In 1975, an article by the writer Euphrase Kezilahabi was published in the journal Kiswahili condemning the proliferation of the Swahili detective novel. Kezilahabi's main problem with the authors of this genre is that they do not face the problems of Tanzanian society but hide behind the formalism of an abstract investigation. For Kezilahabi this explains why their texts are not very substantial and do not stand up over time:

Kezilahabi's anxiety comes from his commitment to an aesthetics of fiction that takes social problems seriously. The huge social project of Ujamaa is entirely separate from the themes of the detective fiction of the same period. The playwright Ebrahim Hussein also categorically condemns the crime genre as an artificial import which is totally inadequate for any real account of Tanzania's political and social problems (Hussein, 1971). Likewise P. S. Binali concludes his highly critical review of two detective novels by Mohamed Said Abdulla with this comment: ‘All in all, all human beings have flaws and there is no human being who can be good through and through’ (Binali, 1973).