AfricaPress-Tanzania: BBC has elicited reactions online after it posted a tweet indicating that Tanzania had confirmed a Covid-19 case, breaking away from the Covid-19 denial policy introduced by fallen President John Pombe Magufuli.
The international media house deleted the post minutes later on Monday, March 29 and did not offer an immediate explanation. This elicited reactions online as a section of Tanzanian Opposition activists claimed to have been blackmailed.
The broadcasting giant has since issued an apology, although it did little to stop speculation of being muzzled.
“Earlier, we mistakenly published a message stating that a coronavirus case had been confirmed in Tanzania. The message was made in error and we deleted it. We apologize for the inconvenience and have taken steps to ensure that such an error does not occur again,” the media house stated.
Kenyans were not left behind as a number of netizens supported the Tanzanian activists’ claims of a cover-up.
“BBC news Swahili deleted this tweet about Tanzania.”
.”Why has BBC deleted the tweet on Tanzania COVID-19 update?”“BBC has been silenced by the deep state of Tanzania .”
Last year in March, when the pandemic hit the continent, many African countries dived into ensuring they put up systems to handle the pandemic. Rules such as wearing masks, lockdown and curfews were imposed and mass testing began.
Most countries made sure they had isolation centres for patients who would test positive and offices were shut down with employees working from home and most rendered jobless.
However, in Tanzania, it was business as usual as the leadership claimed, without evidence, that God had protected them from the virus.
The late president Magufuli encouraged the citizens to run their businesses normally. Tanzania neither submitted Covid 19-updates nor tested for positive cases.
However, there is anticipation on how the new president-elect will handle the situation, given the mounting pressure from Tanzanian activists and the international community.
Magufuli’s arch-rival and former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu has claimed that Magufuli died after contracting the coronavirus. The official cause of death was listed as a heart-related illness which the fallen strongman had battled for a number of years.
