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Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli died yesterday in a Dar es Salaam hospital of heart complications. He had a pacemaker. This was announced on television by Vice President Suluhu Samia Hassan, who, as the Constitution wants, will become the next president: the first woman leader in the history of the East African country. The man who denied the threat of Covid until a month ago, rejecting the vaccines of the international Covax program, which invited the population to go to places of worship to pray and drive away the “devil of the pandemic”, who is convinced that the virus It was a bluff after trying a goat and a mango, did not survive a heart attack at 61 years.
This is what the Tanzanian authorities have stated. But credible sources, well hidden for fear of retaliation, gave him dead a week ago due to 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.” Official John Magufuli was missing.
The denier president, nicknamed the bulldozer, had been absent from the public eye for two weeks. An unprecedented fact. After an avalanche of tweets and posts on social media about his alleged move to India or Germany to heal from Covid, the government intervened to reassure: “The president is in very good shape and is dealing with very important state issues,” he said your spokesperson. three days ago. The vice president two days ago was more cautious: “The leaders get sick. We can also have some colds.
And while the government tried to hide the seriousness of his condition, and perhaps even his death, the police detained everyone who speculated about his health on social media. In the north, a calling card salesman was arrested just 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 proof that he is fine and alive, they are arresting innocent people who want to know the truth, ”was the complaint a few days ago from the opposition leader Tundu Lissu of Belgium.
The president of the excavator has not endeared himself in 5 years in power. He silenced the press, introduced the law against cyberterrorism and arrested his critics. And he pressured Tanzanians not to wear masks and meet in churches. Unsurprisingly, there are no expressions of pain on social media. The vice president announced 14 days of national mourning. Strange moment: images of policemen and army trucks in Dar es Salaam have been circulating on social media for two days. Those that are seen only on the days of the official parades.
