Tanzanian President John Magufuli is dead, his deputy Samia Suluhu has
announced after weeks of uncertainty over his health and whereabouts.
In a televised address to the nation last night the vice president 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 on state
television. But he was rushed to hospital again on March 14 after feeling
unwell.
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.
According to Tanzania’s Constitution, Vice President Hassan, 61, should
assume the presidency for the remainder of the five-year term that Magufuli
began serving last year after winning a second term.
A vocal COVID-19 sceptic, Magufuli had last appeared in public on
February 27 and top government officials had denied that he was in ill health,
even as speculation swirled online that he was sick and possibly incapacitated
from illness.
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
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