A fiery critic of Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli and leading opposition member left hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi yesterday, terming his injuries politically motivated.
Tundu Lissu, who was charged with hate speech after calling the president a dictator earlier this year, was shot at his residence in the Tanzanian administrative capital of Dodoma on September 7.
The legislator was treated at a hospital in Tanzania before being airlifted to the Nairobi hospital.Speaking to journalists moments after his discharge, Lissu said his stand on the current Tanzanian government had prompted those behind the September attack to try to kill him.
“In Tanzania an incident where a person is attacked over his politics has never happened: The incident that brought me to Nairobi hospital is a historical incident,” said Lissu, who is the chief whip of the Chama Cha Demokrasia (CHADEMA) party. The Tanzanian lawmaker, who was in a wheelchair, questioned why the Tanzanian authorities had not questioned him or released a formal statement on the attack on his life.
Magufuli of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, who took office after winning the presidential election in 2015, has come under growing criticism from the opposition for authoritarianism.
Tanzania Opposition lawmaker Tundu Lissu waves from his wheelchair after giving a press conference surrounded by members of his family and supporters yesterday at a hospital in Nairobi, to which he had been admitted since September 2017.
