BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Thulisile Dladla and Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Bongani Nzima will be part of the funeral of Namibia’s first President Sam Nujoma.
The two went to Namibia on February 27, 2025 to represent His Majesty King Mswati III and the entire Eswatini nation. The funeral is set to take place on March 1, 2025, after a memorial ceremony a day later. The DPM’s delegation arrived in Namibia in through the Hosea Kutako International Airport, which is just outside Namibia.
Upon arrival, Dladla and her delegation were welcomed by Eswatini’s High Commissioner to South Africa Lindiwe Kunene and Eswatini’s Honourary Consulate to Namibia Mumcy Dambi. Nujoma died on February 8, 2025.
The first president of independent Namibia, Sam Nujoma, has died at the age of 95 in the capital Windhoek, the country’s current leader has announced.
Nujoma led the long fight for independence from South Africa in 1990 after helping found Namibia’s liberation movement known as the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in the 1960s.
After independence, Nujoma became president in 1990 and led the country until 2005.
Nujoma had been hospitalised over the past three weeks with an illness from which he “could not recover”, Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba said in a statement announcing the death with “utmost sorrow and sadness”.
He “inspired us to rise to our feet and to become masters of this vast land of our ancestors,” President Mbumba said. Nujoma is likened to other SADC’s strongmen, who led their respective countries to independence. One of them is His Majesty King Sobhuza II of Eswatini, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, President Samora Machel of Mozambique, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and President Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana, among others.
(Pics: EBIS News)
