Family still mum on the cause of Mangwea death

Dar es Salaam. Thousands of people yesterday bade farewell to renowned Bongo Flava artiste Albert Mangwea, alias Ngwair.

His family was, however, tight-lipped on the cause of his death in South Africa last week, saying they needed to discuss the post-mortem report first before deciding whether or not to make it public.

“It’s too early for this. Let’s stick to what we are doing now then we’ll see what we can do,” said his sister, Ms Liloty Mangwea, as people paid their last respects at Dar es Salaam’s Leaders Club grounds.

The confusion surrounding Mangwea’s death was compounded by the posting on the Internet of a fake post-mortem report, which was picked up by a section of the local mainstream media last week.

The report claimed that Mangwea died after drinking too much alcohol and overdosing on drugs.

Speaking at the event, Kinondoni MP Idd Azzan said he had taken time off from the ongoing parliamentary sitting in Dodoma to bid farewell to the late Mangwea.

“I knew the artiste for many years. I just had to be here to bid him farewell,” he said, adding that Mangwea will be remembered as a hard-working artiste.

Prominent people who paid their last respects included the chairperson of Chadema’s youth wing, Mr John Heche, who said Magweha’s sudden death had shocked the opposition party. He added that Chadema would continue to fight for artistes’ rights.

Also present was Mwalimu Nyerere’s granddaughter, Sophia Nyerere, who said Mangwea was close to the family of Tanzania’s founding father.

“My Grandmother (Mama Maria Nyerere) sent me here to represent the family in bidding farewell to Albert whom we had lived with for about a year,” said Ms Nyerere, who described the late singer as a “good boy”.

Music producer Sandu Mpanda described the late Mangwea as a hard working person who had died prematurely.

“It is sad that he had died without fulfilling some of his dreams. He was involved in nurturing budding talent by helping up-and-coming artistes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Police Force in Morogoro Region assured mourners and other members of the public of adequate security during Mangwea’s funeral today.

“We are well prepared. We have asked the funeral committee to forward to us the programme of tomorrow’s (today’s) proceedings so that we can allocate adequate resources,” he said. Mangwea is expected to be buried today at Kihonda in Morogoro. His body was received last evening by dozens of mourners at Kingolwira on the municipality’s outskirts. The body was then taken to the Morogoro Regional Hospital mortuary, where it will stay overnight ahead of today’s funeral mass to be held at his mother’s home from around 11am.

Reported by Alex Bitekeye, Anuciatha Lucas and Henry Mwangonde in Dar es Salaam and Hamida Shariff in Morogoro