Sam Nujoma, the revolutionary leader who guided Namibia to independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 and served as its first president for 15 years, has died at 95.
Hailed as Namibia’s “founding father”, Nujoma passed away on Saturday night following a three-week hospitalisation in the capital, Windhoek, according to the Namibian presidency.
“The foundations of the Republic of Namibia have been shaken,” the presidency said in a Facebook post announcing his death. There will be a period of “national mourning”, it added.
and revolutionary leader, H.E. Dr. Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma.” @DrNangoloMbumba President Nujoma passed on at the age of 95 on the 8th of February at 23h45 in Windhoek, Namibia. Read full statement: https://t.co/Aw4VpZp4Y4
— Namibian Presidency (@NamPresidency) February 9, 2025
Nujoma was revered in his homeland as a charismatic father figure who steered his country to democracy and stability after long colonial rule by Germany and a bitter war of independence from South Africa.
He was the last of a generation of African leaders who led their countries out of colonial or white minority rule that included South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Mozambique’s Samora Machel.
Nujoma headed the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) that led the liberation struggle since its inception in 1960.
While SWAPO has remained in power since independence, Nujoma finally quit in 2007 at the age of 78, two years after standing down from the presidency.
Many Namibians credited Nujoma’s leadership for the process of national healing and reconciliation after the deep divisions caused by the independence war and South Africa’s policies of dividing the country into ethnically based regional governments.
Even his political opponents praised Nujoma – who was branded a Marxist – for establishing a democratic constitution and involving white businessmen and politicians in government after independence. He was also known for his fierce anti-Western rhetoric and railing against homosexuality, which he called a “foreign and corrupt ideology” and AIDS disease “a man-made biological weapon”.
But while he succeeded in establishing democratic institutions and moving forward with reconciliation, his autocratic tendencies cast a shadow over his legacy, said Ndumba Kamwanyah, a lecturer at the University of Namibia and a political analyst.
“While Nujoma’s presidency was foundational in establishing Namibia’s independence and governance, it was not without flaws,” said Kamwanyah.
‘Maximum leadership’
Born to poor farmers from the Ovambo tribe in a tiny village in northwestern Namibia in 1929, Nujoma traced the awakening of his political consciousness to his teenage years when he moved to the harbour town of Walvis Bay.
Arriving aged 17, he lived with an aunt in a Black township and was privy to adult conversations about the plight of Black people under white-minority rule.
The eldest of 10 children, Nujoma’s first job was as a railway sweeper near Windhoek in 1949 while he went to night school, according to an autobiography published in 2001. It was there that he was introduced to Herero tribal chief Hosea Kutako, who was lobbying to end apartheid rule in Namibia, then known as South West Africa.
Kutako became his mentor, shepherding the young Nujoma as he became politically active among Black workers in Windhoek who were resisting a government order to move to a new township in the late 1950s.
At Kutako’s request, Nujoma began life in exile in 1960, first to Botswana, leaving his wife and four children behind. The same year, he was elected president of SWAPO, later shuttling from capital to capital in the quest for support and launching a low-level armed struggle in 1966.
It took more than a decade of pressure from Nujoma and others before a United Nations Security Council resolution in 1978 proposed a ceasefire and elections. Another decade went by for the ceasefire deal to be signed and elections held in late 1989.
SWAPO won a majority in those elections, and Nujoma took office in March 1990.
On retirement from the presidency, he enrolled for a master’s degree in geology, believing that Namibia’s mountains contained untapped mineral wealth.
“Nujoma provided maximum leadership to our nation and spared no effort to motivate each and every Namibian to build a country that would stand tall and proud among the nations of the world,” said the presidency.