Peter D.M. Bwimbo: Mlinzi Mkuu wa Mwalimu Nyerere

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On 20th January 1964, at the Colito Army Barracks just outside Dar es salaam, 15 officers of the Tanganyika Army that was inherited from the colonial state led a mutiny against the independent Tanganyika government. One group went to the State House with the intention of forcing President Julius Nyerere to accept their demands. What would have happened if they had succeeded in entering the State House and if President Nyerere had refused to accept their demands, as he most likely would have done? Anything could have happened and in the worst case scenario Tanzania’s history and indeed the history of the whole of Africa would have been seriously affected. This book is about the courage and quick thinking of Peter Bwimbo, the then head of the Presidential Protection Unit and Nyerere’s Chief Body Guard who, alone, planned and executed an ingenious and successful evacuation of President Nyerere and Vice President Rashid Kawawa, whisking them away from the State House before the mutineers got there. By a clever ruse he convinced the ferry operators on duty before dawn to ferry them across the Kigamboni Creek. From there they walked several miles to a hiding place in a house that was offered by an ordinary citizen and where they stayed until the situation was normalised several days later.