Dar es Salaam – For Mohammed Ali Kibao, the passage of time has done little to ease the pain of his father’s death. More than a year after Ali Mohammed Kibao was abducted and killed on September 6, 2024, the family’s grief is compounded by a deafening silence from the authorities tasked with investigating the crime.
Their quest for justice has become a poignant symbol of a wider struggle against a climate of fear and impunity that has gripped Tanzania in recent years.
“Until today, I personally feel as if one day he will just call me and tell me, no, it didn’t happen,” Mohammed shared in a recent interview with The Chanzo, his voice heavy with emotion. “Life cannot go on as normal without getting answers about what exactly happened to our old man. The lack of answers prevents us from reaching closure on this matter. So I don’t think life can continue as it was before, not even for one day.”
Ali Mohammed Kibao, a 69-year-old father of six, was a respected figure in his community—a veteran of the 1979 Uganda-Tanzania war who had transitioned from military service to business and politics. As a senior member of CHADEMA’s secretariat, he represented a generation of Tanzanians who had fought for their country and remained committed to its democratic future.
On the evening of September 6, 2024, whilst travelling from Dar es Salaam to his home in Tanga, he was forcibly removed from a public bus by armed men who blocked the vehicle with two cars. His body was discovered the next morning in Ununio, Dar es Salaam, bearing signs of severe torture and his face disfigured by acid.
The brutality of the crime sent shockwaves across the nation and drew condemnation from international observers. The United States Embassy called for an independent investigation, whilst the Canadian Embassy expressed deep alarm. President Samia Suluhu Hassan ordered an investigation, stating that her government “does not tolerate such cruel acts.”
Yet a year and three months after the murder, there had been no official update on the investigation’s progress. When asked to provide an update on these issues, authorities have consistently assured the public that the investigation is ongoing and will be updated with any new information. This wall of silence, however, has forced Mohammed to become a public voice for his family, a role he never anticipated.
“I am ready to not get any answers from anywhere,” he says, a grim acceptance in his tone. “I know that there is a very high possibility of not getting answers. I have prepared myself to live with that. But to continue with life as normal, no, that is not possible.”
Price of speaking out
Mohammed’s decision to speak publicly about his father’s murder has come at a considerable personal cost. The first price, he says, is fear. “This has made me, for example, ensure that my life insurance is in order,” he explains. “Because we don’t know what criteria they use to kill people.”
Yet he continues to speak out, driven by a conviction that silence would dishonour his father’s memory. “The thing that has made me continue to speak about this matter is because this is my way of mourning and honouring Mzee Kibao,” Mohammed says.
“He was a fighter, not a coward,” he continues. “I have images in my mind that I cannot remove—images that show those who took him didn’t know him well. Because if there was something they wanted, they didn’t get it, and that’s why perhaps you saw that they even tortured him and destroyed his body, because he knew that this was the end, there was no changing. My old man was a man of principles, and I believe that until they killed him, he didn’t die in cowardice, he didn’t die whilst pleading for his life.”
This image of his father’s final moments—a principled man refusing to break even under torture—has become both a source of pain and inspiration for Mohammed. It has transformed him from a self-described non-partisan citizen into a determined advocate for change.
“I was non-partisan on these political issues, I never took sides,” Mohammed recalls. “There was a time I told people to stop this nonsense of wanting to divide the country. I was someone who believed, and I told Mzee Kibao as well, that if CHADEMA takes over the country, what will you do with it? I told him that, looking at CHADEMA, I don’t see a government leader there. That was my view—that the CCM government wasn’t doing well, but it could do much better.
“On a large scale, I believed that CCM is a well-established institution with a certain level of experience, and if they wanted change, it could happen. Now, to a large extent, I don’t believe that. The incident with my old man has contributed to awakening me to be part of the change so that this pain I am going through doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
A pattern of violence
Mohammed’s personal struggle for answers has led him to a broader analysis of the political situation in Tanzania. He sees his father’s murder not as an isolated incident, but as part of a disturbing pattern that has escalated over the past decade.
“If you look at 10 or 15 years ago, it’s a progression of these things,” he explains. “That’s why I said even in that message of December 5 that if anyone truly wants to know how we got here as a country, just go anywhere in this country and ask any citizen, and they will tell you that we got here because of how things are run, one of the biggest being this issue of people being abducted, disappearing, and being killed.”
