Museveni mourns Tanzania’s Magufuli: He was a ‘pragmatic African leader’

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has labeled John Magufuli a great Pragmatic African leader as he joined the whole world to mourn the death of Tanzania’s president.

“I have, with great sadness, learnt of the death of His Excellency John Pombe Magufuli,” Mr Museveni tweeted Thursday morning.

“We join Tanzania in mourning the passing of a great son of Africa,” he said.

Mr Museveni eulogized Magufuli as a “pragmatic leader who believed in and worked for the economic empowerment of East Africans.”

Magufuli, whose death announced by Vice President Hassan Samia Suhulu, becomes the second East African president to die within less than a year, the other being the late Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi.

Magufuli, 61, a man with a double edged legacy that has severally bred divided global opinion was pronounced dead late Wednesday with his death occasioned by a ‘heart condition’ called chronic atrial fibrillation, according to authorities.

His demise comes nearly a year after then Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza died last year on June 8.

Magufuli had last been seen in public late February- sparking demands for information on his whereabouts, all as Tanzanians speculated that he had contracted Covid-19, a viral disease he quite downplayed.

Vice President, Samia Suluhu Hassan will after taking oath within 24 hours, at least until 2025 in accordance with the Tanzanian constitution assume presidency, becoming the first female president in both Tanzania and the EAC regional bloc.