President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli - Our President in pictures

The success of Air Tanzania was fundamental to late President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli’s vision to turn our country into a major transportation hub. He expanded the fleet to include industry-leading longhaul aircraft such as the 787 Dreamliner.

These pictures from the Air Tanzania archive show President Magufuli inspecting our first Dreamliner when it arrived at Julius Nyerere International Airport and later joining passengers on a flight to Mwanza. They show the man’s gift for connecting with his people. We were honoured to fly you, Mr President.

Pumzika kwa amani

Air Tanzania joins the nation in mourning the loss of President John Pombe Jospeh Magufuli, who died, aged 61, on March 17. Our airline is just one of the many beneficiaries of his drive to develop this country. Here we pay tribute to an inspirational man of action taken too soon.

That Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli was able to go from modest beginnings – he grew up the son of a smallholder farmer in a small village in north-western Chato district along the shore of Lake Victoria – to become the fifth president of Tanzania is testament to his work ethic and unshakeable strength of will. This can-do energy was also a feature of his presidency. Once he was elected in 2015, he wasted no time in streamlining the finances of the country by rooting out corruption and wasteful spending among public officials and instead channelling funds into people-orientated projects such as transport, hospitals and schools.

Those early years in Chato saw the young John Pombe Joseph Magufuli herding cattle and selling milk and fish to support his family. He was also prepared to get his hands dirty as leader of the country. When he ordered a public clean-up in 2015 to combat a cholera outbreak in the country, he was to be seen picking up rubbish outside State House. Such a hands-on, results-orientated approach earned him a great deal of praise in Tanzania and across Africa, inspiring the Twitter hashtag: #WhatWouldMagufuliDo. In the same way, he did not excuse himself from the measures he imposed to curb government spending, reducing his own salary from US$15,000 to US$4,000 per month once in power.

Here was a president committed to the pursuit of his vision of a lean, mean Tanzania, increasingly independent of foreign aid and funding its own largescale ventures that boosted Tanzanians’ confidence in their country.

We at Air Tanzania are incredibly grateful that reviving the national carrier was part of his vision. That we are now the country’s leading airline with an enviable nine-strong fleet to service a growing network of destinations at home and abroad is thanks to the investment of Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli and the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party. Tanzania now has airline to be proud of.

There were many more achievements during his presidency. The man who acquired the nickname ‘the bulldozer’ for driving a programme to build roads as minister for works, continued to launch large infrastructure projects once he had taken the presidential oath. Among them was a standard-gauge railway to connect the country with its neighbours and the major highways and a traffic-avoiding bus rapid transit system in Dar es Salaam. He also implemented water projects across the country and increased electricity production, reducing the need for power rationing.

In 2017 he introduced legislation that gave Tanzania a larger stake in the mining of its lucrative natural resources and in 2019 he made history again in relocating the entire government from coastal Dar es Salaam to the central capital Dodoma to bring it closer to the people it served.

Dr Magufuli, who was awarded his honorary doctorate by the University of Dodoma for improving the economy of the country, believed public education was key to creating a strong Tanzania and early in his presidency he extended free schooling for all up to secondary school level. His own education path from Chato Primary School to Mkwawa College of Education saw him excel in chemistry and mathematics and he chose to share his skills with other students, becoming a teacher at The Sengerema Secondary School.

He taught at the school for a year before furthering his own education with a science degree followed by a masters in chemistry at constituent colleges of the University of Dar es Salaam. Both courses were geared towards enriching the lives of others through his learning.

PRESIDENT JOHN POMBE JOSEPH MAGUFULI 29 October 1959 ~ 17 March 2021

After a six-year stint working as an industrial chemist, his political calling and desire to work for the Tanzanian public led him to campaign for election as MP for his own Chato district. He won the seat in 1995 and soon rose through the ranks, being promoted to deputy minister of works in his first term and promoted to a full ministerial position in the cabinet when he retained his seat in the 2000 election. Under President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete he served as Minister of Lands & Human Settlement, Minister of Livestock & Fisheries and twice as Minister of Works.

He was declared president on his 56th birthday in October 2015 and fulfilled his promise to be an agent of change in the country. He brought to his presidency a vision informed by his staunch Catholic values and socialist principles. He sought African solutions to issues in his country and sought to reduce dependence on foreign aid. This fiercely independent stance had echoes of Tanzania’s founding father, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who led the country as its first president while Magufuli was growing up in Chato.

Such unswerving determination to follow the path he thought was right earned him the nickname Chuma (the Swahili word for a block of iron) and it on occasion left him at odds with the wider world. Still, that singular vision brought results no-one can deny. Under his rule Tanzania was classified by the World Bank as a middleincome economy for the first time in its history with its increasing wealth driven by the Dr Magufuli’s grand investments in infrastructure and agriculture.

Given the list of achievements in his first term of office, the sense of loss at Dr Magufuli’s passing feels even more acute as it came just a few months into a second five-year term won in a landslide election victory in October last year. It is tempting to think what more he could have done in those remaining years, but Samia Suluhu Hassan is an able replacement to serve out the rest of his term in the top postion as the President of the United Republic of Tanzania.

‘Mama Samia’, who becomes Africa’s only current woman national leader, announced her “deep regret” at Dr Magufuli’s passing and introduced a 14-day period of national mourning. It is a sadness we all share, but his legacy lives on in a transformed Tanzania.

African leaders pay tribute

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said: “I have lost a friend, colleague and visionary ally,” and declared a seven-day period of national mourning in Kenya.

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan called Magufuli a “partner in democracy” and a “patriot who loved his country”.

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Twitter: “It is with deep sadness that I have learned of the passing of my friend, President Magufuli. He and his family have been close friends for a long time. He’s been by my side at my most difficult and painful moments. My condolences to his family and the people of Tanzania.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Tweeted: “South Africa is united in grief with the government and people of Tanzania following the passing of His Excellency President Magufuli.”