Tundu Lissu, the firebrand Tanzanian opposition leader has arrived Kenya ahead of his book launch. He is set to unveil his book Remaining in the Shadows – Parliament and Accountability in East Africa at the Windsor Hotel on Friday, June 25.
In his book, lawyer and former Chadema presidential candidate focused on East African parliaments which he said had been held captive by the state with the exception of Kenya.
Lissu insists that decades after the British colonial rule, the concept of the imperial presidency was still rife in Uganda and Tanzania.
The politician has been living in exile in Belgium since November 2020 when he fled the East African country citing threats to his life. This came after he dismissed the October 28, 2020 presidential poll as “a waste of time”. He claimed it had been flawed to favour the late president John Magufuli.
The 52-year-old opposition arrowhead had returned to Tanzania in July 2020, after three years in exile recovering from 16 bullet wounds sustained in what he said was a politically motivated assassination attempt. Lissu says he was ‘relieved’ after Magufuli’s demise in March.
Lissu said as one of the most persistent Magufuli’s victims, he was relieved that he was gone.
Lissu specifically recalled how he was almost assassinated in September 2017, just two hours after late President Magufuli declared that those opposing him “did not deserve to survive”.
He said, “after three years living abroad and recovering from the deadly consequences of the September 7 assassination attempt, on July 27, 2020, I returned to Tanzania to face my old tormentor in the general elections slated for October 28, 2020,” he said.
The Tanzanian lawyer was shot 16 times in September 2017. He had been arrested 8 times a year before the attack and 8 bullets were removed from his stomach after 22 surgeries. He is the MP for Singida East and former President of Tanganyika Law Society.