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A dispute over the burial of 54-year-old Wambura Mambya has reached court, with the parties involved appearing close to reaching an agreement on who will take responsibility for the funeral arrangements.

Civil Case No. 19355 of 2026, filed by Elizabeth Nyakao, the deceased’s first wife, against John Mambya, was heard on Tuesday, July 28, 2026 before Nyamagana District Court Senior Resident Magistrate Chrescencia Mushi.

The hearing had initially been scheduled to begin at 11am. However, while the first wife’s legal team entered the courtroom, the deceased’s relatives remained outside, saying they were unfamiliar with court procedures and did not know which courtroom to enter.

As a result of the relatives’ absence when the case was called, the court adjourned the matter to July 30, 2026.

Following the adjournment, the relatives met their lawyer and explained that they had missed the hearing because they were unfamiliar with court procedures. They asked to be given an opportunity to present their case, prompting lawyers for both sides to begin negotiations, which were at times tense, in an effort to reach an amicable settlement.

During the discussions, the deceased’s relatives said they were prepared to allow the body to be taken to the first wife before being buried in the family’s village, or alternatively hand it over to her to conduct the burial.

They also said they had no claim to the deceased’s property and were willing to leave it to the first wife.

The deceased’s second wife did not appear in court. It was claimed that she had left the matter to her relatives to follow the proceedings on her behalf.

Lawyer Demetrius Mtete said disputes of this nature are often resolved through negotiations between the parties.

“Cases like these usually require mutual agreement between the parties to ensure fairness and avoid further conflict,” he said.

The parties later reached a preliminary agreement that the deceased would be buried by his family in accordance with their customs and traditions.

The case is expected to resume at 12 noon on Wednesday for the agreement to be formally presented before the court.

Speaking after the discussions, Ms Nyakao said she was satisfied with the agreement.

“I have forgiven them, and I am satisfied with the agreement we have reached,” she said.

Some of the deceased’s relatives, who requested anonymity, said they had agreed to follow Kurya customs, under which burial is conducted by the deceased’s family.

Mr Mambya, who worked as a fisherman, died on July 21, 2026 at Mwanza Regional Referral Hospital, Sekou Toure.

Africa’s greatest asset has long been described in numbers: the world’s youngest population, vast natural resources and an expanding consumer market.

By 2050, one in every four people on the planet is expected to be African, making the continent home to the world’s largest workforce. Yet those same numbers increasingly raise an uncomfortable question.

Will Africa’s demographic surge become the engine of its industrial transformation or the source of deeper unemployment, inequality, and social pressure?

That was the central question posed by Tanzania’s Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Prof Adolf Mkenda, during the National Defence College’s Second Alumni Convocation in Dar es Salaam on July 21.

Delivering a public lecture on “Global Economic Trends in the 21st Century: Implications for Africa’s Development,” the economist challenged many of the assumptions that have dominated Africa’s development debate for decades.

He argued that the continent’s future will be decided less by its natural resources than by the knowledge, skills and productivity of its people.

His lecture, reinforced by the discussant, Prof Samuel Wangwe, evolved into something far bigger than an academic conversation.

It became a compelling case for why education, science, and technology should sit at the centre of Africa’s economic strategy in an era increasingly defined by artificial intelligence, geopolitical competition and rapid technological change.

Prof Mkenda’s warning comes at a time when Africa’s demographic trajectory is unlike that of any other region.

According to the United Nations, the continent’s population is projected to grow from about 1.5 billion today to around 2.5 billion by 2050, while Europe and parts of East Asia continue to experience ageing and declining populations.

The African Development Bank estimates that more than 10 million young Africans enter the labour market every year, yet only a fraction secure formal employment.

It was the widening gap between population growth and job creation that concerned Prof Mkenda.

“Population can be a boon or a bane. It can be a blessing or it can become a challenge,” he observed.

He argued that every new generation demands more classrooms, more teachers, and more hospitals and, ultimately, more jobs.

‘Unless economies expand faster than populations, demographic growth alone cannot produce prosperity,’ he warned.

The former economics don at the University of Dar es Salaam said that without corresponding investments, countries risk producing millions of young people who are educated but unemployable, or worse, left without either education or meaningful work.

Using Tanzania as an example, he noted that newly constructed schools often become overcrowded within just a few years because enrolment continues to rise alongside population growth.

That challenge extends well beyond education.

As labour markets struggle to absorb new entrants, many young people remain trapped in low-productivity agriculture or migrate to towns where informal employment offers little escape from poverty.

