Those who have worked with Magufuli since he dumped the teaching profession to join politics say he was a deeply honest man. Magufuli was a man of his word. He promised and usually delivered. The late Magufuli was totally a different leader from both his mentors and those he mentored.
A devout Roman Catholic, he down played the severity of Covid-19 and instead urged Tanzanians to resort to prayer and herbal medicine. Magufuli’s love for his religion and, at the same, this continent was unquestionable.
Because he knew it that corruption was the reason Africans were poor and backward, Magufuli went to war with corrupt officials in Tanzania. Many who were found guilty (of looting Tanzania) are still behind bars as we mourn their tormentor, Magufuli.
In trying to clean the filthy and disorganized house Tanzania, Magufuli made countless enemies but at the same time became a revered citizen in Tanzania. It should be noted that the speech delivered by Magufuli during his first inauguration ceremony in 2015 inspired many. So many African leaders woke up and learnt very many lessons too.
In Uganda here, experts say, after listening to what Magufuli had to say during that moving speech, delivered in November 2015, president Museveni handlers urged him to raise his then inattentive hand against corrupt officials. The term from 2016-2021 was dubbed “Kisanja Akuna Mukyezo” by the Uganda government.
It is true that the then long-time African leaders who had slept while leading, for decades, woke up. Many corrupt government officials were threatened by what John Magufuli said when he was sworn in as the new president of Tanzania succeeding Jakaya Kikwete. They got born again. Some apologized to their bosses and, forever, changed.
Believe me on not, the corruption in Uganda today is not the corruption present here before Magufuli ascended from obscurity to prominence, in 2015. Africa, like Tanzania, needed Magufuli. We shall miss him. Being named Bulldozer because of the numerous magnificent roads he paved in Tanzania explains why Magufuli’s ability to act as promised woke up Africa.
In this country, after minding less for more than two decades, now superhighways and durable roads are being constructed all over the country. Magufuli!
Knowing that someone must be having a hidden agenda as to why he encourages women to practice family planning through the use of contraceptives, Magufuli had before his death urged Tanzanian women to “set their ovaries free”. He meant these women should produce as many children as possible.
According to John Pombe Magufuli, those who feared producing children were the lazy people who were afraid to work, to feed and educate the children they produced. He encouraged people on this continent to produce more children despite warnings from the international community that the continual swelling of this continent’s population was bad news, for the continent and entire world.
John Pombe Magufuli was among the lowest paid heads of state in the world. He discouraged unnecessary expenditures by the office of the president in Tanzania.
Magufuli once wondered why governments in Africa spent millions of money staging ceremonies to celebrate the days when they attained independence yet the citizens in the countries they served lay in hospitals with no medicine and dying from preventable illnesses like cholera.
Instead of sitting for hours celebrating independence with his fellow moneyed men and women, he went in the streets of Tanzania and swept them with a broom. Magufuli was an exemplary leader. He will be greatly missed indeed.
He constructed hospitals and equipped them instead. His country’s money was for all Tanzanians not for a small section of big-bellied men and women, with extremely visible bottoms.
Misunderstood by many, Pombe Magufuli looked and knew what uncensored social media would do to the people of Africa especially the youth. He arrested and imprisoned those who bullied him using their phones or computers.
In Tanzania if found guilty of computer misuse one could be imprisoned for more than 20 years. All intelligent men and women know that excessive use of social media by an African is worse than poverty itself.
Magufuli saw this before others, with such responsibility that he had. He is going to be eternally remembered for instilling discipline in Tanzanian people whom he found unaware of where to head. He gathered the lost sheep in Tanzania and made them focused once more. This is where Tanzania is now, on the right track.
A Tanzanian would not sing a song as he wished when Magufuli was president. Tanzanian ladies who skimpily dressed before the savior of the nation ascended to power are today true women of Africa who know that a woman’s private parts and thighs are a precious ‘commodity’ that should not be shown to everyone who wishes to have a look at them.
Samia Hassan Suluhu, though soft-spoken and a woman, was chosen as Magufuli’s running mate. Magufuli, unlike very many other African leaders, respected women.
Samia Suluhu, formerly a vice president, is now the newly sworn in president of Tanzania a country where in the past it would not surprise you if you found a man in a public office disrespecting a woman.
Magufuli will be remembered as a man who stood and spoke when others got afraid. No lie lives forever. The world will soon know who the real Magufuli was. According to the newly sworn-in president, the late president Magufuli succumbed to Atrial Fibrillation which he contracted more than ten years ago.
It must be true. Magufuli had Tanzania and Africa at heart. The scars and newly developing wounds on his heart became the reason why he who would later die at the age of 61 years. He loved the Dark Continent and his country Tanzania. Rest in Peace comrade, John Pombe Magufuli.
