A journey leading up to 21 March 1990 – honouring the legacy of Sam Nujoma

Swapo vice president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah at the state memorial service for founding president Sam Nujoma, Independence Stadium, 28 February 2025

SHORTLY before midnight on 8 February 2025, president Nangolo Mbumba, in a solemn and somber voice, announced to the Namibian nation and the world that our founding president and father of the nation, founding president of the Swapo Party and the leader of the Namibian revolution, Sam Nujoma, has passed on.

His departure into eternity represents a very sad and profoundly distressing moment of grief for Meekulu Kavambo Nujoma, the entire Nujoma family and all the Namibian people and people all over the world.

Comrade president Sam Nujoma belonged to the greatest contemporary generation of brave Namibian compatriots the likes David Merero, Hendrick Witbooi, Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, Nathaniel Maxuilili, Kaxumba ka Ndola, Mzee Simon Kaukungwa, Isak Shoome, and Branden Simbwaye, among others they are the outstanding heroes and heroines of the struggle for the liberation of Namibia from the yoke of apartheid colonialism.

As we mourn the passing of our founding president, we should ask ourselves some critically important questions, including: what we must do to continue consolidating our party’s unity, strengthen our constitutional democracy, constantly renew and rededicate our commitment to the wellbeing and prosperity of the Namibian people.

It is an indisputable fact that the passing of the founding president has bestowed on us a huge political and moral obligation to continue to hold high the banner of our party’s unity, national unity and cohesion. We face a daunting task of ensuring that the ideals of freedom, solidarity and justice are kept alive. We must remain faithful to those ideals. We must not betray what comrade founding president and those of his generation who had departed before him had achieved. Let us relentlessly defend our freedom and independence, and ensure prosperity in Namibia.

During our liberation struggle under the leadership of the founding president, Swapo formulated and implemented an interlocking and mutually reinforcing three-pronged strategy, namely, mass political mobilization at home, coordinated diplomatic campaigns abroad, and the intensification of the armed struggle. All three were implemented concurrently, and today we are a free country. As a nation we must develop clear strategies to bring about economic independence as that is what president Nujoma stood for.

Since the passing of the founding president, we have received and heard rich tributes paid in honour of his memory from world leaders and from regular Namibian citizens whose lives were touched by him. Their descriptions of president Nujoma as a person, was as an unmatched national leader, an African statesman and an outstanding international personality. 

Sam Nujoma was indeed a man with a natural sense of authority, always modest with a disarming, irresistible and infectious laugh. However, he had a strong character, decisive and that is why it was possible for him to successfully lead the liberation struggle, particularly when the situation called for tough decisions. He was, without a doubt, one of the leaders whose high ideals and moral integrity inspired thousands of people in Namibia and around the globe.

I wish to thank all the leaders and members of Swapo, the entire Namibian nation, the fraternal sister parties from all over the world for their messages of solidarity and support extended to Swapo on the sad occasion of the passing of our party’s founding president, Sam ‘Shafiishuna’ Nujoma.

President Sam Nujoma did not work alone. He was assisted by capable and loyal comrades. However, president Nujoma had no peers. He was a leader who single-mindedly devoted his whole life to the service of his country and people. He was a tireless defender of the just cause and an architect of the liberation of Namibia.

I can say without fear of contradiction that president Nujoma was one of the founders of modern Africa. He was a true and firm believer in African unity. He was present at the founding summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 25 May 1963, alongside other prominent leaders of the liberation struggle in Africa including: Agostinho Neto of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Oliver Tambo of the African National Congress in South Africa, Eduardo Mondlane of Frelimo of Mozambique and Amílcar Cabral of PAIGC of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde.

At the founding summit of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) in 1963, president Sam Nujoma networked with leading African leaders among them, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, first president of Ghana, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, first president of the United Republic of Tanzania, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, Ahmed Ben Bella, first President of Algeria, Ahmed Sekou Toure, president of Guinea and Modibo Keita, president of Mali.

Therefore, his departure signals an end of the era of the founding fathers of Africa as he was the only living leader who was present at the formation of the OAU the forerunner of the African Union (AU).

President Nujoma was also present at the first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Yugoslavia in 1961, where he interacted with such giants as Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India, marshal Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia, Achmed Sukarno, president of Indonesia, among others.

Under president Nujoma’s steadfast leadership, Swapo developed and grew into a political and diplomatic force, recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 1973 as the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people. He became the first leader of a liberation movement to be invited in 1971, and to address the United Nations Security Council in New York.

President Nujoma was involved in the conception and establishment of the frontline states, bordering minority ruled countries in southern Africa led by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of the United Republic of Tanzania, the frontline states comprised of Antonio Agostinho Neto of Angola, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Seretse Khama of Botswana, Samora Moises Machel of Mozambique, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. In the process Nigeria joined, and the organisation came to be known as ‘the frontline states and Nigeria’.

