Former Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mkapa died of cardiac arrest after contracting malaria, his family said on Sunday.
The announcement came amid rumours that the leader’s death early on Friday 24 July was due to the coronavirus. Mkapa, 81, was admitted to a hospital in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday 22 July after falling sick and testing positive for malaria. He died while undergoing treatment.
“He had shown signs of recovering on Thursday. We were later informed he … collapsed in his bed, and was pronounced dead soon after. It was later established that it was cardiac arrest,” said William Erio, a family member.
On Sunday, at a requiem mass for Mkapa, a Catholic, Bishop Taricisius Ngalalekumtwa of Iringa urged the people to read his autobiography: My Life, My Purpose: A Tanzania President Remembers. Mkapa, Tanzania’s third president, ruled the East African country from 1995- 2005. Elected as president on an anti-corruption ticket, Mkapa served two terms in the office.
“I call on all Tanzanians to … pray for Mzee Mkapa,” President John Pombe Magufuli said in a government announcement. Magafuli also announced that the name of Tanzania's national stadium would be changed to "Benjamin Mkapa Stadium", in tribute to the deceased.
Mkapa was to be buried on Wednesday in Lupaso Village in Mtwara region where he was born in 1938. He leaves behind a wife, Anna, and two sons. Offerings from the requiem Mass were to be used to help renovate a priest’s house in the village that Mkapa promised to renovate before he died.
The Tanzanian government has courted controversy by declaring several weeks ago that the country is now coronavirus free, as the disease continues to spread throughout bordering nations. The African nation is one of only two countries, alongside North Korea, to neither collect nor report data on the virus. The count currently stands at 509 cases and 21 deaths, but has not been updated for over two and a half months.
The Magufuli government's approach to the coronavirus pandemic has raised further concerns about the state of press freedom in the country. During the first years of his rule, Magufulli banned several media outlets, and the 2016 Media Services stipulates jail time for those promoting "sedition".
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