Railways liberate our geography, they cannot be driven by pedestrian thinkers

And, if the other East African countries did the same, in the not-so-distant future, we — if we engender progeny, we cannot die — should be able to ferrry the heaviest of goods from Voi to Gitega, from Butare to Lindi, from Gulu to Moshi.

A tall order, you say, a figment of a crazed imagination?

Yes, just like Mckinnon before, and the Wright Brothers before him, and Christopher Columbus before them, and (mythically) Icarus before everyone else.

As my friend Tajudeen used to say, those who cannot dream a beautiful dream are condemned to suffer nightmares forever.

As for the propensity of our rulers, some of them with impressive academic prefixes, to enter into agreements that even a blind man would not touch, the more said about it the better, but that will be for another day.

Jenerali Ulimwengu, chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper, is a political commentator and civil society activist based in Dar es Salaam. jenerali@gmail.com