Once a Chemistry Teacher Left as a Legend, RIP Magufuli
By: Ssegirinya Wilbrod
John Pombe Magufuli (the bulldozer ) was born on 29th October 1959 to a peasant farmer of Chato who used to rear cattle and selling of milk for family survival.
His poor background led him to many setbacks on his education, but as a determined student he managed to attend different institutions like Chato primary school from 1967 to 1974 and went on to the katooke seminary in Biharamulo for his secondary education from 1975_1977 before relocating to lake secondary school in 1977 and graduated in 1979.
He joined Mkwawa High school for for his advanced level studies in 1979 and graduated in 1981. In the same year he joined Mkwawa college of education for a diploma in education science.
Magufuli earned his bachelor of science in education degree majoring in chemistry and mathematics as teaching subjects from the University of Dares salaam in 1988.
He also earned the Masters and decorate degree in chemistry from the same University in 1994 and 2009 respectively.
After studies Magufuli started his life as a chemistry and mathematics teacher at sengerema secondary school between 1982 and 1983. Later on he quit his teaching job and was employed by the Nyanza cooperative union limited as an industrial chemist where he worked from 1989 to 1995 when he was elected as a mbet of parliament representing chato district.
In his first term as MP, he was appointed as deputy Minister for works.
He retained his seat in the 2000 election and was promoted to a full ministerial position under the same docket and he was moved to the post of Minister of lands and human settlement in 2006 by president Jakaya Kikwete. Subsequently he served as Minister of works from 2010 to 2015.
Throughout his 20 years as a cabinet Minister he was a hard working man who kept a corruption free record despite the fact that during that time corruption was the order of the day in the tanzania’s government officers
Magufuli’s clean record and his reputation for getting things done became usefully during the 2015 general election campaign.
He promised to fight corruption, discipline the cival service and create employment for the youths.This enabled Magufuli to be nominated as Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)’s presidential candidate after the front runner Edward Lowassa who had served as the Prime Minister for three years, was caught in a corruption scandal. His nomination surprised many people because he was not the favourite candidate in CCM.
During his campaign he portrayed himself as a humble man who came from a humble man who came from a poor background and shows he was ready to improve people’s welfare
“Our home was grass thached and like many boys I was assigned to herd cattle, as well as selling milk and fish yo support my family ” he said during the campaign.
” I know what it means to be poor . I will strive to help improve people’s welfare” he added.
Although he faced a strong challenge from opposition during the 2015 presidential election, he was declared the winner by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) on 29th October 2015 , he won by 58% of the votes, he sworn in on 5th November 2015 as a newly elected president of Tanzania.
On his first day in office, he made a surprise visit to the Financial Ministry to check on how many people had actually turned up to work, showing that he would not tolerate with the civil servants’s absenteeism.
In the same weak he banned all foreign trips for public servants, this enabled the government to save $430m on foreign travel in just one year. Magufuli is remembered for so many achievements he tried his level best to turn Tanzania into a corrupt free state by imprisoning all the corrupt officers and confiscate all their properties they acquired through corruption.
After only 4 months on his second term as Tanzania’s president , Magufuli was attacked by heart complications and he was rushed to Mzena state hospital in Dar es salaam.
After failing to attend a function on 28th February, one of the prominent news agencies informed people that the president is I’ll and he was rushed to Kenya for treatment, but immediately the government denied the allegations buy dint explain well where the president was, again after a while Sauti Kubwa shows that Magufuli was taken to India for further treatment and later on shown that he was in Tanzania but the special doctors from India came in Tanzania to save the life of the bulldozer, but unfortunately they failed .
On Wednesday around midnight, the vice president of Tanzania Samia Suluhu on a state television sadly informed the country about the death of their beloved president.
“It is with deep that I inform you that today we have lost our brave leader, the president of the republic of Tanzania, John Joseph Pombe Magufuli ” Samia Suluhu said in the announcement.
Magufuli was one of the Africa’s most prominent Corona virus sceptics, and called for prayers and herbal, infused steam therapy to counter the virus.
Up on receiving the bad news of the death of president Magufuli, Joseph Petro said he thought Magufuli was a “caring” leader, he added that Magufuli was helping people in one way or another so the country has lost one of it’s pillars he lamented.
Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyata said ” I have lost a friend, colleague and visionary ally“
Former Nigeria president Good luck Jonathan said Magufuli a ” partner in democracy” and a “Patriot who loved his country”
Rest in peace Magufuli, I will be remembered forever.