WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT JOHN POMBE MAGUFULI

Former President John Pombe Magufuli breathed his last on Wednesday evening.

His death was an exclamation mark on the last few days, when he had been uncharacteristically out of the public eye. Speculation had been rife that he had contracted Covid-19 and, depending on who you listened to, he was already comatose, shuttling frenetically between Tanzania, Kenya and India to save his life or dead altogether.

The official version is that he died of cardiac arrest.

"In death as in life the man known as the bulldozer –  lovingly or with dread, sharply divided opinion....

Little known is that after his A-level he trained as a science teacher, before he upgraded to a degree and eventually earning in doctorate in chemistry in 2009.

He jumped into politics in 1995 and before he ascended to the presidency he served as transport and works minister, where he earned the moniker “The bulldozer”. His emphasis on infrastructure development as president was obviously influenced by his work in the ministry. Magufuli is credited with pushing projects such as the development of the Standard Gauge Railway, expansion of the Dar es Salaam port, the liquefied natural gas plant among others. His place in Uganda’s history is cemented if only because he was keen that the Hoima-Tanga oil pipeline get off the ground quickly. He openly expressed impatience with Ugandan bureaucracy, whose lackadaisical attitude he could not wrap his mind around, as he had almost absolute power to implement projects in his own country.

His urgency to develop Tanzania’s infrastructure however, contradicted his perceived skepticism about the East African Community, which while he signed up to all the protocols, his government actively discouraged exports from Kenya and Uganda and made working in Tanzania hostile for workers from the region, despite efforts to free the movement of labour around the EAC.

The last part was an understandable reaction from a country, which many years ago under Julius Nyerere took the step to have all their education carried out in Kiswahili. This has hobbled their workforce, making them uncompetitive against their English speaking counterparts in the region. This policy, while it ringfenced jobs for Tanzanian citizens, is unproductive in the long run as it will affect investment into the giant east African nation. The saving grace for Tanzania, maybe that it is so well endowed with natural resources they can write their own check—for now.

Magufuli was voted President of Tanzania in 2015 and quickly captured the public imagination with his campaign against runaway public spending and official corruption. He was not averse to making spot inspections of schools, hospitals and other public institutions, asking hard questions and firing officials on the spot when they waffled and whittled under his withering gaze. The public loved it. He was just the man to fire up Tanzania’s famously sleepy bureaucracy.

Through sheer force of character Magufuli got the public servants, some would say, to accomplish more in terms of public works, in his first term as president than was achieved under previous administrations.

Obviously he stepped on many toes along the way, especially entrenched interest groups that had enjoyed and profited from the status quo.

But the emperor had feet of clay.

Magufuli’s doggedness in trying to lift Tanzania up from the boot straps required an unwavering conviction in his own beliefs and that seemed to work for other things.

Last year the covid-19 pandemic broke out, sweeping from Asia into Europe and the Americas leaving a trail of illness and death in its wake.

As countries scrambled to contain the spread by instituting restrictions on travel and congregation, Magufuli emerged as one of the biggest denialists of the pandemic. He spurned the standard operating procedures promoted to slow the disease spread – washing hands, wearing masks, social distancing and rejected calls to lockdown his country. Tanzania stopped reporting the number of victims and deaths due to Covid-19 in April last year. He went further and declared that Tanzania was Covid-free when neighbouring countries were beginning to report an uptick of cases.  

It will remain a mystery how a scientist, albeit former seminarian, could ignore all the evidence about Covid-19 and choose a contrary path, but whose negative after effects will resound through Tanzania’s history.

Since the beginning of this year some high profile people have died of Covid, like Seif Sharif Hamad, Zanzibar’s first vice-president and it was becoming harder to sweep the situation under the carpet.

As one of his last public pronouncements at the end of February Magufuli conceded that there may be a problem and urged Tanzanians to wear masks, for him it may have been too little too late.