| Intro | Tanzanian politician |
| Was | Civil servant |
| From | Tanzania |
| Type | Politics |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | 1926, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
| Death |
5 November 2000 (aged 74 years) |
| Politics | Tanganyika African National Union |
Bibi Titi Mohammed (June 1926 – June 5, 2000) was a Tanzanian politician of Muslim descent. She was born in June 1926 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She considered herself a freedom fighter that was good friends with the first President of Tanzania Julius Nyerere. Bibi Titi Mohammed was a member of Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), the party that fought for the independence of Tanzania.
Biography
Early life
As she was growing up in the Matumbi tribe her father refused to send her to school because he feared she would lose her Muslim faith and after her father died her mother decided to send her to school because she saw the importance of an education for a young woman. Bibi Titi’s mother’s influence helped Bibi fight for women’s rights and helped her in her fight for independence.
Marriage and children
At age fourteen she married an older man and she divorced her first husband after bearing her first child, a daughter named Halima. Because of Bibi Titi’s ideals and her fight her daughter was not allowed to marry until she completed school. She married and divorced two more men.
Political Career
Bibi Titi Mohammad began her political career as the lead singer in a ngoma (a dance and music group) where she celebrated the birth of the prophet Mohammed during Maulidi. In the 1950s after World War II she started to get involved with the Nationalist movement in Tanzania and on July 7, 1954 TANU was started by Julius Nyerere.
In 1955, Mohammed became the chair of the Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT), which was the women’s branch of TANU. Within three months of her coming into the position she was able to enroll more than 5000 women into TANU and helped play a major roll in Tanzania’s fight for independence against British Colonial rule. Mohammed was able to bring the UWT’s ideas to the masses and also unified women against colonialism by giving them one voice.
Tanzania became an independent country in 1961 and her leadership also helped with the influence or writing the constitution in 1964 and she guaranteed a place for women in the Tanzanian government. Bibi was also known for her creation of the All African Women Conference and was the junior minister under the President Nyerere.
In 1965 Bibi Titi lost her parliamentary seat which began her loss of power. By 1967 she has resigned her position in the party’s central committee. She was protesting a provision in the Arusha Declaration. Which is Nyerere’s plan for African socialism, the plan banned all central committee members from renting properties. Because of most women’s lack of education the right to rent properties was one of the few things that will help them earn a stable income.
Arrest and detention
In 1969, because of the protests that Bibi Titi was seen as an instigator and was arrested, put on trial, and convicted of an alleged participation of a plot to take over Tanzanian government. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison her husband ashamed of her divorced her and left her alone to try to prove her innocence. After two years into her life sentence Nyerere commuted her sentence and she was released from prison.
Death and afterward
After Bibi Titi was released from prison she disappeared from the public life and lived the rest of her life in Johannesburg, South Africa. She died on November 5, 2000 in Johannesburg, South Africa at the age of 74.
Bibi Titi Mohammed’s legacy lives on in Tanzania. She played a pivotal role in education and women’s equality. She fought her government for what she believed in even when it got her in trouble.