The President of Tanzania, John Pombe Magufuli, died yesterday in a hospital in Dar es Salaam from heart complications. He had a pacemaker. This was announced on TV by Vice President Suluhu Samia Hassan who, as the Constitution wants, will become the next president: the first female leader in the history of the East African country. The man who denied the Covid threat until a month ago, refusing the vaccines of the international Covax program, which invited the population to go to places of worship to pray and chase away “the devil of the pandemic”, who is convinced that the virus was a bluff after testing a goat and a mango, did not survive a heart attack at 61.
This is what the Tanzanian authorities have declared. But credible sources, well hidden for fear of retaliation, gave him dead already a week ago from complications due to Covid. The most widely read forum in the country published a photo of the president with three of his ministers, from some time ago, with the words: “All dead”. The official John Magufuli was missing.
The denier president, nicknamed the bulldozer, had been missing from the public eye for two weeks. An unprecedented fact. After an avalanche of tweets and posts on social media about his alleged transfer to India or Germany to cure himself of Covid, the government intervened to reassure: “The president is in great shape and is dealing with very important state issues”, his spokesman said three days ago. The vice president two days ago was more cautious: «The leaders get sick. We may also have some colds ».
And while the government tried to hide the seriousness of his condition, and perhaps even his death, the police arrested all those who were speculating on his health on social networks. In the North, a phone card salesman was arrested only because he wrote on Facebook that the president was ill. “The dictator has been missing for two weeks and we all know that he is seriously ill, or dead. Instead of providing clear evidence that he is fine and alive, they are arresting innocent people who want to know the truth, ”was the complaint a few days ago by opposition leader Tundu Lissu from Belgium.
The bulldozer president has not made himself liked in 5 years in power. He silenced the press, introduced the law against cyberterrorism and arrested his critics. And he pushed the Tanzanians not to wear masks and to gather in churches. Unsurprisingly, there are no expressions of pain on social media. The vice president announced 14 days of national mourning. Bizarre timing: for two days, images of police and army trucks in Dar es Salaam have been circulating on social networks. Those that are seen only in the days of the official parades.
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