After Tanzania’s President John Pombe Magufuli was sworn in about 15 months, he gave Africa, and the rest of the world, goosebumps.

He was doing four things that usually don’t go together in African politics. He was cracking down big time on government waste. He was chasing Tanzania’s corrupt around with a big stick. He was shunning ostentation. He was getting his hands dirty literally, cleaning dirt off the streets. And he was getting results.

Social media exploded, and the hashtag #WhatWouldMagufuliDo became one of the biggest ever on African Twitter.

At that point, many criticised Magufuli as a lone ranger who would soon tire and settle back to the old ways. He hasn’t tired. Like the Energizer battery bunny, he has kept going.

The problem is that he is swinging his hammer at the heads of journalists, bloggers, and social media citizens. It seems there is even no mildly critical one among them whom Magufuli won’t jail.

He has sent his troops out to battle lawyers; brought his foot down on civil society; and has warned his own ruling CCM parliamentarians that if they try to impeach Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, he will dissolve the house and send them home to grow yams.

A year ago when you went to a cocktail or a coffee with buddies in this our neck of the woods, the first question you would be asked after the greetings would probably be: “Have you heard what our man Magufuli has been up to?”

Today it’s more likely to be: “What’s going on in Tz, bwana?”

Because I don’t live under Magufuli’s rule, I have the luxury to take a detached position on it. I am fascinated because we have rarely seen it.
Usually the drift towards illiberal and authoritarian politics in Africa happens in three contexts.

A country goes through an armed struggle, the repressive order is overthrown, the liberators introduce freedoms in the honeymoon period, then after some years they slide back into the bad ways of old. We have seen this in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda, and the ANC’s South Africa.

Or you can have a threat — a terrorist attack, military coup —against a half-democratic regime or benign dictatorship, and in its pushback it goes native and bananas.
The classic example in East Africa is Salva Kiir in South Sudan.

It’s extremely rare for a country with a long history of civilian government, a modicum of multiparty politics, stability, economic growth, and friendly neighbours to sharply swing toward 20th century-style African Big Man rule.

That it is happening in Tanzania perhaps tell us less about Mr Pombe, than it does about how big the seduction of the authoritarian bargain has become in our politics.

It’s this idea that you can’t build bridges and dams and finish them on time and on budget, you can’t stop the theft of taxpayer’s money, you can’t have a gleaming clean city, if you allow the noise of democracy and criticism too.

If Magufuli succeeds, two things that are hard to swallow could happen. He could sharply increase his winning margin at the next elections. And it’s not the CCM MPs, but folks like my good friend columnist Jenerali Ulimwengu who will be out of business raising goats in the countryside.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher of data visualiser Africapaedia and Rogue Chiefs. Twitter@cobbo3