Ukaidi wa Magufuli: How Tanzania President poses Covid-19 risk to EAC states

On Wednesday April 15, Health minister Ummy Mwalimu had announced 29 more cases, which were reportedly tested on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“You have noticed we have announced a huge number now but we have decided to tell the truth because Tanzanians must now understand we are facing a serious challenge,” Mwalimu said.

But even as these numbers skyrocket, defiant Tanzanian President Pombe Magufuli, nicknamed the Bulldozer due to his dictatorship, insists religious groupings will continue, and he will not order a lockdown.

“Business will continue as usual because we (Tanzanians) belong to God,” he told a church service on Sunday.

In fact, he on April 16 announced a three-day praying period to save Tanzania from the coronavirus global pandemic.

“Ndugu zangu Watanzania, kutokana na ugonjwa wa Corona, nawaomba tutumie siku 3 za kuanzia tarehe 17- 19 Aprili, 2020 {Ijumaa, Jumamosi na Jumapili} KUMUOMBA MWENYEZI MUNGU aliye muweza wa yote atuepushe na janga la ugonjwa huu. Tusali kwa kila mmoja kwa imani yake, atatusikia (My fellow Tanzanians, I am requesting you  to spend the next three days from April 17-19, 2020 (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) Praying for the Almighty God to save us from the tragedy of this disease. Pray for each one of his faith, he will hear us).” Magufuli tweeted.

In the neighbouring East African country, Kenya, the leading national television Citizen TV is running a one-week apology for running a story headlined “Ukaidi wa Magufuli” (Magufuli Stubbornness),

The story reviewed how Magufuli, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi politician who took power in 2015, has defied basic measures to contain the spread of the deadly Covid-19 disease.

The apology reads, “Citizen TV would like to clarify that these words, Ukaidi wa Magufuli, were not used with the intention of misleading viewers on Magufuli’s stance or that of the Republic of Tanzania in the fight against the pandemic.”

This, according to sources from the station, was after a protest from Magufuli through the country’s High Commissioner to Nairobi Pindi H Chana, with reports indicating Citizen TV, which is popular in Northern Tanzania, was switched off.

“Things are really tense here, and it is even worse than that apology,” a senior editor at the media house told The Brief in confidence.

GATHERINGS AND CORONAVIRUS SPREAD

Without doubt and as the World Health Organization has stated, social gatherings are fertile grounds for the transmission of the novel coronavirus. And there are experiences that prove this.

In France, for instance, around 2,500 coronavirus cases have been linked to a gathering at the Christian Open Door church on February 18.

In a special report by Reuters , some of the worshippers travelled thousands of miles to take part in the week-long gathering in Mulhouse, a city of 100,000 people on France’s borders with Germany and Switzerland.

“Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers,” Reuters said in the March 30 report.

Weeks later, Germany partially closed its border with France, suspending a free-movement pact that has been in place for the past 25 years. The church cluster was a key factor, Reuters said.

Church officials told Reuters that 17 members of the congregation have since died with coronavirus.

It is not only in France.

A large church in South Korea – Christian Open Door congregation – reportedly triggered more than 5,000 cases there.

This clearly demonstrates churches are a dangerous breading ground for this virus, and if this continues, Kenya, a neighbour, among others in the region might be infected as, according to the EAC Secretariat, the free movement of goods and services among member states has been maintained.

Already,  a Tanzanian truck driver aged 34 tested positive  in Uganda after he got in through the Mutukula border. He had driven from  Dar es Salaam. 

In a statement on April 14, the Secretariat further directed member states to  ” … vehemently continue to implement the measures that prevent and contain the spread of the disease.”

Allowing church gatherings does not live up to this call.

A pro-government Kenyan legislator has said Kenya has every reason to worry.

“The apology by Citizen TV to Rais Pombe Magufuli is meant to scare the media from reporting the true situation in Tanzania. We have every reason to be worried as a neighbour,”Ainabkoi MP William Chepkut said.