Nujoma was seen as the last of a generation of African figures who headed anti-colonial movements and fought for freedom. “Therefore, his departure signals an end of an era, a founding father of Africa,” President Mbumba said in an earlier speech at a national memorial service on Friday.
He led the long fight for freedom from South Africa, which was then under white-minority rule, and helped found the liberation movement known as the South West Africa People’s Organization (Swapo) in the 1960s.
The leader of Namibia’s independence struggle against apartheid South Africa died last month at the age of 95.
Namibia’s founding father Sam Nujoma was “a giant among leaders” and left behind “the most precious gift of… freedom”, Namibia’s President, Nangolo Mbumba, has said. He spoke in front of the large crowd at Heroes’ Acre, where the country’s most revered citizens are buried, before Nujoma was laid to rest in a mausoleum.
Namibians and other Africans must tell the tale of Sam Nujoma, sitting by the campfires or in the hallowed halls of universities, not to regale the audience with fancies and romance, but with the dry facts of sacrifice, struggle and the grim determination of a revolutionary living for a cause and shutting out every sentiment and emotion of ordinary moments, that are mere trifles that must be suppressed to keep the higher purpose of living in focus, unalloyed by the intrusion of external conditions.
Writing our own history and telling our own tales must form the centrality of the struggle against imperialism and the vestiges of colonialism that have remained obstinately alive and palpably present in the reality of the global geopolitical alignments and exhibition of intolerance to other races and peoples.
We cannot and should never reduce Sam Nujoma to the status of a political leader only, but we must maintain his stature as a revolutionary and freedom fighter, in order to assert his place in history and place him in the pantheon of heroes and liberators in the same ranks as Toussaint Louverture of Haiti, Omar Mukhtar of Libya, Amir Abdelkadir of Algeria, Emperor Menelik of Ethiopia, Gamel Abdel Naser of Egypt, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Augustinho Neto of Angola, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Dr Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and others who lived for a cause and died for their people’s dignity.
“We are not only mourning today, we are celebrating an extraordinary leader who has contributed significantly to our country’s independence, who will continue to inspire us for many more years to come,” Namibian Given Shiyukifein told the Reuters news agency.
On Saturday, Nujoma’s coffin, draped in the Namibian flag, was driven by a military gun carriage from the centre of the capital, Windhoek, where the body was lying in state, to the burial ground on the outskirts of the city.
Mourners arrived since the early hours, the independent Namibian newspaper reported.
It added that they waved flags and sang songs in his memory, including Sam Ouli Peni? (Sam, where are you?) – a popular anthem from the period after independence in 1990.
Among the dignitaries present were the presidents of neighbouring countries Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Nujoma, one of 10 children from a peasant family, was working on the railway in the late 1940s when he got a political education. He developed a passion for politics and yearned to see his people free from the injustice and indignity of colonialism.
As the country’s first president – a position he held for 15 years until 2005 – Nujoma is widely credited for ensuring peace and stability. His policy of national reconciliation encouraged the country’s white community to remain, and they still play a major role in farming and other sectors of the economy.
He also championed the rights of women and children, including making fathers pay for the maintenance of children born out of wedlock.
Namibia, then known as South West Africa, was under German occupation from 1884 until 1915, when Germany lost its colony in World War One.
It then fell under the rule of white South Africa, which extended its racist laws to the country, denying black Namibians any political rights, as well as restricting social and economic freedoms.
The introduction of sweeping apartheid legislation led to a guerrilla war of independence breaking out in 1966.
