Tanzanian President, John Magufuli has died at the age of 61 from a heart condition. The Vice President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, said this in an address on state television on Wednesday. The news of his death broke out after days of uncertainty over his health and whereabout.
According to the Vice President, “It is with deep regret that I inform you that today on the 17th of March, 2021 at 6 pm we lost our brave leader, the President of the Republic of Tanzania, John Pombe Magufuli.”
Hassan said Magufuli died of a “heart condition”, which he has suffered for a decade, at a hospital in Dar es Salaam.
She said that the President was first briefly admitted to the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute on March 6, but was subsequently discharged.
She added that Magufuli felt unwell after that and was on March 14 rushed to the hospital again.
The confirmation of the President’s death came after weeks of uncertainty and wild rumor over his absence. He was last seen publicly on February 27, 2020.
Opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, had raised questions concerning his health, citing sources that the President is suffering from COVID-19.
Magufuli was first elected in 2015 and re-elected in a disputed poll last year. He had for month, insisted that the virus no longer exist in Tanzania, and had been fenced off by prayer.
The President had refused to use face-mask or adhere to 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.