Human capital is Africa’s real natural resource

Throughout the lecture, Prof Mkenda returned repeatedly to one central message: Africa’s most valuable resource is not beneath the ground but inside its people.

His argument closely mirrors the findings of the World Bank’s Human Capital Index, which measures how much of a child’s future productivity is realised through education and health.

The Bank consistently says that countries investing heavily in human capital experience faster productivity growth and higher long-term incomes.

Globally, nations with the highest human capital scores, including Singapore, Finland, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland, are also among the world’s most competitive knowledge economies.

Prof Mkenda believes Africa should draw a straightforward lesson from that experience.

“The most critical dimension is education, more than health, more than employment opportunities. We need Africa to invest-not wait, action-to invest in human capital,” he stressed.

South Korea, he noted, established the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in 1966 as part of a deliberate strategy to build an innovation-driven economy.

‘China and India similarly invested heavily in sending their brightest students abroad to master advanced technologies before contributing to national development,’ he said.

The implication for Africa, he argued, is unmistakable: countries that invest consistently in knowledge eventually become producers of technology rather than consumers of it.

Challenging Africa’s development clichés

Perhaps the lecture’s most provocative moments came when Prof Mkenda questioned several long-held assumptions about Africa’s development.

He argued that simply enlarging markets or promoting continental integration would not, on their own, generate prosperity.

“Unity of weak countries is weakness writ large,” he said, urging policymakers to focus first on building productive economies capable of competing globally.

He illustrated the point by comparing countries of vastly different sizes. The Democratic Republic of Congo possesses far greater land and population than Rwanda, yet Rwanda has achieved significantly stronger economic performance per person.

Likewise, Nigeria may be Africa’s largest economy, but countries such as Mauritius and Botswana record substantially higher income per capita.

His argument was not against regional integration. Rather, it was a call to replace rhetoric with practical reforms capable of raising productivity, competitiveness and innovation.

Science must move from policy to production

Another recurring theme was Africa’s continued dependence on foreign expertise in strategic sectors.

Prof Mkenda questioned why, more than a century after the first railway was built on mainland Tanzania, major infrastructure projects still rely heavily on foreign engineers.

He traced the continent’s railway history from Egypt in 1856 and South Africa in 1860 to the Usambara Railway connecting Tanga and Moshi in 1893, before asking why African universities have not yet produced sufficient engineering capacity to independently design and deliver such projects.

His broader point extended beyond railways.

Whether in pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, biotechnology or advanced manufacturing, he argued that Africa must move beyond testing technologies developed elsewhere and begin creating its own.

“We need to invest in science and technology, massively,” he said. “And we must do this with a belief that, yes, we can.”

Preparing for the future

While much of Prof Mkenda’s lecture focused on continental challenges, the philosophy is increasingly reflected in Tanzania’s own education reforms.

The Education and Training Policy (2023 Edition) marks one of the country’s most ambitious attempts to align learning with the demands of an industrial and technology-driven economy.

Among its flagship reforms are the extension of compulsory education from seven to ten years, the introduction of dual pathways at the secondary level, academic and technical, and a stronger emphasis on competence-based learning.

He reminded a house full of military commanders and security experts that the government is constructing Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges across all districts to provide practical skills for learners from different educational backgrounds.

“We are also reviving polytechnic institutions to strengthen technician-level training after decades in which university degrees became the dominant aspiration,” he affirmed.

Prof Mkenda noted that Tanzania has also reintroduced full government scholarships for top-performing science students pursuing engineering, medicine, mathematics, ICT and related disciplines, with the initiative extending beyond national borders.

UNESCO has repeatedly warned that while access to education has improved across Sub-Saharan Africa, the region continues to face a severe learning and skills deficit, particularly in science, mathematics and digital competencies.

For Tanzania, the policy shift therefore represents not only an expansion of access but an attempt to improve relevance by ensuring graduates possess the practical skills increasingly demanded by employers.

If education provides the foundation, science and technology, Prof Mkenda maintained, must become the engine of Africa’s next stage of development.

In an era defined by artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology and advanced manufacturing, countries that merely consume technology risk falling permanently behind those that create it.

Discussant Prof Samuel Wangwe largely endorsed Prof Mkenda’s analysis while placing greater emphasis on structural economic transformation.

He highlighted the mismatch between education and employment, saying that while Tanzania has increased the number of university graduates, the country still faces shortages of technicians, artisans and skilled middle-level professionals.

