OBITUARY

Saidi Ally Masimango

 It was the morning of Monday July 22, 2013 when I received a brief but chilling email from a close relative. The relative wrote and I quote verbatim:

"Msiba! Saidi Masimango amefariki asubuh hii, TMJ hospital! Innaa Lillah wainnaa ilayhi Raajuun".

This is literally translated as "Misfortune! Saidi Masimango died this morning, TMJ hospital! We are all from Allah and unto Him is our return".

The time was 7.54 am. I was taking my wife and two daughters to Dubai International Airport to catch their flight to Dar es Salaam. We were coming from the UK to attend graduation ceremony of our son Luqman Dau, who the previous Wednesday, earned his BSc (Hons) in Molecular Biology from the University of Sheffield.

As with all sudden deaths, my initial reaction was that of disbelief. I asked myself several questions. Is this the same Masimango who is my Director of IT at NSSF? What might have happened to him? As several questions were racing through my mind, I quickly made an international call to Mrs Chiku Matessa who was taking charge of my office while I was away. At the time, Mrs Matessa was already at the TMJ hospital and confirmed to me that our beloved colleague Saidi Ally Masimango is no more!

In keeping with Islamic teachings and tradition, I knew that the funeral will take place not later than the following day, i.e., Tuesday July 23. I found myself utterly helpless because I was halfway to the airport to drop my family and the flight was only 2 hours away. I didn't have a booking for the flight and didn't have my passport with me at the time. I had no option except to throw the towel because there was no way in those 2 hours I could have catch that flight to escort my colleague to his eternal home. What was left for me was to pray for the departed soul.

From my recollections, this is the fourth time I am writing an obituary and everytime I was hoping that it would be the last one. I must admit writing an obituary to someone who is very dear to you is not an easy task. Yet, it is precisely for the same reason (of being close to the deceased) that I have always felt necessary to do justice and write something about them.

I have known Saidi for over 10 years when he joined NSSF as the Director of IT. Over these years, to me Saidi has been more than a colleague at work because of his exceptional qualities as a human being. Throughout our interactions, I have found in Saidi a very humble, loyal, sociable, diligent and intelligent person who takes great pride in fulfilling his responsibilities, both individual and corporate.

I came to work very closely to Saidi when we embarked on a massive digitization project at NSSF. Being the Chair of ICT Steering Committee, my interactions with Saidi were almost daily. Through these interactions, I found in Saidi a person who was very passionate to IT. He always wanted the best for NSSF and dedicated most of his working and social life to this project.

 His desire to see NSSF is ahead of the IT game all the time, in someway, explains why it has taken a rather long time to complete this project. Everytime there was something new in the market, he wanted NSSF to be the first on the finishing line. That was Saidi Ally Masimango! Its unfortunate that while we are at the tail end of the project, Saidi did not live long enough to see the fully ripe fruits of his labour and dedication – to be realised not very far ahead.

My last memories of Saidi go back to Thursday July 11, 2013 when we had a meeting of Appointments and Disciplinary Committee to interview candidates for the position of Computer Operations Manager. At that meeting, Saidi posed very intelligent and soul searching questions aimed at getting a candidate who will fill this very important position which was at the heart of our digitization project. Little did I know that I was seeing Saidi for the last time because the following day I started my annual leave and travelled to the UK to attend the graduation ceremony.

But there must be a purpose for our lives – to do our best and please God the Almighty in all what we do. It is in this respect that I find solace – knowing that Saidi’s life exemplified this principle. In so many ways, Saidi's dedication to work echoes Dr Martin Luther King's call when he said "Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead and the unborn could do it no better".

Saidi's competence and commitment to IT, has won him admiration from almost everyone. It therefore came as no surprise when in May this year, the Director General of the National Identification Authority (NIDA) appointed him as the Chairman of ICT Stakeholders and Beneficiaries Interface Committee. This is a nationwide Committee which, among others, is charged with the responsibility reviewing and designing functional requirements of interfaces among various government agencies such as TRA, BRELA, NIDA and all Pension Funds.

Given the nature of his duties and in a large organisation such as NSSF it is difficult not to cross other people's paths. Yet to this day, I have not found a person within and outside NSSF who had a fight with Saidi. He was an exceptional character who, I myself and NSSF as an organisation, will greatly miss him.

Whilst we continue to pray for Saidi that the AlMighty Allah may shower His Choicest Blessings on him, the rest of us in NSSF should strive to emulate Saidi's example of dedication and loyalty.

We further pray to the Almighty Allah to Grant perseverence to Saidi's immediate and extended family, so that his great loss is more bearable.

----------------------

Ramadhani K. Dau is the Director General of the National Social Security Fund