The frontline states and Nigeria, in close consultation with the leaders of the liberation movements, formulated political and diplomatic strategies in the struggle against the forces of oppression, and the intensification of the armed struggle to bring about freedom, peace and independence to the whole of Africa. 

Our founding president also attended the founding summit of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), which was later transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) at the summit in Windhoek which he presided over.

During the most difficult days of the struggle, president Nujoma inspired and gave hope to the Namibian freedom fighters at home and in exile to fight “with vigour and determination until total victory”. He mobilized our national will, spirit and human resources for the total liberation of Namibia and the African continent from the shackles of apartheid oppression. He consistently supported the Palestinian and Sahrawi people respectively, in their legitimate struggles for self-determination and independence. A course we continue to support.

As president of Swapo, he mobilised political and diplomatic support for the party across Africa and around the world. He facilitated the opening of Swapo representation offices in many world capitals, like Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Luanda, Lagos, Dakar, Algiers, Brazzaville, Addis Ababa, London, Paris, Stockholm, Belgrade, Bucharest, Moscow, Tehran, New Delhi, Havana and Harare, as well as at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Outside Africa, president Nujoma forged an unbreakable bond with commander-in-chief and president of Cuba Fidel Castro and the fraternal people of Cuba. They had a shared commitment to the anti-imperialist struggle and a common desire for international peace and freedom for all the oppressed peoples of the world.

Consequently, Cuban internationalist forces fought valiantly side by side with the Angolan armed forces, the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (Fapla), and combatants of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (Plan) against apartheid South African brazen acts of aggression and invasion of the sovereign Republic of Angola.

From the launch of the armed struggle on 26 August 1966 at Omugulugombashe to the signing of the ceasefire agreement with racist South Africa under the auspices of the United Nations secretary general in 1989, Swapo and its military wing Plan had recorded many brilliant political, diplomatic and military victories, which culminated in the humiliating defeat inflicted on the South African invading forces at the history-making joint operation of the Cuban internationalist forces, Fapla and Plan at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988.

As in any war, we suffered setbacks, among them the betrayal and death in action of the first commander of the South West African Liberation Army (Swala), the forerunner of Plan, comrade Tobias Hainyeko in 1967, as well as the disappearance of Branden Simbwaye, and the most horrific massacre by South African racist forces at Cassinga on 4 May 1978, and many other atrocities committed by apartheid against the people of Namibia. 

However, after each setback Swapo, under the leadership of comrade Sam Nujoma, rebounded with even greater vigour and sharper strategic vision to effectively prosecute the liberation struggle to its logical conclusion, the independence of Namibia.

The proudest moment and the most glorious achievement of comrade president Sam Nujoma and the people of Namibia was unquestionably the proclamation of Namibia’s independence at that historic and memorable 21 March 1990 midnight. 

To unite the Namibian people around the virtues of common identity, common loyalty to our country and its democratic institutions, Nujoma introduced the policy of national reconciliation. He successfully weaved the hitherto divided people into ‘One Namibia, One Nation’.

Under the leadership of Nujoma, we worked together as a united people in our struggle for freedom. We rejoiced together when we won decisive victories, especially at the time our country achieved independence. In difficult times, Nujoma never despaired, he always inspired and motivated us to confront the challenges with confidence and conviction.

Nujoma was always conscious that while he played the central role as leader of the liberation movement, and the first democratically elected president of independent Namibia, it was the people acting together and individually who worked with him to build Namibia into what it is today – a proud, self-confident country.

As we bid farewell to this extraordinary son of the Namibian people, we are consoled by the knowledge that he has written some of the most beautiful pages of glory in the history of contemporary Namibia and Africa. 

We recall his inaugural address to the Namibian nation and the world on 21 March 1990, when he said: “I move, in the name of our people, to declare that Namibia is forever free, sovereign and independent.”

As we pay homage to his memory, we must pledge ourselves to keep alive the legacy of president Nujoma, his unflinching commitment to the unity of our people, while respecting our diversity from which we draw strength.

On behalf of the Swapo Party leadership, rank and file, my family, and on my own behalf, I extend heartfelt condolences to Meekulu Kovambo Nujoma, the widow, the children and the entire bereaved family on the loss of comrade Sam ‘Shafiishuna’ Nujoma. 

I equally, thank the Nujoma and Kondombolo families for having allowed the nation to share in the good deeds of Nujoma from his young adult age till his departure.

May the story of the contribution of Nujoma to our liberation and nation building be written in gold in the history of our country and be taught to the succeeding generation of the Namibian people.

Go well, our leader, our hero, commander-in-chief!

May the soul of comrade Sam ‘Shafiishuna’ Nujoma rest in eternal and perfect peace.

I thank you.

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