Magufuli-Raila friendship that worried many

Departed Tanzanian President John Joseph Pombe Magufuli had a bitter-sweet relationship with Kenya’s main political leaders, which at times led to diplomatic rows.

Dr Magufuli was friends with Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga, on and off with President Kenyatta and cavalier about Deputy President William Ruto.

His relationship with Mr Odinga was of more than two decades, and often worried their opponents in both countries, including Mr Kenyatta.

The camaraderie between Magufuli and the ODM chief was so cordial that at times even threatened the diplomatic ties between the two nations, especially during the presidential elections in 2017.

There were reports of Mr Odinga setting up a tallying centre in Tanzania and planning to take his “people’s president” oath in the country before changing the venue to Uhuru Park, Nairobi.

In the run-up to the 2017 elections in Kenya, Magufuli’s main challenger in 2015, Edward Lowassa, openly campaigned for Mr Kenyatta, insisting that Magufuli was covertly backing Mr Odinga.

Yesterday, Mr Odinga and his wife Ida, paid glowing tribute to the Tanzanian leader, affirming the two families’ close ties.

“President Magufuli and my family have been close friends for long. He has been by my side at my most difficult and painful moments. We have worked together, especially in the areas of connecting eastern Africa by way of infrastructure,” Mr Odinga said.

Mrs Odinga said: “The Magufulis have been there for us in good and bad times. We have lost a family member.” 

She recalled hosting Magufuli in the Odingas’ Bondo and Nairobi homes several times, with the Tanzanian President returning the visits by hosting the Odingas at his home in Chato and Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Magufuli attended the burial of Mr Odinga’s firstborn Fidel on January 10, 2015, while Mr Odinga comforted the Magufulis when the President’s sister Monica died three years later.

Peacocks and chicks

On May 23, 2008, shortly after he became Prime Minister, Mr Odinga held a homecoming ceremony in Bondo, Siaya county. Magufuli was among the guests.

ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna mourned Magufuli as a visionary. 

“As a parliamentarian, Magufuli positioned himself as a reformer and social democrat, exactly like the centre left social democratic ideals of Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga. It is after the January 2003 Cabinet announcement in Kenya that the two became ideological soulmates. By this time, Magufuli had been Minister for Works in President Benjamin Mkapa’s government for two years,” Mr Sifuna said yesterday.

When Mr Odinga became Roads and Public Works Minister in 2003, the two easily found in each other the revolutionary desire to transform the region in an infrastructural blitz that threw the old order away.

During the ODM National Delegates Convention (NDC) at Kasarani gymnasium on December 7, 2012, Magufuli was among the guests, and endorsed the Orange leader’s presidential ticket.

With the ODM leader as the country’s PM, and Magufuli a Cabinet Minister in Tanzania, there was breach of protocol and possible diplomatic row.

Usually, a state official does not publicly declare support for a presidential candidate in another country.

This prompted Tanzania Opposition Foreign Affairs Director Ezekia Wenje to call for immediate action against Magufuli “for the diplomatic disaster”.

“The government must say if it condones Dr Magufuli’s statement and his presence in the ODM meeting. If not, it should take action against its minister for getting involved in the politics of a neighbouring country,” Mr Mwenje said.

So strong was the relationship between Mr Odinga and Magufuli that in the run up to the ODM leader’s mock swearing-in as the Peoples’ President on January 30, 2018, there were claims that he would use his connections to the Tanzanian leader to have the ceremony conducted in the neighbouring country.

‘Tyrants and Renegades’

In his book Treason: The Case Against Tyrants and Renegades, self-styled NRM General Miguna Miguna says Magufuli declined to have the opposition leader sworn in as the “People’s President” at the Kenyan embassy in Tanzania.

He says the National Revolutionary Movement of Kenya (NRM-Ke) committee had proposed that if it was impossible to swear in Mr Odinga at a public venue in Nairobi, “then we could do it at the Kenyan embassy in Ghana or Tanzania”.

The ODM leader is also friends with Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.

However, the claims have never been confirmed by Ghana, Tanzania or ODM.

“Their friendship extended to their families, and Mrs Odinga and Mrs Magufuli are like sisters. It’s a devastating loss. We extend our prayers to the family and the people of Tanzania,” Mr Sifuna said.

President Kenyatta and Magufuli’s friendship was an attempt at peacock diplomacy.

However, the two nations continued ruffling feathers because of the Jubilee government’s perception of the Tanzanian president’s closeness to Mr Odinga and the on-and-off trade rows between Nairobi and Dar.

When President Kenyatta visited his Tanzanian counterpart in July 2019, Magufuli promised to send him peacocks, birds the Kenyan leader would later say “signify the values of love, unity and brotherhood between the people of the two countries”.

“Aided by the unity that exists between our two nations, we will fight what is negatively affecting our people and any other challenge that might arise until we build a strong and cohesive brotherhood that will enable our people in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi to be referred to as East Africans,” President Kenyatta said when he received the peacocks the following month.

The relations between the two leaders have been lukewarm at best, with Dr Magufuli skipping President Kenyatta’s inauguration in 2017 at the last minute, long after confirming he would be in Nairobi. 

Dr Magufuli was represented at the ceremony by Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Returned the favour

When President Magufuli was re-elected late last year, Mr Kenyatta returned the favour by snubbing his inauguration.

President Kenyatta, instead, dispatched Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed to Tanzania to represent him.

It was also during Dr Magufuli’s presidency that Kenya witnessed an escalation of trade disputes with Tanzania. 

The most infamous was the seizure of hundreds of cattle from Kenya in Tanzania, the burning of chicks imported from Kenya and stopping Kenyan tour vans from accessing parks. 

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