The consequence is that some graduates accept jobs below their qualification level, while employers continue struggling to recruit workers with practical technical competencies.

This reinforces Prof Mkenda’s belief in the importance of expanding vocational education, apprenticeships and closer collaboration between education institutions and industry.

The government has directed all regional and zonal referral hospitals in Tanzania to establish dedicated cancer diagnosis and treatment units as part of efforts to reduce cancer-related deaths and bring specialised services closer to communities.

The directive comes amid a rising cancer burden in the country, with about 44,931 new cases diagnosed annually and nearly 30,000 deaths recorded every year.

Statistics show Tanzania has a cancer incidence rate of 140.1 cases per 100,000 people, while the mortality rate stands at 97.1 deaths per 100,000 population.

Cervical cancer remains the most common cancer among women, while prostate cancer is the leading cancer affecting men.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Grace Magembe, issued the directive during her visit to the ECSA-HC Specialised Medical and Surgical Camp at Mount Meru Regional Referral Hospital in Arusha.

Dr Magembe said the increasing demand for cancer services requires referral hospitals to establish oncology units to ensure patients can access diagnosis and treatment closer to their homes.

‘The demand for cancer services is increasing, and cancer-related deaths continue to rise. Referral hospitals should establish cancer treatment units within their facilities to make these services more accessible to the public,’ she said.

She said the units would provide diagnosis and treatment services while also serving as centres for public education on cancer prevention, risk factors and healthy lifestyles.

‘These centres will play a vital role in educating the public about cancer risk factors, including unhealthy diets, harmful products and lifestyle practices that increase the risk of developing cancer,’ she said.

Dr Magembe urged healthcare workers to encourage people visiting health facilities for treatment, routine check-ups or accompanying patients to undergo cancer screening.

She said early detection improves treatment outcomes and reduces the cost and complexity of care.

‘Many patients seek medical attention only when the disease has reached advanced stages, making treatment more difficult, expensive and less successful. Early diagnosis greatly increases the chances of recovery,’ she said.

She also called for increased awareness to encourage more men to undergo prostate cancer screening, saying many still seek medical attention only after the disease has progressed.

Dr Magembe commended the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) for organising the specialised medical camp, saying it had enabled low-income patients to access life-saving surgical and diagnostic services.

ECSA-HC Director General Dr Ntuli Kapologwe said the organisation had invested more than Sh260 million to support medicines, specialist services and the operation of the camp.

He said the initiative aims to save lives, reduce waiting times for specialised treatment and strengthen healthcare workers’ skills through knowledge sharing.

The Arusha camp is being conducted alongside similar specialised surgical camps in Mtwara and Malawi. The two Tanzania-based camps are expected to provide surgical treatment to more than 500 patients with various medical conditions.

Dr Kapologwe said the programme supports the government’s efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by providing specialised care to patients, some of whom have waited months or years for surgery.

Meanwhile, Acting Medical Officer in Charge at Mount Meru Regional Referral Hospital, Dr Kipapi Mlambo, said the camp had attracted strong demand from residents in Tanzania’s Northern Zone.

He said more than 1,000 people had received medical services, while 150 patients had undergone surgical procedures performed by 13 specialist doctors involved in the programme.

Dr Mlambo said the initiative had expanded access to specialised healthcare services for patients who would otherwise struggle to obtain or afford complex surgical treatment.

That is precisely what happened after Tunguu MP Simai Mohammed Said (CCM) referred to an unnamed “Judas” during a parliamentary debate. Although he stopped short of identifying the individual, the remarks quickly became one of Tanzania’s most discussed political moments, generating competing interpretations across political circles and social media.

In his address, Simai spoke of a senior government leader who, according to him, had betrayed former political allies, presided over actions that harmed politicians, public officials and businesspeople, and was now seeking to rebuild his public image through charitable and religious activities. By withholding a name, he left his audience to draw its own conclusions.

Almost immediately, speculation centred on Vice-President Emmanuel Nchimbi. The interpretation was driven largely by political commentary and social media discussion rather than by any direct statement from Simai himself. Others rejected the link, arguing that without an explicit identification, attributing the remarks to any individual remains speculative.

The episode demonstrates a familiar feature of political communication: strategic ambiguity. Politicians often employ language that conveys a strong message without making direct accusations, allowing different audiences to interpret the remarks through their own political perspectives.

