Africa's Ex-Presidents & Leaders!

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo

(born 5 June 1942) is the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Equatorial_Guinea"]President of Equatorial Guinea[/ame], having served since 1979.




Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo

,

President, Equatorial Guinea Known as " El Jefe " (The Boss), Obiang is "in permanent contact with the Almighty", according to a state radio report broadcast last year. "He can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself with whom he is in permanent contact, and who gives him his strength," a presidential aide told listeners.

[He] has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979 when he overthrew his uncle and had him executed. His government has been described by several human rights groups as among the worst abusers of human rights in Africa. The tiny west African country has grown to become the continent's third largest exporter of oil, but despite the new- found wealth most of its 500,000 inhabitants still live in abject poverty.

Nguema came to power 25 years ago by killing his own father. This happened after he became known as the country's "torturer-in-chief." Equatorial Guinea is a very small African country, but has a lot of oil. Its per capita income puts it near Greece and Portugal in terms of wealth, yet most people live on a dollar a day. Nguema's government, Human Rights Watch says, is stealing most of the money.

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FMEs!

Field Marshall ES said:

- Ni kweli Mkuu, haya ni maneno mazito sana hasa ukizingatia the time yalipoandikwa na reality ya Zaimbabwe sasa, lakini as usual politics za Africa zina a lot of confusion, kwa sababu at one point Nkomo hakuelewana tena hata na Mwalimu, sasa sielewi what happened,

- Lakini one thing for sure, somebody who matters should have paid attention to haya maneno ya Nkomo na hasa the West.

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FMEs!

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Yea from what I heard ni kwamba Nyerere alikuwa mediator wa mgogoro wa Mugabe na Nkomo. Nkomo alijitahidi sana kufuata ushauri wa mediator, lakini Mugabe just took it for granted. To him all he wanted ni kumleta jamaa karibu ktk kivuli cha Muungano halafu kummaliza kisiasa. Ofcourse that's what happened.

Nkomo alishtukia hii ishu na aliporipoti some issues kwa mwalimu kuhusu mienendo ya Mugabe he was sort of ignored. Nkomo akaamini basi na Nyerere yuko upande wa Mugabe. Gogoro ya Nyerere na Nkomo ikaanzia hapo. But someone told me it's in the records Nyerere alikuja kupata ukweli halisi and it was almost too late.

That's why I believe if Nyerere would have been alive, very likely Mugabe angekua alishaachia madaraka.

Nyambala said:

Yea from what I heard ni kwamba Nyerere alikuwa mediator wa mgogoro wa Mugabe na Nkomo. Nkomo alijitahidi sana kufuata ushauri wa mediator, lakini Mugabe just took it for granted. To him all he wanted ni kumleta jamaa karibu ktk kivuli cha Muungano halafu kummaliza kisiasa. Ofcourse that's what happened.

Nkomo alishtukia hii ishu na aliporipoti some issues kwa mwalimu kuhusu mienendo ya Mugabe he was sort of ignored. Nkomo akaamini basi na Nyerere yuko upande wa Mugabe. Gogoro ya Nyerere na Nkomo ikaanzia hapo. But someone told me it's in the records Nyerere alikuja kupata ukweli halisi and it was almost too late.

That's why I believe if Nyerere would have been alive, very likely Mugabe angekua alishaachia madaraka.

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- Tupo pamoja sana mkuu, vipi nini connection ya Kaunda then akiwa Rais, maana na yeye alikuwa akimsaidia sana Nkomo na Savimbi, kama una lolote on that mkuu mwaga hapa, na tupo pamoja sana!

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FMEs!

We remember Samora Machel

Death of selfless Mozambican president commemorated

Died in mysterious circumstances: Mozambican President Samora Machel (courtesy Samora Machel Documentation Centre)Oct 19, 2007 – Twenty-one years ago, on October 19, 1986, President Samora Moises Machel of Mozambique was killed when his plane, apparently off-course, smashed into a Lebombo hillside near Mbuzini in what is now Mpumalanga, South Africa.



