Report on Citizenship Law: Tanzania being in possession of multiple passports122. The TCA was, in a way, the government’s response to the growing opposition to its inclusive policies, thus endorsing the restrictions on acquisition of citizenship, dual citizenship and immigration123. The Immigration Act, passed at about the same time contained further restrictions on issuance of work and residence permits to foreigners124. Yet, the new citizenship law was not targeted at only foreigners, but was also later used to disqualify some politicians and revoke their citizenship status which they had either acquired through registration or naturalisation under the previous law. Four prominent politicians were embroiled in contested citizenship status. For some politicians who had been born in Tanzania the government argued that they were disqualified as citizens under the TCA since their parents had not acquired citizenship, while one was alleged not to have been born in Tanzania but in Burundi125. In yet another case, a prominent journalist critical of government and outspoken on corruption had his citizenship revoked by the minister on the grounds that he had failed to prove his parents’ citizenship 126. Hence the changes witnessed in the new citizenship law are very much reflection of the political, economic, social, and the real or perceived nationalistic sentiments that were happening in 1990s Tanzania. 4. Status of Ethnic Minorities 4.1 Pre-independence migrants During the colonial period, there was massive recruitment of labour from Mozambique (under Portuguese leadership), Ruanda-Urundi and Congo (under Belgian leadership), and to a lesser extent from Kenya and Uganda, to work on Tanganyikan plantations. These migrants did not automatically become Tanganyikan on independence. Even if they came from two generations born in Tanganyika, those originating from Mozambique or the Belgian territories were not British protected persons that qualified for Tanganyikan citizenship. Migrants from British territories born in the country would have been eligible for registration as a citizen127, and from 1962 the law also provided for those originating from certain other African nonCommonwealth countries (those where liberation struggles were underway) to register as Tanganyikan128. 122 R Aminzade (2013b), ‘The Dialectic of Nation Building in Postcolonial Tanzania’, The Sociological Quarterly Vol. 54 (3), p. 353-54. 123 Aminzade (2013a), supra note 5, p. 302. 124 The Immigration Act, No. 7 of 1995, sections 15 (6), 18-22 125 These included Arcado Ntagazwa, a prominent politician and Member of Parliament; Azim Premji, among others. Some of these politicians later had their citizenship re-granted. Aminzade (2013a), supra note 5, p.304. For Ntagazwa’s case there was a court case Arcado Ntagazwa v Buyogera Bunyambo [1997] TZCA 21; (26 August 1997); 1997 TLR 242 (TZCA); the trial court nullified the election of Mr Ntagazwa on the ground that he was not a Tanzanian but a citizen of Burundi. The Appellate court however did not delve into the subject matter of this appeal as it declared the decision of the court null and void on a preliminary objection. 126 Africa News Service, ‘Tanzania: Gov turns down journo’s application for naturalisation’ 15 February 2002 available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/tanzania-gov-turns-down-journos-application-for-naturalisation/ accessed on 7 December 2019. 127 Tanganyika Citizenship Act, 1961, Section 2. 128 Tanganyika Citizenship Ordinance Amendment Act No. 69 of 1962. 18 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/6- © 2020 Author(s)