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| President John Magufuli who has not been in public for 18 days. |
- UPDATE: PRESIDENT MAGUFULI IS DEAD -
ON THE EVENING OF 17TH, MARCH, 2021 TANZANIAN VP SAMIA SULUHU ANNOUNCED ON STATE TV, TBC, THAT PRESIDENT MAGUFULI HAD SUCCUMBED TO A HEART CONDITION. TANZANIA WILL OBSERVE 14 DAYS OF NATIONAL MOURNING WITH FLAGS FLYING AT HALF MAST. THE VP HAS ALREADY ASSUMED THE PRESIDENCY, ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA.
The fall of a tyrant anywhere in the world is always shrouded by an aura of mystery, uncertainties, political infightings and endless rumours that arise from the concerned government's unwillingness to tell their citizenry the truth.
A case in point is the demise of the late Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez who served as president of the Latin America country from 1999 until his death in 2013 (official).
Chavez's real date of death is, however, still disputed to this point with some of his then close allies indicating otherwise. For instance, after defecting from Venezuela, former bodyguard for Chávez, Leamsy Salazar, stated that he died in December 2012, nearly three months before the 5 March 2013 date was officially announced.
In July 2018, former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz also said that Chávez had actually died in December 2012 and the announcement of his death was delayed for political reasons.
In an interview cited by Venezuela's daily, El Nacional, Diáz said that the Venezuelan president died on 28 December 2012, but his closest allies decided to delay the announcement and never submitted the death certificate to the Office of the Attorney General.
This script could be the one playing eight years later in the vast East African nation of Tanzania where her tyrannical president and vocal COVID-19 denier, John Pombe Magufuli, has uncharacteristically been missing in action for 18 days now.
John Magufuli at a Glance
- Born in Chato, north-west Tanzania, in 1959
- Studied chemistry and maths at the University of Dar es Salaam
- Worked as a chemistry and maths teacher
- First elected as an MP in 1995
- Became a cabinet minister in 2000
- First elected president in 2015
- Won second term in 2020
- Died: March 2021
The regime in Tanzania has consequently made it almost treasonous to question about the president's whereabouts with those who dare do it, getting arrested right, left and centre.
But as Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham writes on the African Report Journal, the regime in Dar es Salaam is just buying time.
"I think whatever happens ... it is clearly true the regime is trying to buy time. And it only really makes sense that the regime is trying to buy time if the president is very ill, incapacitated, or dead," Cheeseman writes.
This reality could not have been clearer than on Monday when the Tanzanian vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan dropped a possible hint on what could have befallen Magufuli, though without naming him.
"Our country is now full of rumours from outside but that should be ignored... It's quite normal for a person to contract flu, fever or any other disease. If there's need for us to remain united, the time is now," Suluhu said during a public event aired live by State broadcaster, TBC.
But reading in between the lines of Suluhu's statement, one can clearly tell that there is truly more than meets the eye. It is a public secret in Tanzania and beyond that a sizeable number of hardliners within the ruling CCM party are strongly opposed to Suluhu's presidency should Magufuli be unable to resume duty for whatever reasons.
Meanwhile, the Magufuli mystery continues to be demystified by the exiled Tanzanian opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, whom on Tuesday through a series of tweets just fell short of declaring that the curtains had finally come down on the country's fifth CIC.
