Tanzania's Vice-President Samia Suluhu gives an address to heads of state and members of the public on Sept 14, 2019. (PHOTO / AFP)

NAIROBI - Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Friday the country should unite and avoid pointing fingers after the death of John Magufuli, her COVID-19 sceptic predecessor, urging the east African country to look forward with hope and confidence.

Wearing a red hijab, she took her oath of office on the Koran in a ceremony at State House in the counry’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam. She is the first female head of state in the country of 58 million.

Hassan, vice-president since 2015, gave a brief and sombre address after she was sworn in, addressing a heavily male crowd that included two former presidents and uniformed officers.

“This is a time to bury our differences, and be one as a nation,” she said. “This is not a time for finger pointing, but it is a time to hold hands and move forward together.”

Wearing a red hijab, Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan took her oath of office on the Koran in a ceremony at State House in the counry’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam. She is the first female head of state in the country of 58 million

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His absence from public life drew speculation he was critically ill with COVID-19. Magufuli died of heart disease, Hassan said when announcing his death on Wedneday.

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Described as a soft-spoken consensus-builder, Hassan will also be the country’s first president born in Zanzibar, the archipelago that forms part of the union of the Republic of Tanzania.