There is a monument now to mark the spot where Mozambique's first post-independence President and stalwart of the Mozambican liberation struggle died along with 33 members of his presidential entourage. More than two decades later, no official version of what caused the crash has been provided.


Today we remember him and the Mozambican people's selfless contribution to the realisation of a democratic South Africa and we quote the words of Bob Marley's Redemption Song "How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?"

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.......to be continued.....

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Samora Moisés Machel (September 29, 1933 – October 19, 1986) was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President.

The Sole Mozambiquan Tupolev Tu-134A, coded C9-CAA, always used for government VIP transport, crashed on 19 October 1986, killing President Samora Machel. For years there were rumours that the South Africans sabotaged the aircraft or even planted a bomb on it, but this incident was never sufficiently investigated. (Photo: Peter J. Bish)

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May God Bless His Soul, President Samora Machel.

.....to be continued......

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The Upright Man: Sankara.

It is the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of Capt Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, orchastrated by France and its puppet tools for his stances against neocolonialism, anti-IMF/World Bank, and debts.



But the most threatening thing about this 35 years old leader were his ideas that threatened both internal and external parasites.



His progressive policies, social and economic, were ahead of their time to say the least



He was the first African leader to emphatically promote women's rights and declare HIV/AIDS public health priority. He also stripped tribal chiefs the "right" to get forced-labor from their "subjects," among other revolutionary policies during his military rule.


He was the first and last African head of state to declare IMF/World Bank "aid loans" illegal and should not be paid by any poor country.



They don't make ‘em like that any more. Big up to all those who died for a cause!
If only Africa had leaders like him…

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........to be continued........

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Samora Machel (September 29, 1933 - October 19, 1986) was a prominent leader of FRELIMO and president of Mozambique. Samora Moisés Machel was born in 1933 in the village of Chilembene, Mozambique, to a poor family. He studied in Catholic school but eventually begun to work against Portuguese colonial rule. 1962 Machel joined left-wing FRELIMO guerilla movement and received military training. He became leader of FRELIMO on 1968. On 1969 he became its president.

Mozambique became independent in the aftermath of Portugal military coup in 1974. FRELIMO took over in Mozambique in June 25 1975. Machel became the president. He advocated the formation of society based on Marxist ideals.

Machel had to face economical troubles and side effects of the Rhodesian civil war. Mozambique was economically dependent of South Africa with its hostile Apartheid government and had to fight Renamo guerilla movement they supported. Soviet economic aid was sporadic. At the same time he supported African National Congress and allowed South African and Rhodesian rebels train in Mozambique. He remained a popular ruler.

On October 19, 1986 Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Lusaka in Tupolev 134 plane when the plane crashed into the hillside in the Lebombo Mountains. 10 people survived but Machel and 33 others died, some of them members of his government. The accident was attributed to the error of Russian pilot but there has been speculation of complicity of South African security forces and that the plane had been intentionally diverted by a false navigational beacon signal.

Machel's successor was Joaquim Chissano.

His widow, Graça Machel, would later marry Nelson Mandela.

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Captain Thomas Sankara: (Born 1949 - Died 1987).

President (1983 - 1987). Burkina Faso.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_(land)

Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was the leader of Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) from 1983 to 1987. In addition to being noted for his personal charisma and praised for promoting health and women's rights, he also antagonised many vested interests in the country. He was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987, sometimes believed to have been at the instruction of France.

Early life

Thomas Sankara was the son of Marguerite Sankara (died March 6, 2000) and Sambo Joseph Sankara (1919 – August 4, 2006), a gendarme. Born into a Roman CatholicMossi men and women of the pastoralist Fulani people. The Silmi-Mossi are among the least advantaged in the Mossi caste system. He attended primary school in Gaoua and high school in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second city.

