The National Youth Service

Immediately following the resolution of the January 1964 mutiny, Nyerere made a speech calling on TANU Youth League (TYL) members to enlist in a new army that would replace the suddenly defunct Tanganyika Rifles. A few weeks later, during the first parliamentary session after the mutiny, Nyerere brought parallel bills for the establishment of a national labor union, NUTA, and the rapid expansion of the nascent National Service, Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa (JKT), or literally, “The Army to Build the Nation.” The legislation allowed the president to mobilize the JKT for military service, but most JKT activities involved articulating Ujamaa into action domestically, communicating TANU's ideology through the modernist rituals of military drills directed toward rural development rather than combat.