Attilio Tagalile: a tribute to veteran journalist and a friend
They say when we plan God laughs! I had planned to meet and laugh with Attilio Tagalile or as I used to call him Mzee Tagalile after our last catch-up meeting, I had a lot of ideas and a number of events had unfolded that needed our usual catch-up. Unfortunately, on Friday July 09th 2021, as I was embarking climbing Kilimanjaro mountain, I received heartbreaking news of his death from a text message that sadden my day.
I was in turmoil. As a way of distracting myself from throbbing of pain, I started calling some friends who knew Mzee Tagalile. I was in shock! What happened? I kept wondering…I understand he was of age, but yet still, I thought he could continue to be around for a number of years to come. This might be because he was someone who was conscious about his healthy and tried to live a healthy lifestyle.
He was the only friend I had of his age who we could talk and connect as if he belonged to my age-group. Mzee Tagalile touches the lives and career of number of other youth who happened to work with him. He was an inspirational!
It never occurred that I could sit down and write his tribute this soon!
I first met Mzee Tagalile way back in 2009 when I joined Agenda Participation 2000 (AP2000) through the Anti-Corruption Programme; Corruption Tracker System. Apart from other governance projects the organisation had, the team (Moses Kulaba, Stephen Msechu, Attilio Tagalile and I) worked closely in ensuring stories, analysis and reports on Corruption Tracker System are done well. He imparted to us his vast experience in journalism as my colluegue then Msechu and I were fresh from the University.
To sharpen our thoughts and ideation, he encouraged us to read and write! He was so happy and excited seeing us doing so! In this, we clicked! We could exchange books and talk a lot about our writings, manuscripts, articles among others.
Despite our age, we felt connected to Mzee Tagalile. He taught us wholeheartedly. He pushed us to learn with so much love and devotion. Arguing and discussing about politics was our cup of tea. Hahaha! His love for tea though, that’s a story for another day. From time to time, social trending issues caught our eyes too, depending with what was out there.
Cars were his idol. His dream car was Mercedes Benz: Cross Country he liked to say; “I will do eyes operation to enjoy driving it!’”. We admired his abilities to describe different car models. He was man of details. He would tell stories which include the first time he imported a brand new Mercedes Benz, red in colour in early 1990s which he was proud of. I liked how he would laugh so loudly when he was talking about cars. For him cars were his safe haven.
Mzee Tagalile was an open minded person which made easy for us to learn and approach him every time when we are stuck with work. At times we would dig into family affairs which created strong bond between us. Our office was one strong family, to date, I haven’t been at office and team such like the one we had at AP 2000.
Being the man of great values, Mzee Tagalile respected his job and had extraordinary dedication to it. Nurturing us on being reliable and committed to our job was natural to him. He would always recite his famous and lyrical adage that; “ability without reliability, flexibility and dependability is equal to a liability”.
To a larger extent, I can say he was a model and successful journalist who achieved a lot through his career even though the media industry in the country isn’t one of the well paying sector.
He understood the value of formal education even though himself he didn’t have a chance to pursue further beyond his tertiary education. He always admired and appreciated how his English language abilities opened doors for him without having a University degree. Yes, he didn’t possess a degree but he managed to go to the world to hold different high positions in reputable international media houses the likes of Radio Channel Africa, the external Broadcasting station of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in South Africa and the Swahili service Radio Deutsche Well (DW), Germany.
Judging from his remarkable writing skills and work morals he used to wonder why so many graduates could not deliver good quality works. Yet his age-mates mostly without university degrees could defeat degree holders by far when it comes to career performance. Motivated by this, he used his expertise and experience to nurture new journalists in a number of capacity building programmes. He was also part of the judges in the prestigious Excellence in Journalism Awards Tanzania (EJAT) under the Media Council of Tanzania for a number of years.
In Tanzania, he worked with a number of media houses from the government owned paper, Daily News to The New Habari Corporation and The Citizen (under Mwananchi Communications). He also worked with a number of non-governmental organizations on consultancy basis and short contracts such as Agenda Participation 2000, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) to mention a few.
Mzee Tagalile was a family man. He loved his family so dearly. He used to talk about his children non-stop. I could tell that he was a responsible father who could go extra miles to make sure his children and wife had the best. He managed to support his children to pursue studies within the country and abroad. He educated his children well and assured they have a good exposure by attaching them to different institutions while they where in holidays for them to acquire working experience.
On 19th April, 2021 that’s when I saw him last. I visited him at his house at Mbezi Beach, Dar es Salaam. We spent hours talking about the socio-political trends, which led him to open up about the writing of his four (4) finished manuscripts that he did during the height of the Corona Pandemic. I hope these manuscripts will be accessed and published. I promised him to come back and bring him some books by Cardinal Robert Sarah; Power of Silence and GOD or Nothing as we had spoke about. Unfortunately, I know this wont be possible now.
Mzee Tagalile was also fond of wildlife conservation. He believed in wildlife protection. It is in this belief where he wrote his newly published first non-fiction book; Selous-The Lost Sanctity that expresses his strong stand on need to protect the Selous world heritage site against decision of constructing the Stigler’s Gorge dam project or Nyerere hydropower project. Kudos Mzee Tagalile you were a true patriotic!
The battle to protect Selous Game Reserve and other Tanzania National Parks in general won’t die with Mzee Tagalile. Wildlife Protection will continue for the future generations as he quoted a Chinese saying in his book Selous-The Lost Sanctity; “Something that is written down is a good record no matter how badly written the record may be…in case of any dispute, over the aftermath of what is presently going on at the Stiegler’s Gorge in providing whoever would be around during the time at least a picture of the forces that were engaged for and against the construction of the dam. The good thing about existence of a written record is that it helps in sifting the truth from an untruth or pack lies”.
I always admire his ability to coin stories or articles’ titles. He was very good at that! He had already published two of his fiction novels which are already out in the market; Endless Toil and Damned Traitors. He would often say ‘Michael you have a great nose for news’ that had I pursued journalism I could have made tremendous contributions in that sector.
Mzee Tagalile insisted of writing good analytical pieces, very sharp without fear as he jokingly used to say; you put a piece out there until one sit down on a chamber pot and reads it! He was so moved whenever we produce such top notch pieces or bring to his attention interesting angle of stories.
He loved his white tea masala and ice cream Best Bite Restaurant was his favourite spot. Sometimes he would just call for us to a share table for that tea and ice cream he liked. Don’t be surprised, only Mzee Tagalile could drink tea and then 30 minutes’ order ice cream while I choose just one, mostly ice cream!
The devoted and prayerful Catholic he was, Mzee Tagalile was a rosary devout. From time to time we spoke on the benefits of the rosary prayers and insisted that we should try as much as possible to often pray rosary. He once shared to me a testimony he had from the Late Ambassador Augustine Mahiga that he believed he survived a bomb attack in Somali because he was praying rosary during the attack. Mzee Tagalile, may your prayers to our Holy Mary Mother of God grant your soul to be granted eternal peace in heaven, Amen.
Maan! I am in pain and tears, still can’t believe that you are gone. I will surely miss you Mzee Tagalile! I pray that wherever you are, you are praying your rosary, writing those killer articles, sipping tea, enjoying the scoop of vanilla ice cream & caramel top while on that Mercedes!
Keep resting well my comrade and friend! Until we meet again,
Kijana wako, Michael Dalali
