By CHIMPREPORTS
A dark cloud hovered over the Independence Stadium in Windhoek, Namibia where several African leaders graced the state funeral of departed Hage Geingob.
Geingob succumbed to cancer on February 4, 2024 at the age of 82.
Uganda’s leader, Yoweri Museveni sent a Government delegation, led by former Prime Minister, Hon Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, for the burial ceremony.
Rugunda was accompanied by State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon John Mulimba, and Presidential Advisor, Ms Joan Kategaya.
The Presidents who attended today’s ceremony include Namibia’s Nangolo Mbumba, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), Suluhu Samia (Tanzania), Sahle-Work Zewde (Ethiopia) and Evariste Ndayishimiye (Burundi).
Others are Felix Tshisekedi (DRC Congo), Emmerson Munangagwa (Zimbabwe), João Lourenço (Angola), Dr. Mokgweetsi E.K Masisi (Botswana), Filipe Nyusi (Mozambique), Lazarus Chakwera (Malawi), Sauli Niinistö (Finland), and Madagascar Prime Minister Christian Louis Ntsay.
The deceased leader, who had been in charge of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and COMESA member states since 2015, will be buried on Sunday at the Heroes Acre.
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Geingob was elected Namibia president in 2015.
At the time of his death, the president was serving his second and final term in office.
Geingob underwent a successful aortic operation in 2023 before declaring he had survived prostate cancer.
Namibia is set to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in November.
The deputy prime Minister Nandi-Ndaitwah was recently elected by SWAPO, the dominant political party which has been in power since independence in 1990, as its presidential flag-bearer.
Geingob, a former teacher and political activist who participated in protests demanding better quality of education in Namibia, was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 1990 to 2002, and served as prime minister again from 2012 to 2015
Between 2008 and 2012 Geingob served as Minister of Trade and Industry. He served as president of the ruling SWAPO Party from November 2017 until his death in February 2024.
At the end of the school year in the 1960s, Geingob Left his job to seek knowledge and instruction that could help him change the education system in Namibia.
He and three of his colleagues walked and hitchhiked to Botswana to escape the system. From Botswana, he was scheduled to go to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on a plane chartered by the African National Congress (ANC), but the plane was blown up by South Africans.
However, the bomb that had been planted on the plane went off prematurely, before the plane was able to take off. Subsequently, the apartheid regime also tightened up the “underground railway”. As a result, Geingob stayed in Botswana, where he served as Assistant South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) Representative (1963–64).
Geingob was known to be a die-hard football fan and attended many high-profile games. He regularly attended the Namibia Annual Music Awards (NAMAs), and in his youth sang in a choir, and played in a band.
In April 2021, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and The Namibian reported that Geingob was involved in the Fishrot scandal by allegedly instructing a government official to divert funds from a state-run fishing company to bribe attendees of the 2017 SWAPO electoral congress to vote for him.
In January 2024, Geingob supported South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel, saying that “No peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza.”
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