On the afternoon of Saturday, October 4, 2025, a video began circulating that sent shockwaves through the East African Community. It didn’t feature a celebrity or a career politician. Instead, the man on screen wore the uniform of the Tanzania People’s Defence Force (TPDF). Identifying himself as Captain John Charles Tesha, a weapons instructor at the Military Air School, he stared directly into the lens and delivered a message that Tanzania had not heard from a soldier in sixty years.
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“Your government is stealing from you,” Tesha declared. “If we don’t stop them, this nation will collapse.”
For over two hours, Tesha livestreamed a scathing indictment of the state. He accused the government of grand corruption, cited a wave of state-sponsored abductions, and made a chilling demand: the military must intervene to stop the upcoming elections and “save” the nation.
Within hours, the video had exploded across TikTok, WhatsApp, and Instagram. By October 6, the military issued a stern warning against “political activism” within its ranks. Tesha was discharged, and his whereabouts became a subject of intense speculation. But the fire he lit was not about one man; it was about a country that feels it is being watched by ghosts.
The Bulldozer’s Legacy and the “Mama” Who Promised Change
To understand how a decorated officer reached such a point of desperation, one must look back to March 2021. Tanzania woke up to the news that President John Magufuli, known as “The Bulldozer,” had died. The official cause was a heart condition, but after he had been missing for weeks, many suspected COVID-19—a virus Magufuli famously claimed didn’t exist in Tanzania.
Magufuli was a polarizing titan. He built roads, renegotiated mining contracts to favor Tanzanians over foreign corporations, and fired corrupt officials on live television. To many, he was a patriot fighting for the common man. To others, he was a tyrant who crushed the free press and jailed opponents.
When Samia Suluhu Hassan took the oath of office two days later, she became Tanzania’s first female president. The world exhaled. “Mama Samia,” as she is known, initially seemed like the antidote to Magufuli’s iron-fisted rule. She:
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Lifted bans on media outlets.
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Released high-profile political prisoners.
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Acknowledged the reality of COVID-19.
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Unbanned political rallies.
For a moment, it felt like a “Tanzanian Spring.” But as 2024 turned into 2025, the mask of reform began to slip.
The System: 48 Years of CCM
President Samia did not just inherit a country; she inherited the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), a party that has held power since 1977. In a one-party-dominant system, the survival of the party often eclipses the needs of the people.
By mid-2024, the old guard—retired generals, former presidents like Jakaya Kikwete, and powerful businessmen like Rostam Aziz—seemed to have reasserted control. The reforms stopped. The “Old Playbook” of repression returned with a vengeance.
The Summer of Disappearances
The most horrifying evidence of this shift was a wave of abductions. The Tanganyika Law Society documented dozens of cases.
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Ali Muhammad Kibao: A senior official of the opposition party CHADEMA. On September 6, 2024, he was pulled from a bus by armed men in broad daylight. Two days later, his body was found; he had been beaten, tortured, and doused with acid.
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Youth Activists: Dozens of young CHADEMA supporters vanished. People like Dion Kizipa and Jacob Godwin were taken by men identifying as police and were never seen again.
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When the newspaper The Citizen posted an animated video in October 2024 showing a cartoon version of President Samia flipping through TV channels—only to see the faces of the missing—the government’s response was swift. They suspended the entire media house for 30 days, claiming the animation “harmed national unity.”
The Silencing of Tundu Lissu
The primary target of the state’s ire has been Tundu Lissu, the firebrand CHADEMA chairman who survived 16 bullets in a 2017 assassination attempt. In April 2025, the government raised the stakes, charging Lissu with treason, a crime that carries the death penalty.
The charge stemmed from a speech where Lissu called for electoral reforms. Since then, his trial has been a merry-go-round of postponements. Each time a trial date approaches, it is moved. The strategy is clear: keep the most popular opposition figure in a legal limbo so he cannot effectively campaign.
When international legal icons—including former Kenyan Chief Justice Willie Mutunga—tried to enter Tanzania to observe the trial in May 2025, they were detained at the airport and deported. President Samia’s message was blunt: no “foreign interference” would be tolerated.
The Border Crisis: A Spark of Resistance
On October 18, 2025, just two weeks after Captain Tesha’s video, another flashpoint occurred. John Heche, the Deputy Chairman of CHADEMA, attempted to cross into Kenya to attend the funeral of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Tanzanian immigration officials seized his passport and detained him at the Isibania border. Heche did what the youth of Tanzania have learned to do: he went live on social media.
What happened next was unprecedented. A crowd of hundreds of young people from both sides of the border—Kenyans and Tanzanians—surrounded the immigration office. They didn’t throw stones; they held up phones. They made the world watch in real time. Within six hours, the government backed down and released him. It was a rare, viral victory for “people power” over the state apparatus.
Election Day: October 29, 2025
As the nation heads to the polls on October 29, 2025, the atmosphere is one of resigned inevitability.
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99% Victory? In the 2024 local elections, the CCM claimed 99% of the seats. Analysts expect a similar “landslide” in the general election.
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Fragmented Opposition: With Lissu facing treason charges and other leaders in and out of detention, there is no level playing field.
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The Gender Shield: Supporters of the President often dismiss criticism as sexism, arguing that men cannot handle a female leader. But for the families of the disappeared and the journalists in hiding, the issue isn’t the President’s gender—it’s the return of the “Bulldozer” tactics under a different name.
Conclusion: The Slippery Tree
There is a Swahili proverb: “When the monkey’s day to die comes, all the trees become slippery.” Tanzania was once the “Island of Peace” in a turbulent region. Today, that peace feels enforced by fear rather than maintained by consent. Captain Tesha’s video, the murder of Ali Muhammad Kibao, and the treason trial of Tundu Lissu are all signs of a system that is no longer trying to persuade its citizens but simply to outlast them.
The story of Samia Suluhu Hassan’s presidency began with the hope of a “New Tanzania.” It is ending with the realization that while leaders change, the system remains—and the system does not like to be challenged.