Authoritarian president denied Covid-19, urging prayers rather than face masks
John Magufuli, who has died aged 61, presided over an increasingly authoritarian regime as president of Tanzania and, during the final year of his rule, rejected scientific evidence on the coronavirus pandemic, urging his citizens to raise their voices in prayer rather than cover their faces with masks.
His vice-president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, cited ‘‘heart complications’’ as the cause of his death, in hospital in Dar es Salaam. There had been earlier unconfirmed reports from opposition leaders that he had been hospitalised in Nairobi for Covid-19. He was last seen in public on February 27.
As a first-time presidential candidate in
2015, Magufuli was the unexpected choice of the
CCM party (also known as the Revolutionary Party), which had controlled Tanzanian politics for decades. After taking office, he cracked down on government fraud, eliminating thousands of non-existent ‘‘ghost workers’’ from the payrolls and showing up at various agencies, asking employees to justify their jobs. He sometimes fired public officials on live television.
The economy of the country of 60 million people is built on tourism, and exports of gold and agricultural products. Magufuli demanded that foreign companies pay higher taxes, and launched ambitious efforts to build dams, roads, railways and football stadiums.
After an initial surge in popularity, he faced a backlash against his repressive tactics, often carried out by a nationwide network of security officials. He shut down newspapers and television stations. Musicians performing songs critical of the regime were tortured.
Magufuli’s detractors were sometimes charged with sedition, ‘‘immorality’’ or ‘‘insulting’’ the president. Some were killed or forced into exile, and mutilated bodies began to wash ashore near Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city. In 2017, Tundu Lissu, an opposition leader, moved to Belgium after he was shot 16 times.
‘‘For people who have known Tanzania for the past few decades, this is not the country they associated with peace and security,’’ journalist Ansbert Ngurumo wrote in 2018, a year after fleeing the country because of death threats. ‘‘People are in the grip of terror because of Magufuli. He tolerates no criticism. He rules with an iron fist and has turned the country into a police state.’’
Magufuli’s conservative brand of Catholicism became increasingly doctrinaire as he adopted a hard-line stance against Tanzania’s LGBTQ community. He banned female contraceptives, and ordered that pregnant girls be expelled from schools.
His religious views helped shape his Covid19 response. From the beginning, he suggested the virus posed little risk, that medical experts could not be trusted, and that economic health was the paramount concern.
He mocked social distancing and the wearing of masks, and fired government health officials if they disagreed. He advocated steam baths and folk remedies. Above all, he called for prayer.
When Covid testing began, he insisted that animals, plants and even motor oil be tested, to see if false positive results could be obtained. On a single day in May 2020, more than 50 truck drivers crossing the border into Kenya tested positive.
That month, the government stopped reporting Covid statistics to the World Health Organisation. The numbers remained frozen at 509 infections and 21 deaths, prompting Magufuli to declare the pandemic ‘‘absolutely finished’’ in Tanzania.
In early 2021, having recently been reelected with 84 per cent of the vote, Magufuli began to relent on the wearing of masks, yet he never appeared in public with one himself. He warned his country against vaccination.
‘‘If the white man was able to come up with vaccinations, he should have found a vaccination for Aids by now,’’ he said in January. ‘‘He would have found a vaccination for tuberculosis by now. He would have found a vaccination for malaria by now. He would have found a vaccination for cancer by now.’’
Businesses, restaurants and nightclubs stayed open even as the growing death toll in Tanzania could no longer be denied. Even as senior government officials fell ill and died, Magufuli ignored pleas from international agencies to provide accurate figures. Journalists discovered that hospitals were overflowing, medical equipment was in short supply, and churches and mosques were holding funerals in record numbers.
John Pombe Joseph Magufuli was born in what was then British-ruled Tanganyika. His parents were farmers. He graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1988, and reputedly received masters and doctoral degrees in chemistry. A political dissident who questioned his academic credentials disappeared in 2016.
Magufuli, who was married with three children, made one of his final public appearances in late February at a church in Dar es Salaam. He asked his people to engage in three days of prayer to overcome a ‘‘respiratory disease’’, which he did not name. ‘‘Maybe we have wronged God somewhere,’’ he said. ‘‘Let us all repent.’’ –