Godbless Lema, a prominent opposition figure and former Member of Parliament for Arusha (2010–2020) representing the CHADEMA party, announced yesterday via the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that he was stopped at the Namanga border by immigration officers while en route to Nairobi, Kenya.
Lema claimed that he was detained for four hours before his passport was confiscated. He said he was instructed to report to the Immigration Headquarters in Dodoma for further clarification, expressing surprise at the decision, stating that he had not committed any offense, was not facing any court case, nor had he recently violated any immigration laws.
“My passport has been taken, and now I have to return home to Arusha. For more information, I am required to go to Immigration Headquarters in Dodoma,” he wrote in his X post.
On the same platform, he also alleged that there is a plan to prevent CHADEMA leaders from traveling outside the country.
Following Lema’s post, the Immigration Department issued a statement to the media urging the public to disregard his claims that the restriction targets all CHADEMA leaders.
In its statement, the Immigration Department confirmed stopping Lema at the border and withholding his passport, stating that he was required to report to headquarters for further questioning.
“The procedure used to stop him from leaving the country is standard and applies to any citizen when the department receives information that necessitates questioning,” the Immigration Department’s statement read.
On May 13, 2025, another CHADEMA leader, Amani Golugwa, the Acting Deputy Secretary-General for Mainland was also prevented from leaving the country. He was arrested by the police at Julius Nyerere International Airport, Terminal 3, while preparing to travel to Brussels, Belgium, to attend a meeting of the International Democrat Union (IDU), a global alliance of center-right political parties.
In their statement, the police said Golugwa was arrested based on intelligence reports indicating that he had been repeatedly leaving and re-entering the country without following legal procedures.
