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.
