Last Updated on March 21, 2021
Tanzanian President John Magufuli, 61, a renowned skeptic of lockdowns and mass vaccination, was pronounced dead on Wednesday after disappearing for weeks.
John Magufuli was a socially conservative populist leader who was revered throughout Africa for his defense of traditional values on LGBTQ issues, his tough approach to slashing the bureaucracy, and his resistance to China.
In recent months, he became famous for being one of the few world leaders to refuse to introduce any lockdowns in his country. He later also stated that Tanzania would not be purchasing any vaccines, noting that sending Tanzanians overseas to procure vaccines only brought more coronavirus back to his country.
Magufuli initially drew international attention after he exposed that coronavirus test kits had been giving false positives for coronavirus when goats and pawpaw fruits were tested.
As the situation developed, Magufuli advocated prayer, steam inhalation and eating more fruits and vegetables as his key recommendations for Tanzania to overcome the “satanic” coronavirus pandemic. He described how his own son had recovered from coronavirus easily with “lemons and ginger”.
He also noted that Africa had problems with far more dangerous diseases than coronavirus, citing measles and HIV.
“We have had a number of viral diseases, including Aids and measles,” he said. “Our economy must come first. It must not sleep. If we allow our economy to sleep, we will not receive salaries … Life must go on.”
Since late February, Magufuli had disappeared from public view, prompting questions as to where he was. The Tanzanian government stated that his death was due to a heart condition, but opposition leaders have claimed without evidence that he died of coronavirus. His disappearance happened shortly after The Guardian declared that “it’s time for Africa to reign in Tanzania’s anti-vaxxer president.”
Magufuli is not the other African leader to have turned up dead after opposing globalist COVID policies. Last May, the national-populist Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza expelled World Health Organization (WHO) officials from his country after they attempted to interfere in the Burundian presidential elections by condemning Nkurunziza’s large rallies for not following social distancing guidelines.
Just a month later, Nkurunziza was also mysteriously found dead, at just 55 years of age. Just as with Magafuli, although he had died of a heart attack, his opponents claimed he had really died of coronavirus.