Exile Tanzanian opposition leader returns home after six years

Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Antiphas Mughwai Lissu, has returned from self-imposed exile, six years after he was shot numerous times during an assassination attempt in the country.

BBC report sighted by GhanaPlus.com said “he’d decided to go home because of the lifting of a ban on opposition political rallies earlier this month”.

“Cheering supporters greeted Mr Lissu, who waved from the open-top car taking him from Dar es Salaam airport to a rally nearby,” the report said.

“The defeated former presidential candidate says he hopes that Tanzania’s governing CCM party is ready for a more open style of politics”.

Tanzanian Tundu Lissu’s assassination attempt

Tundu Antiphas Mughwai Lissu, a Tanzanian prominent lawyer, a fierce politician and Member of Parliament for Singida East constituency since 2010 survived an assignation attempt on his life on September 7, 2017

Report said the fierce critics of the late President John Magufuli’s government was shot multiple times by unknown assailant while in his car during a parliamentary session break.

The near death experience was said to have left him with injuries which saw him undergo some 19 different operations by mid-March 2018 at the Leuven University Hospital in Gasthuisberg, Belgium and has since been in exile.

Tundu Lissu is credited with the research that revealed the involvement of the state’s high ranking Tanzanian officials in plundering of public funds, known as the ‘List of Shame’.

The politician was arrested at least six times in 2017 alone, accused of insulting the President, Magufuli and charged subsequently for disturbing public order, among others.

On 23 August 2017, his home was ransacked by the police after he made public revelation that a plane bought for the countries national carrier Air Tanzania had been impounded in Canada over unpaid government debts.

Source: GhanaPlus.com