He points to the 2017 shooting of opposition leader Tundu Lissu as a turning point. “If you look at the incident of Tundu Lissu being shot in broad daylight in 2017, until now, silence—we don’t know who was responsible, there’s no accountability. Then there was an escalation of these matters. They went from targeting politicians to targeting people from various sectors—journalists, activists, and even many ordinary citizens.”
This assessment is supported by UN human rights experts, who stated in June 2025 that “more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance have been recorded in Tanzania since 2019.” The experts described the situation as “a pattern of repression in the lead-up to Tanzania’s general election” and called on the government to “immediately stop the enforced disappearance of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists.”
Possible explanations
In his search for understanding, Mohammed has developed three possible explanations for why these crimes continue with apparent impunity:
“First, these things are happening because those doing them have been sent,” he says. “Now, is that so? Well, we don’t know. That’s the first possibility. I say this as someone who has been affected by these things, sitting here asking myself, Why aren’t we getting answers? I reach these three conclusions, that’s the first one.”
“Second, they’re happening, and they’re not being stopped or dealt with in the ways we see other matters being dealt with because they please, or benefit, a certain group of people. Because these things can’t happen in a vacuum. They happen on the basis of cause and effect. Something is causing these things to happen. A group of people has decided that so-and-so should not live.”
“Third, and perhaps the most frightening, is that these things are happening outside the control of the security forces, that even they are afraid, the government is afraid, that it has reached a point where it’s out of control? That even condemning it, they can’t.
Because we see President Samia is not someone who backs down—haven’t we seen on December 2, when she was speaking to the elders of Dar es Salaam, how she spoke with passion and determination, that if anyone wants to bring chaos and destabilise the country, we will use force as well. Now, that force and determination and those statements, we don’t see that same force being used on these other matters, which every Tanzanian will tell you is a problem. We don’t see that force. But here we’re being told, Why did you let your child go out [to protest], and you didn’t tell them not to go out? They went out, they were killed, so that’s it.”
This contrast between the government’s response to different forms of perceived threats has become a central point of frustration for Mohammed. He references the government’s handling of the October 29, 2025, protests—the largest demonstrations in Tanzania’s history—which were met with a nationwide internet shutdown, a curfew, and a forceful crackdown.
“When it comes to protecting the nation, the President tells us they will use whatever force is necessary to protect the nation,” Mohammed observes. “Does protecting the nation not also include protecting life? So we see that on one side, when force is needed, it’s used, and when we want to condemn something, we condemn it. We saw that the whole country on December 9 was shut down, silence, people were told to stay inside, and they stayed inside. So we have the capacity. But when it comes to these matters of citizens being abducted and killed, silence.”
In her December 2, 2025, speech to Dar es Salaam elders, President Samia characterised the October 29 events as riots rather than protests, arguing that the burning of government property and private businesses was not a legitimate protest but organised chaos. Her strong rhetoric on that occasion stands in stark contrast, Mohammed suggests, to the lack of similar determination in addressing enforced disappearances.
Honouring memory through action
Mohammed has channelled his grief and anger into creating online platforms to document and raise awareness about the human cost of political violence in Tanzania.
His website, Ijue Historia Yako (Know Your History), provides a timeline of key historical events from 1961 to 2025, whilst Kumbuko (Remembrance) serves as a memorial to victims of enforced disappearances, bearing the inscription: “In memory of Tanzanians we have lost. Lives lost. Names remembered. 2015-2025.”
“My efforts are aimed at honouring, remembering, and restoring humanity to those victims, so that the discussion isn’t just about numbers,” he explains. “I am a technology professional, so I plan to develop tools that will help educate Tanzanians.”
This commitment to education and remembrance reflects Mohammed’s broader vision for Tanzania’s future. “All of us have a responsibility as Tanzanians to ensure that in our various capacities, we create a country that we as parents, especially parents, will be proud of,” he says. “Those who came before us, if they had fear and cowardice, we wouldn’t be enjoying the fruits that we’ve been enjoying for many years.”
He draws a direct connection between his father’s murder and the broader political tensions that erupted on October 29, 2025. “This incident against my father has affected me greatly as a person, including having a lot of anger against our security forces, which I feel have let him down,” Mohammed says.
“The incident with my old man has contributed to awakening me to be part of the change so that this pain I am going through doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
