Nujoma and the failed vision of a united Africa
Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma of Namibia, is another living legend of the Pan-African Movement. He was a revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician.
Nujoma was a founding member and the First President of the South West Africa People’s Organization (Swapo) in 1960.
He served three terms as the first President of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma played an important role as leader of the national liberation movement in campaigning for Namibia’s independence from South African rule.
In this series on pan-African leaders, the story of Nujoma will also revolve around his anti-apartheid activism to liberate Namibia from colonial horrors.
The Apartheid scourge in South West Africa began during World War I, when South Africa defeated the German colonial forces in South West Africa and established apartheid martial law in July 1915.
Nujoma was born in the apartheid tyrant colony of South West Africa (now Namibia) on the on 12th May 1929 at Etunda village in Ovamboland.
He spent much of his early childhood looking after his siblings and tending to the family’s cattle and traditional farming activities.
From 1939 he attended a Finnish Missionary School at Okahao. In 1946, after completing his primary education, he was employed as a stores clerk at a whaling station in Walvis Bay. In 1949, Nujoma moved to Windhoek to work as a cleaner for the South African Railways (SAR), while attending secondary school evening classes at the St Barnabas Anglican Church Secondary School to learn the English language.
While working at the SAR, he attained his Junior Secondary Education Certificate through correspondence at the Trans‐Africa Correspondence College in South Africa.
In the early 1950s Nujoma joined trade unions which shaped his political outlook and increased his knowledge on the independence campaigns across Africa.
In 1957, at age 29, Nujoma resigned from SAR to dedicate his time to politics. Meanwhile, freedom fighting in South West Africa was initiated in 1957 when the Ovamboland People’s Congress (OPC) movement was formed in Cape Town led by Andimba Toivo ya Toivo.
Inspired by OPC of Toivo on the 19th of April 1959, Nujoma and OPC co-founder Jacob Kuhangua formed the Ovamboland People’s Organisation (OPO) in Windhoek where Nujoma was elected President.
In September 1959, the South West African National Union (Swanu) was formed as an umbrella body for anti-colonial resistance groups. Nujoma joined its executive committee representing OPO.
Nujoma was now an active nationalist against the opressing South African Apatheid rule in Southwest Africa and fearing for his life Nujoma went in exile in February 1960 to join other exiles who were lobbying the United Nations on behalf of the anti-colonial cause for Namibia.
Therefore, on the 29th February 1960 Nujoma left Namibia, through Bechuanaland, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and to Tanganyika where he met Julius Kambarage Nyerere by then the President of Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) in Dar es Salaam where he was assisted to travel to the US to address the UN Committee on South West Africa in New York.
On the 19th of April 1960 the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) was formed as the successor of the Ovamboland People’s Organization (OPO) and Samuel Shafiishuna Nujoma was elected president of Swapo in absentia.
OPO was renamed to show that it represented all Namibians although Swapo base was among the Ovambo people of northern Namibia, who constituted nearly half the total population.
In April 1960 Nujoma after escaping from Namibia on the 29th February 1960 was now based in Dar es Salaam; he travelled to Accra, Ghana to attend the All African People’s Conference (AAPC) organised by Kwame Nkrumah.
At the Conference in Accra, Nujoma met with other Pan-African Leaders Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Frantz Fanon of West Indies who left an impression on his Pan-African outlook.
Dr Kafumu is the Member of Parliament for Igunga Constituency
