Watch: Tanzanian president sitting on the floor at event

Samia Suluhu ignored her reserved VIP chair

• “Samia comes from a very small island, where if you treat people badly, you are going to meet them at funerals."

President Samia Suluhu
Image: File

A viral clip of Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan sitting on the floor has emerged online.

In the clip, she is seen walking into a room, barefoot, ignoring a chair reserved for her - and opting to sit on the floor as the rest of the fellow mourners.

Her aide-de-camp can be seen pulling the seat aside as she carried the president's sandals.

Samia who is currently Africa's only female political head of state has proven that women can lead and lead well. 

In an interview with BBC, she revealed, "Even some of my government workers dismissed me at first as just another woman, but they soon accepted my leadership."

Adding some "don't believe that women can be better presidents and we are here to show them," Samia told the BBC.

She took over after her predecessor John Pombe Maghufuli died in office.

In an interview with New African Magazine, prominent lawyer, Fatma Karume, one of the victims of frequent state-sponsored harassment under Magufuli, says Samia would never be ‘another Magufuli’.

She points out that her reconciliatory tone and soft-spoken nature has reassured her of an improved and different engagement with the public.

“Samia comes from a very small island, where if you treat people badly, you are going to meet them at funerals. It’s a completely different social upbringing,” Karume said in a recent radio interview. 

That said, here is a video of Samia at a sombre event where she opted to sit on the floor like everyone else and not sit in the reserved VIP chair.

Check it out below.

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