Military career

After basic military training in secondary school in 1966, Sankara began his military career at the age of 19, and a year later he was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabe where he witnessed popular uprisings in 1971 and 1972. Returning to Upper Volta in 1972, in 1974 he fought in a border war between Upper Volta and Mali. He became a popular figure in the capital of Ouagadougou. The fact that he was a decent guitarist (he played in a band named "Tout-à-Coup Jazz") and liked motorbikes may have contributed to his charisma.

In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year he met Blaise Compaoré in Morocco. During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo a group of young officers formed a secret organisation "Communist Officers' Group" (Regroupement des officiers communistes, or ROC) the best-known members being Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Compaoré and Sankara.

Government posts

Sankara was appointed Secretary of State for Information in the military government in September 1981, journeying to his first cabinet meeting on a bicycle, but he resigned on April 21, 1982 in opposition to what he saw as the regime's anti-labour drift, declaring "Misfortune to those who gag the people!" ("Malheur à ceux qui baillonnent le peuple!")

After another coup (November 7, 1982) brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, Sankara became prime minister in January 1983, but he was dismissed (May 17) and placed under house arrest after a visit by the French president's son and African affairs adviser Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani were also placed under arrest; this caused a popular uprising.

President

A coup d'état organised by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on August 4, 1983,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara#cite_note-4</sup> coup d'état was supported by Libya which was, at the time, on the verge of war with France in Chad<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara#cite_note-5</sup> (see History of Chad).
Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba and Ghana's military leader, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings. As President, he promoted the "Democratic and Popular Revolution" (Révolution démocratique et populaire, or RDP).

The ideology of the Revolution was defined by Sankara as anti-imperialist in a speech of October 2, 1983, the Discours d'orientation politique (DOP), written by his close associate Valère Somé. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, averting famine, and making education and health real priorities.

Abolition of chiefs' privileges

The government suppressed many of the powers held by tribal chiefs such as their right to receive tribute payment and obligatory labour. The CDRs (Comités de Défense de la Révolution) were formed as popular mass organizations and armed. In some areas they deteriorated into gangs of armed thugs.

In 1984, on the first anniversary of his accession, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning "the land of upright people" in Mossi and Djula, the two major languages of the country. He also gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem (Une Seule Nuit).

Women's rights

Sankara's government included a large number of women. Improving women's status was one of Sankara's explicit goals, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government banned female circumcision, condemned polygamy, and promoted contraception.

The Burkinabé government was also the first African government to publicly recognize AIDS as a major threat to Africa<sup style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from December 2007" class="noprint Template-Fact"></sup>. Sankara had some original initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some international media attention to the Burkinabé revolution:

• He sold most of the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers;
• He formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
• In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

Second Agacher strip war

In 1985 Burkina Faso organised a general population census. During the census some Fula camps in Mali were visited by mistake by Burkinabé census agents.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bry_6-0">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara#cite_note-bry-6</sup> The Malian government claimed that the act was a violation of its sovereignty on the Agacher strip. Following efforts by Mali asking African leaders to pressure Sankara, tensions erupted on Christmas Day 1985 in a war that lasted five days and killed about 100 people (most victims were civilians killed by a bomb dropped on the marketplace in Ouahigouya by a Malian MiG plane).

The conflict is known as the "Christmas war" in Burkina Faso.

Assassination

On October 15, 1987 Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a coup d'étatPrince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord allied to Charles Taylor, told Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that it was engineered by Charles Taylor.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara#cite_note-7</sup> After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days.

Sankara was quickly buried in an unmarked grave. A week prior to his death Sankara addressed people and said that "while revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas."

organised by his former colleague, Compaoré. Deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one of the reasons given by Compaoré for his action.

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Field Marshall ES said:

The Upright Man: Sankara.








........to be continued........

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FMEs!