Much of the speculation surrounding Simai’s speech has been shaped by political history. Both Simai and Dr Nchimbi were once associated with former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa’s political camp during CCM’s 2015 presidential nomination race. After Lowassa’s departure from CCM later that year, political alliances evolved. Some of his former allies remained within the ruling party, others crossed to the opposition, while several went on to occupy senior government positions.

That shared political background has encouraged some observers to view Simai’s remarks through the prism of past alliances and perceived betrayals. However, political history alone does not establish the identity of the person Simai intended to describe. Without a name, such interpretations remain matters of political analysis rather than verifiable fact.

Nor is this the first time Simai has attracted attention through carefully worded political messaging. In May this year, he told Parliament that there were individuals positioning themselves for the 2030 presidency and warned that anyone undermining CCM Chairperson and President Samia Suluhu Hassan would not succeed. Once again, he did not identify anyone, yet the remarks generated widespread political interpretation.

The consistency suggests a communication style that relies on implication rather than direct confrontation. Such an approach allows a political message to travel widely while leaving its intended target open to debate.

Opposition politicians have also sought to interpret the controversy within the broader context of succession politics, with some arguing that it reflects differing views inside CCM over the party’s future leadership beyond the 2030 General Election. However, no major opposition party has issued a formal collective position on Simai’s remarks.

Ultimately, the significance of the “Judas” comments lies less in determining who was being referred to than in understanding why the speech resonated so strongly. The episode illustrates how political symbolism, historical alliances and public perception can amplify a message even when its subject remains unnamed.

As with many moments in politics, the distinction between fact and interpretation remains critical. What is established is that Simai invoked the biblical figure of Judas as a political metaphor. Who, if anyone, he intended to describe has not been confirmed, leaving the debate firmly in the realm of political interpretation rather than established fact.

In 2019, I wrote a tweet about the expectations society places on people. I wrote, “A lot of us think life is so straightforward: graduate from university, get a job, buy a plot of land, build a house, buy a car, get married, have children, and live happily ever after. Life is full of ups and downs. It can’t be this straightforward.”

I think about that tweet a lot. I thought about it while reading Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. In this dark humour novel, Murata explores what is considered normal and what is not, and how society expects people to follow a particular path.

The novel follows Keiko, a 36-year-old woman who works at a convenience store, a job she began 18 years ago while still in college. By society’s standards, Keiko is not considered normal.

From a very young age, Keiko didn’t behave the way a “normal child” is supposed to. Normal children don’t take the world so literally. One incident at school confirms that she, after all, is not a normal child.

“When some boys started fighting during the break time. The other children started wailing. ‘Get the teacher! Stop them.’ And so I went to the tool shed, took out the spade, ran over to the unruly boys, and bashed one of them over the head.”

To Keiko, this was simply the quickest way to stop the fight, but it wasn’t the “right” way to do it. Who is responsible for teaching children the right way to stop other children from fighting? Also, have you met young boys fighting?

From this incident, Keiko decided that it wasn’t worth speaking when her thoughts and words would make those around her, especially her parents, unhappy.

It made me think about how much of who we become is informed by the people who raise us. We are rewarded based on how normal or how good we are by the people who love us and whose validation we crave.

But the funny thing about society is that you can never do right by it. Sooner or later, it changes its mind.

“The adults seemed relieved when I did not say a single word more than necessary or act on my own initiative. But as I got older, being so quiet apparently became a problem in itself.”

Keiko lives by observing the people around her. She imitates how they speak, react and behave until those behaviours become her own. Depending on who she speaks to, her reactions are informed by what feels appropriate.

This didn’t shock me because everyone who knows me knows a different Jane. My colleagues know one. My closest friends know another. So does my family.

My point is, we all have different versions of ourselves across different social settings. We absorb what we believe is acceptable and we stick with that. We are chameleons, if you will. Perhaps the difference is that Keiko knows she is pretending, while the rest of us have become so used to performing that we no longer notice it.

These expectations are not limited to women only. Men, too, are not immune to it.

Murata introduces Shiraha, who believes that the world has not changed at all and that we still live in the Stone Age, despite pretending to be a contemporary society, because we still behave as we did in prehistory.

Shiraha is so overwhelmed by society’s expectations that he joins the convenience store, hoping to find a woman to marry, someone who can support him financially so he can finally appear normal. I wanted to climb into the book and slap some sense into him and, while I was at it, Keiko too, for being willing to do it so she can please everyone.

“You are secondhand goods. Even if you are a virgin, you are grubby. You are like a Stone Age woman, past her childbearing age, who can’t get married and is left to just hang around the village, of no use to anyone, just a burden.

