Samia Suluhu Hassan said Magufuli was receiving treatment at a Tanzanian hospital when he died on Wednesday night.
However, opposition leaders insist that Magufuli died of Covid-19 at least a week earlier.
Tundu Lissu, of the opposition Chadem party, said in an interview with a Kenyan broadcaster on Thursday that Magufuli had died from Covid in early March.
“I received the news of the death of President Magufuli without any surprise,” he added.
“I had expected this all the time, since the first day I tweeted on March 7 … when I asked the question ‘Where is President Magufuli and how is his health?’ I have had information from very reliable sources in the government that the president was seriously ill with Covid-19 and his situation was really very bad, “said Lissu from his base in Belgium. CNN contacted Lissu for further comments.
CNN was unable to independently verify its allegations. The Tanzanian authorities also did not respond to requests for comment on Lissu’s allegations.
The secret and mystery surrounding his death reveal Magufuli’s lasting legacy, says Maria Sarungi Tsehai, activist and founder of the #ChangeTanzania movement, a civil society group that promotes freedom of expression.
Tsehai said the circumstances of his death and the “secrecy and intimidation” that citizens face for speculating or discussing the issue are “very revealing about the type of presidency he has run for.”
“Even now, at his death, people are still terrified and speaking in a low voice,” said Tsehai.
Magufuli was the fifth president of Tanzania and part of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party that has governed the country since independence in 1961.
The latest reported numbers of 509 cases and 21 deaths were in April last year.
Magufuli frustrated global health leaders after suspending national tracking of Covid cases – blaming the country’s number of infections on defective test kits.
Magufuli’s death raised many questions about how the country is progressing in a pandemic with a huge information vacuum.
Magufuli did not bid for Covid’s vaccines while questioning their safety and instead promoted the use of prayers, herbal treatments and steam inhalation to fight the disease.
Tsehai says the lack of information makes it difficult for health professionals and citizens to know what the real situation is. His organization did an informal survey to obtain a “snapshot” of Covid’s situation in the country last year.
“We are seeing more obituaries, death announcements and that more people are leaving us. There are elderly people and people in their 50s. Parents are also telling us that children are being admitted to hospitals with breathing problems, ”she said.
However, changes are far from imminent, Tsehai added. “Nothing is going to happen immediately. We have to wait and see what Samia (Hassan) can do.”
On Friday, Hassan was sworn in as the country’s first female president.
Now, the new leader needs to select a vice presidential candidate and form a cabinet, Tsehai said.
“We are very concerned. She needs to act now. The ceremony and the funeral and the ceremony of the last rituals will be Covid’s super-publicizing events,” added Tsehai.
Fighting Covid with prayers
Magufuli was devoutly religious and a fanatical denier of Covid-19, who repeatedly downplayed the gravity of Covid-19 in Tanzania by declaring the country free of the virus last June after three days of mass prayers.
“We will pray and fast for three days, I am sure we will win … today for the Muslims who have already started, tomorrow the Seventh-day Adventists who pray on Saturdays and Sundays for Christians,” said Magufuli on February 19.
“God never left this nation. We won last year and moved to middle income status due to the coronavirus,” he added.
Deus Valentine Rweyemamu, who runs the Center for Strategic Litigation, a pro-democracy movement in Tanzania, told CNN that Magufuli failed to provide leadership in treating the pandemic.
“President Magufuli hid behind religious fundamentalism and managed to convince an entire nation to deny it. His only public speech recorded in Covid has half of it made up of Bible verses,” said Rweyemamu.
However, religious leaders were among their fiercest critics.
Father Charles Kitima, secretary of the Tanzanian Episcopal Conference, a group of Catholic bishops, told CNN on Thursday that the Magufuli regime did not take urgent measures to deal with the coronavirus.
Kitima, who was a vocal critic of the Covid response from Tanzania under Magufuli, said that some members of the Catholic Church in Tanzania may have died of Covid-related complications.
“Some church members had respiratory complications and died from it,” he told CNN.
“In the months from mid-December 2020 to February 2021, we lost 25 priests and 60 nuns … Some of them died because of breathing difficulties,” he said.
He added that it was not possible to ascertain the volume of infections in the country due to the lack of tests.
Kitima criticized Covid de Magufuli’s response, which was largely based on religion while neglecting scientific recommendations.
“You cannot separate prayer from science. Religion is there to support doctors and researchers. Science and faith must work together,” Kitima told CNN.
Rweyemamu told CNN that many Tanzanians trusted Magufuli’s methods – albeit unconventionally.
“If President Magufuli appeared in public wearing a mask, then even the sickest dog in Tanzania would wear one. That’s because … Tanzanians believe in their president more than in their own parents,” he added.
Mussa Khamis, a project officer at Good Neighbors, a nonprofit humanitarian organization in Tanzania, told CNN: “While some of my friends and relatives were inhaling steam to fight this pandemic … I took care of myself by observing the measures of prevention recommended by WHO and other medical experts. “
The 26-year-old resident of the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar, Tanzania, said that the existence of Covid-19 began to resonate in many Tanzanians after the death of Zanzibar Vice President Seif Sharif Hamad, who died in February after contracting the virus.
Hamad was open about his illness, which he made public three weeks before his death.
“People now wear masks and wash their hands often. I think this is motivated by the recent loss of our vice president,” said Khamis.
The end of the Magufuli era is expected to usher in a new national perspective for Covid-19.
However, it remains to be seen whether business will continue as usual for Tanzania’s new leader or whether it will change course and make room for science to prosper as the pandemic intensifies.