How Magufuli used caution and hostility to live with neighbours

When John Pombe Magufuli was elected, Tanzania’s neighbours had different expectations from the man who has become the second serving East African leader to die in less than a year.

For Rwanda, President Kagame hoped the election of Magufuli would help mend the sour relations between him and former Tanzania president Jakaya Kikwete.

By the time Magufuli was elected in 2015, relations between Rwanda and Tanzania had so deteriorated that President Kagame had threatened to “hit” president Kikwete “at the right time”.

To start a new chapter on the relations between the two countries, Mr Kagame invited Magufuli to Rwanda and the latter agreed to make his first visit outside the country as president from April 6 to April 8 in 2016.

From then, the relations between the two countries improved and he tried to avoid getting involved in the row that later broke out between Rwanda and its neighbours—Uganda and Burundi.

Dr Sabastian Rwengabo, a regional security expert, said Magufuli “was more of a nationalist-pragmatist than a regionalist-idealist” and that is why he never got involved in the fights between Tanzania’s neighbours.

“His avoidance of the Rwanda-Uganda conflict was a measured step in avoiding intensifying Rwanda’s non-cordial relations with his homeland - and I think this was what a pragmatic leader would do,” Dr Rwengabo said.

Magufuli avoided getting involved even after Rwanda and Uganda sent representatives to him and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta to explain their positions why the border between the two countries had been closed in February 2019. 

Mr Kenyatta took the initiative to visit Rwanda and Uganda and held talks with presidents Kagame and Museveni over the border closure but Magufuli never got involved.

Magufuli on Burundi conflict
Magufuli, according to Dr Rwengabo, also took the same position on the Burundi-Rwanda conflict. “As for Rwanda and Burundi, I think Magufuli tried to keep a low profile, which enabled him to improve relations with Rwanda,” Dr Rwengabo said.

But Magufuli was very decisive and took bold decisions if any of Tanzania’s neighbours made a decision that would affect his people at home. For example, in 2017, a trade war broke out between Kenya and Tanzania, after the latter’s border security set ablaze 6,400 chicks for illegal importation.

In the same year, there was diplomatic tension between the two countries after Tanzanian authorities confiscated more than 1,300 cows owned by Kenyan herdsmen who were grazing on Tanzanian territory illegally.

Kenya protested but in response, Magufuli said: “Tanzania is not a feeding farm for animals from other countries and that is why we have stated that we are going to take action as per the law,” he said. In response, Kenya banned Tanzanian tour vans from accessing Maasai Mara National Reserve on grounds that its neighbour had banned Kenyan operators from accessing Serengeti National Park.

That didn’t end there. In 2018, Magufuli’s government imposed a 25-per cent import duty on Kenyan confectionery. The Tanzanian government argued that Kenya was using sugar imported outside the East African Community to make chocolate, ice cream, biscuits and sweets, which, they said, was against EAC protocol.

Tanzania and Kenya again disagreed in 2020 on how to handle border operations after the breakout of Covid-19 and both Mr Kenyatta and Magufuli had to meet to end the standoff.

Dr Rwengabo said the trade friction between Tanzania and Kenya had historical roots but they were heightened during the Magufuli presidency for two reasons.

Policies
“First, in his anti-corruption crusades, Magufuli may have stepped on toes of Tanzanian and Kenyan politically-connected businesspersons who were thriving on corruption to get their deals through,” he said,. “Secondly, Magufuli’s skepticism about Covid-19 provided the impetus for limiting travels across the border, which stifled cross-border flights and travels, and hence reduced such trade,” he added.

On the Ugandan side, Magufuli quickly embraced the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project, which he would use to develop his own extractives industry while working with Kampala.

By the time of his death, he was very close to President Museveni and in his six years as president, Uganda was the only country he visited thrice.
He never travelled outside Africa. 

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