The truth shall set you free. This popular saying may prove true for Tundu Lissu, Tanzania’s opposition figure, who survived an attempted assassination on September 7, 2017, when two gunmen sprayed his car with bullets. Miraculously, Lissu survived, although he was left with a permanent disability, but his mind remained intact.
The truth about the incident, which Lissu believes was never properly investigated, began to emerge on September 24, 2024, following a report by The Guardian newspaper. The report detailed a labor case involving the telecommunication company Millicom, operating under the brand name Tigo, and a former internal investigator, Michael Clifford. It was revealed that Tigo had set up 24-hour surveillance to monitor Lissu’s phone calls and location data, which was then shared with Tanzanian government officials via WhatsApp.
Speaking on September 25, 2024, at his party’s headquarters in Mikocheni, Dar es Salaam, Lissu said that he had instructed his international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, to follow up on the case, including suing the Tanzanian government and Millicom.
“There is a report somewhere in Tigo’s files here in the city. We will obtain that evidence, which Tigo has, and we will also force Tigo to tell us with whom in the Tanzanian government they were communicating, and who requested them to monitor my communications 24 hours a day,” Lissu said, referring to the report Clifford claimed he had submitted to his supervisors at Tigo.
Case details
Details from the case, as reported by The Guardian, indicate that information about Lissu was shared with the government starting on August 22, 2017. Lissu recalled that this was the day he was arrested following his August 18, 2017, press conference where he revealed that a Tanzanian government plane had been seized in Canada due to a claim by a retired South African farmer.
Lissu also linked the sequence of events to the bombing of lawyers’ offices in Dar es Salaam on August 26, 2017. On that date, the offices of Imma Advocates, where lawyer Fatma Karume, an activist and commercial lawyer, worked, were bombed by unknown assailants in a highly secure area near Tanzanian military offices.
Lissu believes Karume’s office was targeted because she was representing the farmer, and the assailants may have thought she was the source of the information he disclosed.
Lissu further noted that on the day of his attempted assassination, September 7, 2017, he had weeks of serious debate in parliament and outside concerning government plans for the mineral sector, warning that abruptly ending contracts could be detrimental to the nation.
Tigo, the second-largest mobile provider in Tanzania, holds 21,517,857 SIM card subscribers out of 75,566,518 in total. While the Tigo brand still operates in Tanzania, the parent company, Millicom, exited the market, selling its business to a consortium led by Axian and Tanzanian businessman Rostam Aziz. The transaction was completed in April 2022, for a consideration value of USD 109 million.
Lissu stressed that his legal strategy involves pursuing the case in international courts, as he believes justice cannot be achieved locally.
“Tigo will have to reveal the names of those who instructed them. They said they were sending this information via WhatsApp, but later, the government told them to delete it. Millicom has offices in the UK, Luxembourg, Stockholm, and Florida in the US. I believe their headquarters are in Florida, and we will go there with a sufficient team of international lawyers,” argued Lissu.
Accusations
During his press conference, Lissu reiterated his accusations against the current Regional Commissioner of Arusha, Paul Makonda, claiming he received information from reliable sources that Makonda led a task force that attacked him in Dodoma.
“It was Paul Makonda who led the Task Force. He was staying at the African Dream Hotel, which is why he wasn’t present at the State House event that day. Among those who need to be criminally investigated regarding my allegations is Paul Makonda. Even the two young men who shot me are still out there; when the time comes, we will name them,” Lissu said.
Lissu had made similar claims on February 16, 2024, during an interview with Star TV, prompting a response from Makonda on March 5, 2024. Makonda dismissed Lissu’s behavior as unprofessional, stating, “I see our lawyer, my brother Tundu Lissu, speaking things unprofessionally. Very unprofessional of him,” Makonda argued.
He added: “You cannot tell if he is a learned lawyer or not. They say you can’t judge or level accusations against somebody without listening to their side of the story. But now, a complete lawyer is judging and accusing, and when you ask him, he will say, ‘I have been told.’ You are a lawyer, and you base your argument on hearsay, and it’s just one side; this is unprofessional.”
Lissu also highlighted how the incident has affected his family. “I was subjected to a terrorist act according to Tanzanian laws. That act has hurt me deeply; I can’t wear any other shoes except these, I can’t walk properly. I walk with bullets in my back; this body is full of metal. I have metal from my knee to my hip, and don’t even get me started on the scars—sixteen bullet scars and twenty-five surgery scars from procedures done in Nairobi and Leuven, Belgium. All this happened because Tigo enabled Magufuli to do this to me,” Lissu emphasized.
“My children haven’t returned to Tanzania for five years. They called me yesterday after hearing this news and told me, ‘Dad, we want to come home, but when we remember how we saw you in Nairobi, we can’t bring ourselves to return home.’ Today is the 25th, and it’s their birthday, by the way. They can’t come back home because of what happened to their father.”
