Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu has said that President John Magufuli’s death has not come as a surprise to him.
Mr Lissu, who lives in exile in Belgium, said he had known that Mr Magufuli was gravelly ill all along since he tweeted on 7 March asking about the whereabouts of the president.
He says he had learned from “very credible sources in government” that the president was ill with Covid-19.
“The only thing that surprises me is the fact they continued to lie, even now his government continues to lie,” Tundu Lissu while speaking to Kenya’s television station KTN.
Tanzania Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan, in an address on state television on Wednesday, said President Magufuli had died hours earlier from heart complications at a hospital in Dar es Salaam.
The president had not been seen in public for more than two weeks, and rumours have been circulating about his health.