Tanzania opposition figure comes back home after years in exile

Tanzanian opposition politician Godbless Lema has returned home after two years in exile in Canada over threats to his life following a disputed election.
A huge crowd came to welcome the former lawmaker from the main opposition Chadema party who fled the country in November 2020, AFP reports.
Lema said he “wept” upon seeing such a large crowd to greet him at the airport. “I have come back from a better place to fight for my country,” he told a rally of supporters in Arusha.
His return comes a month after another opposition stalwart Tundu Lissu arrived back in his homeland after spending most of the past five years in exile following an assassination attempt.
Their returns come in light of the lifting of a ban on political assembly by President Samia Suluhu Hassan in an overture to the opposition.
The party on Twitter announced the return of Lema. Cheering supporters dressed in the party colors of white, red and blue thronged the airport, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the northern town of Arusha where the opposition was to hold a welcome rally.
Lema served as lawmaker for 10 years and was one of many opposition members of parliament who lost their seats in key strongholds in the 2020 election. Opposition parties called for street demonstrations against the results, but their leaders, including Lissu, were detained.
Lema first exiled in Kenya with his wife and children before being granted political asylum in Canada.
Then country leader John Magufuli, a strongman leader who died just five months after winning his second term, banned political gatherings.
His successor, Hassan who was sworn in March 2021, has pledged some reforms and promised to grant some of the opposition’s demands.
Hopes however dimmed in July 2021 when Chadema party leader Freeman Mbowe was arrested on terrorism charges. He was released after seven months but some critics labelled Hassan a “dictator”.