TANZANIA′S COVID-SKEPTIC PRESIDENT JOHN MAGUFULI DIES AGED 61

Wed 17 March 2021:

In a televised address to the nation late on Wednesday, Vice President Samia Suluhu said the 61-year-old president had died of a “heart condition”, which he has suffered for a decade, at a hospital in Dar-Es-Salaam.

Magufuli had first been briefly admitted to the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute on March 6, but was subsequently discharged, Hassan said. But he was rushed to hospital again on March 14 after feeling unwell.

“It is with great regret that I inform you that today, 17 March 2021, at 18:00, we have lost our courageous leader, President John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania,” said Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania Vice President.

After the death was announced, opposition leader Zitto Kabwe said he had spoken to Hassan to offer condolences for Magufuli’s death. “The nation will remember him for his contribution to the development of our country,” Kabwe said in a statement published on Twitter.

Hassan said that Magufuli was hospitalized on March 6 at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute.

This comes after weeks of speculation on his whereabouts with the suspicion that he had been hospitalized for Covid-19.

Magufuli had long downplayed the severity of COVID-19, urging Tanzanians to pray, use steam inhalation and embrace local remedies to protect themselves from the respiratory disease.

Tanzania stopped releasing infection numbers in April 2020, weeks before Magufuli declared the country coronavirus-free in June through divine intervention.

He refused to wear a face-mask or take lockdown measures. But a week before he was last seen, Magufuli conceded the virus was still circulating, after the vice president of semi-autonomous Zanzibar was revealed to have died of COVID-19.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has not been seen in public for 18 days and rumours have spread that he was ill.

The speculation had led to several arrests, as the government sought to contain the rumours.

There has been speculation and rumours flying on social media that the 61-year-old president may have contracted coronavirus and been airlifted to a Kenyan hospital for treatment then flown to India a day later.

Tanzania’s main opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who is exiled in Belgium, said, citing sources that Magufuli was gravely ill from Covid-19, exacerbated by underlying health conditions.

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