President John Magufuli has frustrated the World Health Organization during the pandemic by playing down the threat from COVID-19. Photo Reuters

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli is in good health and working normally, two officials said, after reports he flew abroad in critical condition with COVID-19.

Magufuli, 61, is Africa’s most prominent coronavirus sceptic. He has not been seen in public since February 27.

Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who left for Belgium after disputing his election defeat to Magufuli last year, has said the president was flown to the private Nairobi Hospital in neighbouring Kenya and then to India in a coma.

However, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa denied that, blaming the narrative on “hateful” Tanzanians living abroad.

“Tanzanians should be at peace. Your president is around, healthy, working hard,” he said in a speech after Friday prayers in the southern Njobe region. “To spread rumours that he is sick is just an outcome of hate.”

Magufuli was busy at work indoors reviewing files, Majaliwa said, adding that he spoke to him by phone on Friday morning. “I have decided to say this to give hope to Tanzanians that our president is around,” he said. “If he were sick, would I talk to him on the phone? He sent his greetings to you.”

The prime minister’s remarks, along with similar comments from Tanzania’s ambassador in Namibia, Modestus Kipilimba, were the first official reactions since concerns surfaced at the start of this week.

“He’s OK, he’s going on with his job,” Kipilimba told Namibia’s state broadcaster NBC. Neither NBC nor Tanzania’s state broadcaster showed video of Magufuli in their reports.

Tanzania’s information minister and justice minister have this week threatened those spreading rumours with jail time, without directly addressing the concerns.

The main opposition party Chadema on Friday called for an explanation on where the president is.

“We urge the government to come out publicly and say where is the president and what is his condition?” Chadema secretary-general John Mnyika told reporters in Dar-es-Salaam before the prime minister’s comments.

‘The bulldozer’

Kenya’s Nation newspaper had on Wednesday cited unidentified political and diplomatic sources saying that an African leader, which it did not name, was being treated for COVID-19 on a ventilator at Nairobi Hospital. The hospital has not commented.

According to the constitution, 61-year-old Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan would take over for the rest of the five-year term should the president be unable to carry out his duties.

Nicknamed “The Bulldozer”, Magufuli has frustrated the World Health Organization (WHO) during the pandemic by playing down the threat from COVID-19, saying remedies such as steam inhalation would protect Tanzanians.

The former chemistry teacher has mocked coronavirus tests, denounced vaccines as part of a Western conspiracy to take Africa’s wealth, and opposed mask-wearing and social distancing.

He also insisted for months that COVID-19 had been fended off by prayer, refusing measures such as masks and lockdowns. But last month he conceded it was still circulating after the vice president of semi-autonomous Zanzibar was revealed to have died of the virus.

He also changed his position and encouraged those who wanted to wear masks to do so.

“The government has not forbidden mask-wearing. But we have to be careful about which masks we wear. We will perish. Don’t think we’re loved so much. Economic war is bad,” Magufuli told a congregation at a church service in Dar-es-Salaam last month.

He advised Tanzanians to either make the masks themselves or use those produced locally.

Several Tanzanian officials have died recently, while the finance minister appeared last month coughing and gasping at a news conference outside a hospital to dispel rumours he had died of COVID-19.

Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus data in May last year when it had reported 509 cases and 21 deaths, according to the WHO, which has urged the government to be more transparent. - Al Jazeera

Former Somalia President Ali Mahdi Muhammad has died in Nairobi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Information Isamel Mukhtaar Omar has confirmed.  

The 82-year-old ex-president died on Wednesday night at the Nairobi Hospital.

Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo has announced the lowering of the Republic flag for three days to mourn the death of the former President and the appointment of a National Funeral Committee for the deceased.

Ali Mahdi Mohamed was the fourth president of Somalia. He came to power on January 26, 1991, and served until January 1997. 

President Ali was born in the Mahaday District of the Middle Shabelle region in 1939 and became a member of parliament in 1968.

In 1969 he joined the civilian parliament before the military coup.

He was also a businessman before he was elected president of Somalia in 1991 when the military government was overthrown. Standard

Women and girls walk back after getting food in Bentiu, a 38-kilometer journey, using a path through the bush for fear of being attacked on the main road, near Nhialdu in South Sudan. Rape has been used widely as a weapon in South Sudan. Photo AP

BOR, SOUTH SUDAN - A South Sudanese man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a minor, a rare example of a rape conviction in the African country.

Rapes and sexual assault are vastly underreported in South Sudan, and very few perpetrators are punished for their crimes, although the conviction of two soldiers last year who raped a woman in the town of Yei has raised hope for activists.

While announcing the verdict Thursday in the Jonglei state capital, Bor, Judge John Yel ordered convicted rapist Magai Manyang to also pay five cows to the victim’s family as compensation, in line with Dinka customary law.

"The convict will pay five heads of cattle as compensation for the victim or its equivalence on the day of execution,” said Yel.

Prosecuting attorney Manyang Ngueny welcomed the ruling, saying justice had prevailed.

“I agree with the judgment pronounced today by the president of the High Court,” Ngueny told South Sudan in Focus. “Judgment has to be pronounced in accordance with the crime actually committed.”

Manyang, who proclaimed his innocence, said he would appeal the verdict in Juba’s Court of Appeals within 15 days, as allowed by the court.

“This thing that is alleged I have done hasn’t happened,” Nanyang told South Sudan in Focus. “The girl escaped from UNMISS [U.N. Mission in South Sudan] camp and came to my home. I was absent during that time. When I came and found her at home, I asked who she is and my wife told me she was her relative, and I then didn’t bother to send her away.”

He said the victim “made up such allegations and her relatives want to force me to marry her.”

Strong message

David Garang of the Jonglei Civil Society Network praised Manyang’s sentencing, saying it sent a strong message to men who abuse women.

“There are a lot of gender-based violence cases happening in Jonglei state but most of them are not reported, so this one will be a lesson to scare the perpetrators,” Garang told South Sudan in Focus.

Garang urged state authorities and NGOs to sensitize citizens about sexual violence so that such cases are reported, adding that all South Sudanese who commit violence against women or children should be arrested, tried and sent to prison. - Deng Ghai Deng, Voice of America