This kind of thinking and pressure is what, in my opinion, pushes women to seek marriage with anyone for the sake of fulfilling society’s expectations, regardless of how safe that person is for them.

Convenience Store Woman starts an important conversation about what is considered normal and what is not. Why is marriage the only achievement that should matter to women? Or why should being a provider be the only thing that should define a man’s highest achievement?

Perhaps we are all chameleons after all. The only difference is that some of us become so good at changing our colours that we forget what they looked like before the world told us who to be.

This past week, a somewhat comical yet concerning development unfolded in the world of artificial intelligence. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announced that some of its most advanced AI models had ‘escaped’ a test environment and essentially stole data from Hugging Face, a prominent AI start-up.

Tasked with solving an exceptionally difficult cybersecurity problem, the models took an extraordinary and unauthorised shortcut.

They exploited weaknesses within OpenAI’s own testing environment to break out, subsequently infiltrating Hugging Face’s systems to find a solution.

The situation would be humorous if the implications weren’t so grave.

While many headlines quickly labelled the models as ‘rogue,’ the reality is far more subtle.

Completely failed

There is no evidence that the AI developed an independent ‘desire’ to rebel or attack Hugging Face.

Instead, what is not in doubt is that the models somehow pursued a narrowly defined objective through unpredictable, unprogrammed routes that their designers completely failed to anticipate.

That distinction does not make the episode less alarming.

As a matter of fact, it is cause for even greater concern because it illustrates that AI models don’t have to be malicious or even conscious-as some people have feared-to cause serious harm.

All it takes is a sufficiently capable system, a poorly defined objective, and safeguards that fail to anticipate the means by which the objective may be pursued.

This means that, while we may see this simply as AI going rogue and stealing something, at a deeper level it exposes the difference between intelligence and judgement.

An AI system can identify an effective route to an objective without possessing any moral understanding of why that route should be rejected.

If an unauthorised intrusion appears to advance the assigned goal, the system will go for it, even if it is morally unacceptable, unless the option is clearly anticipated and excluded from the available choices.

In other words, the system does not need to decide that theft is acceptable. It only needs to discover that the intrusion works in solving the assigned problem.

This is serious enough, but worse still, these revelations demonstrate that the first line of defence in AI governance may well sit in the exact space most policy conversations rarely begin, that is, inside the laboratories where models are trained, tested and tweaked, long before they ever become public products.

This matters a great deal because, by the time an AI model is released to the public, many of the decisions that determine its behaviour will already be cast in stone. Regulation coming at this stage, however robust, will, therefore, be one step-too late.

The regulator will be seeking to govern how society should use a system, while in reality, the creators will already have decided what the system can do.

The incident also demonstrates that technical sophistication alone does not guarantee institutional control.

That Hugging Face detected and contained the intrusion before OpenAI had even traced its source shows how difficult it can be for even a leading developer to maintain complete visibility over its own systems operating in complex environments.

For Africa, this serves as a sobering preview of exactly what dependency can mean in practice.

It has long been argued that, by running on models built and tested elsewhere, Africa increasingly imports more than a technology.

It also, inevitably, imports undisclosed vulnerabilities discovered on someone else’s terms; safety assumptions set by someone else’s risk perception; and security risks that lie beyond the technical reach of local regulatory bodies.

This, then, raises the urgent question of sovereignty, not just in the development of AI tools, but more importantly in how they are governed.

Just who has the power to test AI models, who can see their failure modes, and who decides when it is safe enough to deploy?

Meaningful governance necessarily requires that countries possess the capacity to test claims made by AI companies about their products, inspect their failure modes, and even question the assurances accompanying each new model.

As if on cue, the inaugural Africa AI Governance Index was unveiled just as news of the OpenAI-Hugging Face episode settled.

Covering all 54 African states across 80 indicators, the Index confirms what many analyses have long suggested, notably, that the continent is still struggling to build the right institutions to govern AI in spite of the rapid development of AI policies.

In other words, the pace of writing AI policy on the continent far outstrips its ability and willingness to fund, staff, and enforce those very policies.

While the gap focuses on policy, it runs deeper than just a regulatory shortcoming. Today, the world’s second largest continent and home to 18 per cent of humanity, holds less than 1 per cent of global data-centre capacity and only about 3 per cent of global AI talent.

It remains woefully dependent on foreign providers for cloud infrastructure and advanced chips, while the frontier models entering its businesses and public institutions are designed, trained and controlled elsewhere.

