NAIROBI, Kenya – When an unrecorded number of Tanzanians succumbed to the coronavirus, the country’s president consistently downplayed the pandemic, opposed protective measures, scoffed at vaccines and said God helped eradicate the virus.
Well, President John Magufuli’s unusually long absence from the public is fueling speculation that he himself is seriously ill with Covid-19 and is being treated outside of the country.
Rumors started buzzing this week after Tanzania’s leading opposition, Tundu Lissu, said Mr Magufuli was infected with the virus and was being treated at a hospital in neighboring Kenya. In a text message, Mr Lissu said he learned from “fairly authoritative sources” that the president was flown to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday evening and checked into Nairobi Hospital, one of the largest private facilities in the country.
On Tuesday, Mr Lissu asked the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the president, who has not appeared publicly for almost two weeks. On Wednesday, he said that Mr. Magufuli was rushed to a hospital in India to “avoid being embarrassed on social media” if “the worst happens in Kenya”.
Mr. Magufuli did not attend a virtual summit for leaders of the East African regional bloc on February 27 and was represented by Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
“The most powerful man in Tanzania is now sneaking around like an outlaw,” said Lissu in a Twitter post on Wednesday.
“His COVID denialism in ruins, his folly about prayer over science has turned into a deadly boomerang,” he said in another post on Thursday.
Comments from Mr. Lissu came after the Tanzanian human rights organization Fichua Tanzania said Mr Magufuli had left the country to seek treatment in Kenya.
With speculation on social media about his whereabouts and illness remaining widespread, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation also reported that an “African leader” had been admitted to the Nairobi hospital, citing diplomatic sources saying the The leader is “on a ventilator”.
While these and similar rumors about the president’s health were circulating, government officials defended President Magufuli and threatened to punish these circulating presumptions about his health.
Updated
March 11, 2021, 4:04 p.m. ET
“The head of state is not a TV presenter who had a show but didn’t show up,” said Mwigulu Nchemba, Minister for Legal and Constitutional Affairs, in a Twitter post. “The head of state is not the leader of jogging clubs that should be in the neighborhood every day.”
Information Minister Innocent Bashungwa warned the public and the media that using “rumors” as official information was against the country’s media laws.
From At the start of the pandemic a year ago, the 61-year-old Magufuli railed against masks and social distancing measures, advocated unproven cures as cures, and said the country “absolutely ended” the virus through prayer. Popularly known as “The Bulldozer”, Magufuli also questioned the effectiveness of vaccines, arguing that if the vaccines made by “The White Man” had been effective, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria would have been eradicated.
Under the leadership of Mr Magufuli, which began with his election in 2015, Tanzania, once a model of stability in the region, has slid towards autocracy and authorities cracked down on the press, opposition and right-wing groups. Mr Magufuli won a second five-year term last October in an election marked by allegations of widespread fraud and irregularities.
Mr Lissu, who was the main opposition candidate against Mr Magufuli, left the country to go into exile in Belgium, where he is staying.
As of last April, Tanzania has not disclosed any data on the coronavirus to the World Health Organization, reporting only 509 cases and 21 deaths from Covid 19. This lack of transparency has been widely condemned, including by WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Last May, the head of the national laboratory in Tanzania was suspended after Mr Magufuli questioned the effectiveness of the test kits supplied by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr Magufuli said the kits had shown positive results on samples secretly taken from a goat and a papaya fruit – allegations that have been rejected by the CDC in Africa and WHO
When lawmakers sounded the alarm over a spate of pneumonia deaths, health experts and foreign diplomats urged the government to take the pandemic seriously.
In January, the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, the former capital and largest city of Tanzania, warned of a “significant increase” in Covid-19 cases. The Roman Catholic Church has also urged the government to admit the truth of the virus and urged its parishioners to avoid large gatherings.
Tanzanian leaders like Seif Sharif Hamad, the first vice president of the semi-autonomous Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, have died after contracting the coronavirus. Shortly after it became known that Mr Hamad had succumbed to the virus last month, Treasury Secretary Philip Mpango appeared at a press conference in the Tanzanian capital, Dodoma, to deny rumors that he too had died. However, Mr. Mpango was not particularly comforting when, flanked by exposed doctors, he began to gasp violently and cough restlessly.
Finally, under pressure, in late February, Mr Magufuli changed course and asked people to wear masks and take advice from experts.
But it was not too late for Mr Lissu.
“It is a sad comment on his administration of our country that this has happened,” said Mr Lissu in a post on Twitter about the infection of Mr Magufuli, which is evidence that “prayers, steam inhalations and other unproven herbal mixtures are being used are.” Advocates are no protection against coronavirus! “
