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Nearly nine million people, four fifths of those
eligible, registered as voters for Tanzania’s
elections of 1995; and three-quarters of them
voted. This was a great achievement in a largely
rural country with little experience of contested
elections.
Justice Ramadhani of the electoral commission
gives much of the credit to a weekly radio
magazine, Mnazi Mmoja, inspired by Jocelyn Mayne, a
former BBC producer and trainer who is now director
of the Radio Guild.
She took as her own inspirations Tanzania’s
founder president, Julius Nyerere (who saw radio’s
educational possibilities), and Lady Chalker, a
keen advocate of liberal democracy in Africa. To
these, she added the need to be in tune with the
local background and to pursue the BBC tradition of
objective reporting and questioning. A Radio
Tanzania reporter, Selemani Mkufya, travelled by
bus all over the country for Mnazi Mmoja, seeking
local opinions and political news.
The Mnazi Mmoja series, in Swahili, explained
why and how people, and particularly women, should
register and vote and even stand for election. But
it was not straight, timeless, civic education. It
was a topical magazine. It interviewed party
leaders and reported election news. It raised the
concerns of voters who are often reluctant to speak
their minds in discussion.
It included a soap opera, by Raphael Mbena, set
in an imaginary village called Chilonge (Let’s
Discuss). It had animal fables by an English
Tanzanian, Richard Mabala, a prize-winning writer
of short stories.
The electoral commission was a little doubtful
about these, particularly one about a rabbit, seen
in Tanzania as a wily little animal. The
commissioners thought it might resemble
ex-President Mwinyi.
Another tale told of a toothless old lion who
did not see why he should stand for election: he
had always been leader. He is supplanted by the
self-confident lioness who does all the
hunting.
Mnazi Mmoja (One Coconut Palm) is the name of a
dusty open space in Dar es Salaam that was used for
political meetings during Tanzania’s independence
campaign. After that, Tanzania was for 30 years a
single-party state.
Radio, heard by three quarters of the
population, offered the best means of telling
people what the new multiparty elections were all
about. In doing so, it had to achieve independence.
Mnazi Mmoja was produced – away from the state
station, Radio Tanzania – in a studio set up in the
British Council office.
Jocelyn Mayne was keen that it should be
broadcast not just by Radio Tanzania but by private
radios. Catholic and Lutheran stations broadcast
it, but she could not persuade the pop station,
Radio One.
The Radio Guild, which she represented, is a
company set up in 1990 by a group of broadcasters
as part of the international David Game group of
colleges. It offers training in Britain (currently
to 17 graduates and others seeking careers in
radio) and overseas. Last summer she ran a course
for election reporters in Zambia.
Jocelyn Mayne joined the BBC from Cambridge,
producing features, magazines and serials for
radio, starting the In Touch series for blind
listeners, and directing Jackanory and Play School
for television. She gave up full time work to bring
up her family, returning in 1985. As there was no
job in production at Radio 4, she accepted the task
of reviving the BBC’s radio training for overseas
broadcasters while producing as a freelance for the
BBC World Service.
Radio training, she says, opened for her a new
window on the world. Meanwhile, the BBC sent her on
a course for trainers at Wolverhampton, where her
fellow students were from construction and
engineering.
She felt radio training should be part of aid
and development, and so she used to take her
students to see Chris Patten, when he was Minister
for Overseas Development, and later Lynda Chalker.
She also promoted radio drama to put across
development messages. And she set up a club to link
and support overseas broadcasters who had attended
BBC courses since 1937.
In 1987 Anna Makinda of the president’s office
in Tanzania approached her about radio training
and, as a result, Lynda Chalker agreed to pay for
two Tanzanians to come for training. One was Edda
Sanga, now a popular voice on Radio Tanzania, who
played a leading part in Mnazi Mmoja.
When Jocelyn Mayne retired from the BBC in 1990,
she agreed to go to Radio Tanzania for two months
to train staff. The Commonwealth Relations Trust
paid her fare, the Tanzanian government paid the
hotel, and she agreed her salary would be a tour of
national wildlife parks.
In 1993 she went back to train government
information officers, on behalf of the Thomson
Foundation.
The idea that Britain should provide aid for
voter education came from Alice Walpole at the
British High Commission. As consultant, Jocelyn
Mayne canvassed the views of ministers, election
officials, academics, actors, broadcasters,
political parties and non-government organisations
before proposing a series of topical radio
magazines to prepare Tanzanians for the local
elections in 1994. Besides Edda Sanga, she
recruited another of her former students, Rose
Haji, producer of a popular radio soap opera about
health. Jocelyn’s aim was to help the Tanzanian
staff produce the magazine.
Success paved the way for the national-elections
series. Radio Tanzania’s chief engineer, Twaha Usi,
describes it as excellent.
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