Are African Presidents Necessarily Stupid, Evil, Backward, and Primitive? A Re-Examination of the Commotion Assumptions about the African Presidency and African Presidents by Focusing on the Presidency of John Joseph Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania

The African president has been pilloried as evil, stupid, backward and primitive. He has widely been held responsible for the problems and challenges afflicting the African continent since independence, including those that have led to movements, migrations, and displacement of the African people in Africa, and the African Diaspora. They have been called all sorts of names: “stupid,” “primitive,” “evil,” “illiterate,” “retrogressive,” “corrupt,” “liars,” “warlords,” “Machiavellian.” Robert Klitgaard calls them gangsters in his book, Tropical Gangsters: One Man's Experience with Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa. In his book, Defeating Dictator: Fighting Tyranny in Africa, and around the World, George Ayitteh refers to the African president as tyrants who need to be fought and removed from power in order to create the right conditions for stability and progress in the African continent, among other parts of the world. Richard Dowden calls them “big man” in his book, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles,” who is sometimes very nice, but also quite often extremely ruthless, predatory, and psychopathic. The notion that the African president is always stupid, violent, predatory, corrupt, and evil is therefore pervasive in literature about them, and while there may be some truth in such lines of thought, the problem is that it has prevented scholars, commentators, and ordinary observers from seeing and appreciating the other side of the coin, where the African president is not always acting out whimsically, unthinkingly, violently, and corruptly, but, instead, goes about handling the business of state very responsibly, methodically, conscientiously, intelligently, and humanely, thus helping curb some of the problems afflicting the African continent such as forced “movements, migrations, and displacements.” This paper therefore seeks to bring about some balance to how the African president has been viewed, as “unthinking,” “stupid,” “corrupt,” “violent,” and “illiterate” by examining the presidency of John Joseph Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania and whether or not it fits into this popular stereotype of the African presidency. John Joseph Pombe Magufuli was President of Tanzania from 2015-2021. Examining John Joseph Pombe Magufuli as a person and president, this paper questions the common assumption about the African president that has long-dominated how scholars approach and view the African president, and, in the process, hopes that such a re-examination might not only bring about some balance to how the African president has been viewed in history, but also provide some encouragement to African presidents to realize that when they carry out their duties more humanely, and responsibly they will be appreciated and go down in history as great presidents.