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Sankara was also a great man, ahead of his time. Nataka kujua kitu. Huyu Bwana Sankara aliwahi kuja TZ na kuonana na mwalimu. Was was mwalimu's take on this guy maana aliingia madarakani kwa kupindua serikali na hilo lisingekuwa jambo la kukubalika sana

<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" width="90%"><tbody><tr><td width="1" valign="middle"></td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 01.10.1963-16.01.1966
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Johnson T.U. Ironsi (1924-1966)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 17.01.1966-29.07.1966
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Yakubo Gowon (1934)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 01.08.1966-29.07.1975
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Murtala Ramat Mohammed (1937-1976)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 30.07.1975-13.02.1976
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Olusegun Obasanjo (1937)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 13.02.1976-30.09.1979
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1925)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 01.10.1979-31.12.1983
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Mohammed Buhari (1942)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 01.01.1984-27.08.1985
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Ibrahim Babangida (1941)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 27.08.1985-26.08.1993
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle">

</td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Ernest Shonekan (1936)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 31.08.1993-17.11.1993
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Sani Abacha (1943-199
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 17.11.1993-08.06.1998
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Abdul Salam Abu Bakr (1942)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 08.06.1998-24.05.1999
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle">

</td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Olusegun Obasanjo (2. Mal)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 29.05.1999-29.05.2007
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> </td> <td width="359" valign="middle"> Umaru Musa Yar'Adua (1951)
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle"> 29.05.2007-
</td> </tr> <tr><td width="1" valign="middle"> Nigeria.
</td> <td width="359" valign="middle">
</td> <td width="187" valign="middle">


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Colonel Ojukwu: (Born 1933 - Still Living)

Rebel Leader (1967 - 1970) Biafra State, Nigeria.

General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi, known as Emeka Ojukwu, (born November 4, 1933)was the leader of the secessionist state of Biafra in Nigeria (1967&#8211;1970), during the Nigerian Civil War, and previously Military Governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria. He is usually referred to in news and other sources as, merely, Ojukwu.
Education

He was born in Zungeru,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1"></sup> the son of Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu KBE, President of The African Continental Bank, first President of The Nigerian Stock Exchange and a business tycoon who was believed to be Nigeria's first multi-millionaire. Chukwuemeka's name meant "God has done well." He attracted media publicity at a young age.<sup style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from July 2008" class="noprint Template-Fact"></sup>



In 1944, the young Ojukwu was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher who was humiliating a black woman at King's College in Lagos, an event which generated widespread coverage in local newspapers.<sup style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from July 2008" class="noprint Template-Fact"></sup> He then went on to study in Britain, first at Epsom College, in Surrey and later earned a Masters degree in history at Lincoln College, Oxford University.<sup style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from July 2008" class="noprint Template-Fact"></sup>
Biafra

Ojukwu decided to enter the military over the objections of his father, who wanted him to study law. He joined the Nigerian military and graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England. He then became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of Nigeria and Military Governor of the oil rich Eastern Region. Following an anti-Igbo/Christian genocidalpogrom in the Muslim Northern Region, Igbo chiefs met at Umuahia in the Eastern Region.

They decided to declare the region consisting of the Igbo heartland, the Niger DeltaIjaw) and the Cross River basin (Efik and Ibibio areas) independent. Ojukwu was chosen by the Igbos to lead the new country named "Biafra" after the Bight of Biafra, and appointed Head of State & General of the Peoples Army.

His egocentricity and ambition were the chief drivers of the Biafran secession and some historians believe that the war would have been averted if someone else was the governor of the Eastern Region. Despite some early Biafran successes, such as the world famous Abagana ambush in which two divisions of the Nigerian Army were annihilated, the Nigerians slowly gained the upper hand, supported by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and, tacitly, by the United States. Among the world's major nations, only France and Portugal offered some support to Biafra.

On June 1, 1969, he delivered the Ahiara Declaration, a patriotic speech, in the village of Ahiara. The speech condemned racism and imperialism, and asserted "our inalienable right to self determination". Ojukwu condemned as genocide the actions of Nigeria and the United Kingdom, for completely blockading Biafra without exception for children or other noncombatants.

