The 61-year-old leader nicknamed “the bulldozer” has died of heart failure, after weeks of speculation he was infected with COVID-19. Many will remember him for his controversial handling of the pandemic in Tanzania.
Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli has died at the age of 61, the government announced on Wednesday.
Announcing his death in a live television address, Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan said Magufuli had died of a heart condition.
Speculation had been rife about his possible infection with the coronavirus. He had not been seen in public since the end of February.
“Our beloved president passed on at 6 p.m. this evening,” said Suluhu. “All flags will be flown at half-mast for 14 days. It is sad news. The president has had this illness for the past 10 years.”
She added that the late president died at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city.
Following the announcement of his death, opposition leader Zitto Kabwe said he’d spoken with the vice president to offer his condolences.
“The nation will remember him for his contribution to the development of our country,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter.
COVID skeptic
Since the pandemic was declared in March 2020, Magufuli had downplayed the severity of the virus.
At one point, he made fun of the country’s coronavirus testing facilities, saying he had secretly sent samples of papaya and goat and that they came out positive.
Though he never provided proof of that claim, he warned that those results could mean that people were getting false positive results.
Shortly afterward, Tanzania stopped sharing updates on the number of people infected and killed due to COVID-19.
The country’s last coronavirus figures were given in May last year. At that time, 509 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus and 29 had died.