Background
Aboud Jumbe was born on June 14, 1920 Juba, Anglo Egyptian Sudan.
Aboud Jumbe was born on June 14, 1920 Juba, Anglo Egyptian Sudan.
Educated at the Government School, Mnazimoja, in Zanzibar town and at Makerere University College between 1943 and 1945 where he took a diploma in education.
In 1953 he became leader of the Zanzibar National Union, not to be confused with the better known Zanzibar Nationalist Party, which was the chief rival to the Afro-Shirazi party. The ZNU attempted to link the Arabs and Africans together in a multi-racial movement, but it did not survive long in the rapidly sharpening Arab-African confrontation.
A series of elections heralded Zanzibar's independence and Aboud Jumbe resigned from government service and joined the Afro-Shirazi party in 1960 and was appointed a member of the Central Committee of the National Executive in 1961. In January he contested and won the Fuoni seat in the general elections, winning again in June 1961 and July 1963. Despite winning the majority of votes in both these last elections, it had far fewer votes and remained in frustrated opposition.
In 1962 and 1963 he attended constitutional talks in London as part of the ASP delegation under President Karume, but independence was given to the ZNP government on December 10, 1963.
After the revolution by John Okello on January 12, 1964, the political leaders soon assumed power and formed a Revolutionary Council. Jumbe was ranked fifth behind Karume and was assigned the Ministry of Health and Social Insurance. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar united on April 27, 1964, he became Minister of State in the Office of the First Vice-President (Sheikh Karume) and remained on Zanzibar island.
On April 11, 1972, with the assassination of Karume he was elected chairman of the Revolutionary Council, who is in effect leader of Zanzibar, and First Vice-President of Tanzania under the constitution. He made no sudden changes on his accession to power but gave indications of wanting closer union with the mainland while showing himself more willing to spend the island’s rich foreign exchange reserves on basic food imports for the people. He brought in a significant change when he made the government ministries departments of the Afro-Shirazi party, thus strengthening the party power still further.
Shrewd, level headed, fourteen years a teacher and a Makerere diploma holder; he enjoyed the greater part of his political career under Sheikh Karume who was assassinated on April 8, 1972. Though moderate, he was always No. 2 in the Afro-Shirazi rankings and closely identified with party policies. But shortly after his accession to power the signs came that he was rationalising the more idiosyncratic Karume policies, allowing, for example, increased imports of basic foodstuffs.