Oppressive regime forced me into exile, says Lema

Arusha. Godless Lema, the firebrand opposition politician, flew back home yesterday, stating he was only safe because of God’s grace.

Mr Lema revealed his decision to seek refuge in Canada during a public rally here yesterday, saying it was all because of the late John Magufuli’s repressive leadership.

He said he decided to take the threats against his life seriously to avoid the fate that befell some of his colleagues, including the Chadema vice chairman for Tanzania Mainland, Tundu Lissu and several others.

On September 7, 2017 during a parliamentary session break, Tundu Lissu, while in his car, was shot multiple times and seriously injured by unknown assailants in the parking lot of his parliamentary residence in Area D, Dodoma.

And Mr Lema, who lost his Arusha Urban Parliamentary Seat in the 2020 election, said before the assassination attempt, Mr Lissu was warned.

“One day before an assassination attempt, Tundu Lissu was informed by Gwajima [Bishop Josephat Gwajima] that when he goes to Dodoma, he will be assassinated...” narrated Mr Lema.

But believing that it was not easy for people to organise a project to assassinate a legislator, Lissu ignored what he was told by Gwajima and so he left for Dodoma, where he was indeed fired at with several gunshots.

Mr Lema detailed several other Chadema leaders who were informed in advance before they met their fate.

He also detailed how he was arrested together with the party’s national chairman, Freeman Mbowe and former Ubongo Municipal Mayor, Boniface Jacob, on the eve of the planned demonstration to oppose the outcomes of the 2020 General Election.

In his explanation, he said after being arrested, they were taken in different vehicles, whereby he was personally taken to a forest at Kibaha, Coast Region.

“While there, I was told to pray because within hours I would be dead. However, while they were waiting for directives, they were later directed to send me to Mlandizi Police Station because they had changed ‘the code,” he explained.

Unknown to the police officers, Mr Lema had gotten into the cell with a mobile phone, which he used to phone his wife and inform her that he had been arrested and was in custody at Mlandizi.

His wife informed him that she saw the Commander for the Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone, Lazaro Mambosasa, speaking on TV and that the law enforcers had arrested Mr Mbowe, Mr Lema and Mr Boniface.

With a change in ‘the code’, Mr Lema was later to be joined with Mr Mbowe and Mr Boniface at Oyster Bay Police Station.

“It was while we were there that we were informed that they were still arriving because the Inspector General of Police, Simon Sirro, had directed Mr Mambosasa to call a press conference and tell the public that the three were being held by the police,” he narrated, detailing that if that were not done, they would have been killed.

That was why he informed his wife that it was time to leave Tanzania. “So we—together with my wife and my children—left Arusha for Namanga, and then a Kenyan politician and legal practitioner, Prof George Wajackoyah, sent a vehicle to pick us up,” he said.

But while trying to travel between Namanga and Nairobi, they were arrested by a special force in Kenya on the grounds that they had received information from Tanzania that he was planning a coup d’état.

They were then taken to Kajiado Police Station. While there, a top-ranking Kenyan police officer called and asked that they be set free because they were simply running away from Magufuli’s repressive regime.

“But he was informed that the whole issue was being handled through direct communication between Magufuli and Uhuru Kenyatta [the then Kenyan President],” he said.

He detailed how Prof Wajackoyah worked hard and, with the help of other government officials, a decision was reached that he should not be brought back to Tanzania.

That was how international organisations came in and helped send him to Canada.

Upon his arrival yesterday, a multitude of Chadema supporters thronged the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) all the way to Arusha to welcome him back.