Magazine names Mugabe as one of continent’s greatest leaders

READERS of a magazine which labels itself as Pan-African have voted Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe among the top five of Africa’s greatest, in a list of 100 headed by Nelson Mandela.

In a list dominated by politicians, but containing athletes, boxes, footballers, tennis players and musicians, readers of the New African described Mugabe as a great freedom fighter who was giving people back their land in the face of Western propaganda. Namibia occupied two slots – President Sam Nujoma was 29th on the list, one notch below Mozambique’s 800 metre world champion Maria Mutola.Anti-German colonial resistance leader, the Nama Chief Hendrik Witbooi, was 74th.No mention was made of a horde of Zimbabweans who accuse Mugabe of being a dictator, responsible for thousands of killings of his countrymen in the 1980s and the continued suppression of dissent.Mugabe placed at number three, after Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, in the latest issue of New African.The list includes people who are not African but of African parentage Others in the top 10 are Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Marcus Garvey (Jamaica), Patrice Lumumba (DR Congo), Martin Luther King Jr (US), Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Malcolm X (US) and Kofi Annan (United Nations, Ghana).The magazine began the poll in December.In the article on its 100 so-called greatest Africans, the magazine asks why politicians, particularly of the recent past dominate, why more men than women were nominated, and why the builders of the pyramids, or the first university of Timbuktu, are not mentioned.New African is published from England.Namibia occupied two slots – President Sam Nujoma was 29th on the list, one notch below Mozambique’s 800 metre world champion Maria Mutola.Anti-German colonial resistance leader, the Nama Chief Hendrik Witbooi, was 74th.No mention was made of a horde of Zimbabweans who accuse Mugabe of being a dictator, responsible for thousands of killings of his countrymen in the 1980s and the continued suppression of dissent.Mugabe placed at number three, after Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, in the latest issue of New African.The list includes people who are not African but of African parentage Others in the top 10 are Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Marcus Garvey (Jamaica), Patrice Lumumba (DR Congo), Martin Luther King Jr (US), Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Malcolm X (US) and Kofi Annan (United Nations, Ghana).The magazine began the poll in December.In the article on its 100 so-called greatest Africans, the magazine asks why politicians, particularly of the recent past dominate, why more men than women were nominated, and why the builders of the pyramids, or the first university of Timbuktu, are not mentioned.New African is published from England.