transport, communications and works.

Sir George Kahama was in the last cabinet of the fourth phase government. He once served as director general of Capital Development Authority (CDA), National Development Corporation (NDC) general manager and ambassador.

Two of the surviving members of the first cabinet died in recent years, leaving Kawawa and the two mentioned above to watch the developments of the country whose independence they helped to nurture.

They are Paul Bomani, who was the country's first Finance minister, and Chief Abdallah Fundikira. They died in 2005 (Dar es Salaam) and 2007 (Tabora) respectively.

The chief of Unyanyembe, however, fell out with Mwalimu Nyerere in the early

1960s reportedly annoyed by the switch to one party system. He had been in the opposition since the advent of multi-party democracy.

Mzee Kawawa's demise which as expected shocked the nation was the third for a leader who had held the prime minister position in the Union Government.

While Edward Sokoine died while in office (in a car crash), Nyerere, who served briefly as PM before becoming the country's long serving president so far, died in retirement.

Kawawa's presence in the cabinet may have not have been expected as he was not in the original TANU bandwagon during Nyerere's struggle for independence which commenced in earnest during the birth of the party in 1954.

Kawawa came on board from the workers' union, a force Nyerere and his party stalwarts could not ignore in forging a united state after independence.

Not much is known, at least by a latter day generation, of how Kawawa fared as acting head of state after Nyerere resigned from the post in early 1962 shortly after independence.

But he was to come into picture as truly Nyerere's closest ally following the events of 1964.

He was made the second vice president after the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar and came closer to Nyerere when the latter ditched Oscar Kambona from the Defence portfolio after that year's army mutiny.

In TANU he was elevated to the party vice chairman above other stalwarts who were with Mwalimu in the party during the independence struggle.

Kawawa had always been Nyerere's trusted assistant. After the overthrow of the Sultanate Rule in Zanzibar in 1964, he was the first Tanganyika leader to step on Isles soil with an important message.

And when Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume was shot dead on April 7, 1972, Nyerere rushed him there to assess the situation.

Kawawa's position in both the Union and Mainland governments was fortified when he was made the prime minister in February 1972 at the onset of Decentralisation policy.

As a leader of government business in parliament, he maintained high handedness and did not brook any 'non-sense' from government critics.

During Mwalimu's visit to China in 1968 to seal the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (Tazara), he shouted down an MP who claimed Nyerere's trip was intended to resettle hundreds of thousands of landless Chinese in Tanzania.

It was during the massive villagisation in the 1970s that he distinguished himself as Nyerere's man despite criticisms within and outside the country that the programme was not taking the country anywhere, at least economically.

Gabriel Sagday, the retired and long service TANU and CCM chairman in Hanang/Babati district had this to say : "He was an astute politician without whom Operesheni Vijijini could not have succeeded".

Kawawa's political stars took a new direction in early 1977 following the merging of TANU and Afro Shiraz Party (ASP) to form CCM. After the merger, the party vice chairmanship went to Aboud Jumbe, the Zanzibar leader.

The late Sokoine was appointed in his (Kawawa's) place in what some pundits considered a demotion.

He was appointed minister for the the key Defence and National Service and during his tenure the country went to the bloody war with Uganda, winning against Idi Amin's forces.

Three years later (1982), he was made the CCM secretary general and vice chairman around 1990. He has been one of the key players in orderly transitions in the Mainland, according to some analysts.