Never forget President John Pombe Magufuli

By Jeremiah Kaniampiha

After days of speculation that Magufuli was ill with COVID-19, the country’s Prime Minister dispelled the rumors last week. Magufuli, who usually made weekly public appearances at Sunday church services, had not been seen since February 27, fueling reports that he was ill and was being treated abroad.

Kassim Majaliwa said he was surprised people were questioning the president’s whereabouts, adding that the leader was “fine and continuing with his daily activities,” as he spoke during a Friday prayer session at a mosque in the country’s Njombe region, according to state broadcaster Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation. Really? was Magufuli fine and continuing with with his daily activities? No. The president was not fine; and it has come out; he is dead!

Well, it is not right to say this while you are mourning Magufuli, but no amount of lamentations and praises will sanitize Magufuli, the butcher of Dar es Salaam who murdered many.

He had Chadema politician Godfrey Luena hacked to death with machetes, had a whole 38 bullets fired into Tundu Lissu’s (an opposition politician) car simply because the latter had a different opinion about governance (God has a very strong sense of humor that Lissu survived 16 bullets that hit his body and today is mourning Magufuli from Brussels where he is exiled).

Magufuli had journalist Azory Gwanda disappeared forever for simply reporting that there are terrorist sleeper cells in Tanzania, had activist Ben Saanane abducted and disappeared without a trace, had hundreds (if not thousands) of bodies of opposition youth wingers floating in River Rufiji and the Indian Ocean.

He had musicians abducted and tortured for criticizing him or his cronies, clawed back all the civil liberties granted by all his four predecessors in less than two years, had his critics flee to exile and rigged out all influential opposition politicians in last year’s elections.

His political orphans should let us mourn him quietly,  but you should not forget the pain that he caused to people. Genocidal leaders and their revisionist supporters don’t change the fact that they’re mass murderers.