Africa is therefore attempting to govern systems over whose underlying knowledge and infrastructure it can exercise only limited power.

Powerful fashion

Kenya captures that African AI conundrum in powerful fashion.

The country is home to East Africa’s most dynamic AI ecosystem and, according to the new Index, ranks fourth on the continent. Yet the speed of AI adoption in the country has also revealed the more obvious the limits of existing governance structures.

General data-protection laws, for instance, are being stretched to address risks for which they were never designed, while technology analysts routinely point out the country’s inadequate capacity to independently test the most advanced models it imports.

The contradiction, therefore, is that the country is strong enough to attract AI investment in droves and deploy robust systems, but not yet fully equipped to interrogate those systems on its own terms.

This is the story of many leading African economies, which have dialled up an AI revolution but, in so doing, also have to grapple with the risks of AI that are becoming more complex each day.

The lessons from the Hugging Face episode, which have been illustrated by the just-released Africa AI Governance Index, are clear.

Africa needs stronger regulators, independent researchers and technically capable public institutions.

Pool expertise

To this end, regional AI-safety centres could pool expertise, test advanced models before they are used in sensitive sectors and investigate serious incidents.

Just as importantly, learning institutions, civil society and the media must endeavour to understand these systems and clearly explain their consequences to the general public.

This is what sovereignty should mean for Africa in the age of AI. It does not necessarily require every African country to manufacture chips or build its own frontier models.

But it, no doubt, will require robust infrastructure and the technical capacity to understand what is being imported, set the conditions for its use and reject systems whose risks cannot be independently verified.

Dr Joe Ageyo is the Editor in Chief of the Nation Media Group. He holds a PhD in media studies with a focus on science and environment communication

One Tanzanite Football Academy (OTFA) has returned home after making history in Europe, with its youth teams delivering outstanding performances in Sweden and Denmark to showcase Tanzania’s growing football talent on the international stage.

The academy’s Under-17 (U17) side emerged champions of the prestigious Gothia Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden, while the Under-19 (U19) team secured an impressive third-place finish at the Dana Cup in Hjørring, Denmark.

The achievements mark one of the biggest successes by a Tanzanian youth football academy in international competition and reinforce the country’s growing reputation for developing talented young players capable of competing against some of the world’s best.

At the Gothia Cup, regarded as the world’s largest international youth football tournament, OTFA’s U17 team overcame strong opposition from across the globe to lift the title.

This year’s tournament attracted 1,956 teams in different age categories from 78 countries, making the triumph a significant milestone for both the academy and Tanzanian football.

The academy’s U19 team also impressed at the Dana Cup, the world’s second-largest youth football tournament, where they finished third after competing against leading youth academies and clubs from around the world. The tournament featured more than 946 teams from 56 countries.

According to the academy, the results demonstrate that Tanzanian youngsters can compete successfully at the highest level when provided with quality coaching, proper preparation and the right environment to nurture their talent.

OTFA thanked its sponsors and partners whose support made the teams’ participation possible. They include Azania Bank, Mega Beverages, ASAS Group, Derick Global Trading, ALAF Tanzania, the Gaming Board of Tanzania and CRDB Bank.

The academy also expressed appreciation to the Government of Tanzania, the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), the National Sports Council (NSC) and other football stakeholders for their continued cooperation and confidence in the academy’s youth development program.

Founded to identify and nurture football talent among children and young people across the country, OTFA believes sport is an important tool for promoting discipline, education and creating opportunities for the next generation.

The academy said its mission extends beyond football, revealing that more than 95 percent of its players come from disadvantaged and low-income families.

Through sponsorship, professional coaching and mentorship, the academy aims to ensure that financial hardship does not prevent talented youngsters from pursuing their dreams.

Officials described the success in Sweden and Denmark as evidence that long-term investment in youth football can produce tangible results while raising Tanzania’s profile internationally.

The academy pledged to continue working with the government, sponsors, the private sector and other stakeholders to expand opportunities for young players and strengthen talent development program across the country.

It also called on institutions, companies and individuals to invest more in youth sports, arguing that supporting young athletes is an investment in Tanzania’s future.

OTFA concluded by thanking Tanzanians for their prayers, encouragement and messages of support throughout the tournaments, saying the achievements belong not only to the academy but to the entire nation.

The historic performances in Europe are expected to inspire more young Tanzanians to pursue football while demonstrating that the country has the potential to produce players capable of succeeding on the global stage.