Edward Sokoine

Infobox Prime Minister
name=Edward Moringe Sokoine


order=2nd Prime Minister of Tanzania
term_start=February 13, 1977
term_end=November 7, 1980
president=Julius Nyerere
predecessor=Rashidi Kawawa
successor=Cleopa David Msuya
birth_date=1938
birth_place=Arusha, Tanzania
death_date=1984
party=Chama cha Mapinduzi

Edward Moringe Sokoine (1938 - 1984) was Prime Minister of Tanzania from 13 February 1977 to 7 November 1980 and again from 24 February 1983 to 12 April 1984.

Edward Moringe Sokoine had a developmental conception of the village. Sokoine saw the village as a harbinger of self-reliant, national development and the peasant (a rich peasant?) as an agency of change. He was a person of unimpeachable personal integrity, which endeared him to the masses and strengthened him against pressures from local reactionary and foreign imperialist forces.

Life and career

In 1938, Sokoine was born in Monduli, Tanzania. From 1948 to 1958, he had his Primary and Secondary Education in the towns of Monduli and Umbwe. In 1961, he joined the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), after he took studies in administration in the Federal Republic of Germany (1962-1963). When he returned from Germany, he became District Executive Officer of the Masai District, then he was elected to the National Assembly for the Masai Constituency. In 1967 he became Deputy Minister of Communication, Transportation and Labour. The next step in his career was the promotion to the Minister of State in 1970. In 1972, he switched to the post of the Minister of Defence and National Service of Tanzania. In 1975, he was elected to the National Assembly again, this time for Monduli. Two years later, he became member of the Central Committee of the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). In the same year (1977) began his first term in office as Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania. This term lasted till 1981. After a year-long break, he became Prime Minister again in 1983. This time, he stayed just one year in office, because in April 1984, he died in a car accident.

There is a university in Morogoro, Tanzania, named after him.Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) began in 1964 as an agricultural college offering diploma in agriculture. It was elevated to a faculty of agriculture in 1969 under the University of Dar es Salaam.