In a TV interview given in c.1969 he was asked to comment on the food aid sent by the UK to the malnourished children of Biafra. His response was words to the effect "We do not want food from Britain. They are simply trying to fatten us up then shoot us down". In saying this he was referring to the fact that the UK was supplying arms to Nigeria during the civil war.
After Biafra

Ojukwu left Biafra as it collapsed, intending to set up a government in exile. He subsequently lived in Côte d'Ivoire for 13 years. Seeking to bolster his support among Igbos, President Alhaji Shehu ShagariNational Party of Nigeria (NPN) and contested the 1983 election for the Senate pardoned Ojukwu and allowed him to return to Nigeria in 1980. He joined Shagari's .

In February 1994 Ojukwu accepted an invitation to give a speech at the Lagos Law School. As the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), he ran for President in the 2003 presidential election. He claimed to have won the election and filed a court challenge against what he said was the "massive fraud" that allegedly denied him the presidency.

Today Ojukwu lives a quiet life in Eastern Nigeria. In early December 2006 he was again chosen to be the APGA presidential candidate for the April 2007 election. On January 14, 2008 he received his military pension from the Nigerian government, but on this occasion he complained that he was referred to as a lieutenant colonel and not as a general, his rank in the Biafran military.

In 1995, Ojukwu signed government documents identifying himself as a witness to the death of writer Mr. Ken Saro Wiwa, whom Ojukwu had counted as an enemy since the collapse of Biafra's secessionist movement.

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Dr. Kamuzu Banda: (Born 1896 - Died 1997)

First President (1961 - 1994) Malawi.





- Former African Giants: Emperor Hailesellasie (Ethiopia), Pres. Kenyatta (Kenya), Pres. Nasser (Egypt), and Dr. Kamuzu Banda (Malawi).

Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1896? &#8211; 25 November 1997) was the leader of Malawi and its predecessor state, Nyasaland, from 1961 to 1994. After receiving much of his education overseas, Banda returned to his home country (then British Nyasaland) to speak against colonialism and help lead the movement towards independence. In 1963, he was formally appointed Nyasaland's prime minister, and led the country to independence as Malawi a year later.

Two years later, he declared Malawi a republic with himself as president. He quickly consolidated power and eventually declared Malawi a one party state under the Malawi Congress Party. In 1970, the MCP declared him the party's President for Life. In 1971, he became President for Life of Malawi itself.

A leader of the pro-Western bloc in Africa, he received support from the West during the cold war. He generally supported women's rights, improved the country's infrastructure, and maintained a good educational system relative to other African countries. On the debit side, however, he presided over one of the most repressive regimes in Africa. He also faced scorn for maintaining full diplomatic relations with apartheid-era South Africa.

By 1993, facing international pressure and widespread protest, a referendum ended his one party state, and a special assembly stripped him of his title. Banda ran for president in the democratic elections which followed, but was soundly defeated. He died in South Africa in 1997. His legacy as ruler of Malawi remains controversial, some hailing him as a national and African hero, some denouncing him as a political tyrant.

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......to be continued....

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Zanzibar First President Amani Abeid Karume, who came to power after the triumph of the revolution in January of 1964. They immediately united with maninland Tanganyikia to form the United Republic of Tanzania.


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President Amani Abeid Karume, the first leader of the Zanzibar Revolution that united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania.

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....to be continued...

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Kamuzu Banda, Ngwazi Hasting, Dr.

Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1905-1997) was a leader in Malawi's struggle for independence, and he became the country's first president. An acknowledged nationalist, he nevertheless frankly advocated trade and diplomatic relations with white-dominated African countries.
Hastings Banda was born to poor parents of the Chewa tribe in the Kasungu District of Nyasaland, a British protectorate, which achieved independence as Malawi in 1964.

Banda's early education at the Church of Scotland's Livingstonia Mission school in Kasungu fired his ambition for learning. About age 13 he set out to walk to South Africa to continue his education. He stopped to work in an African hospital near Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). An uncle helped him to reach Johannesburg, where he worked as a clerk in a gold mine.

Studies and Medical Career

Banda traveled to the United States in 1923 and earned a high school diploma from Wilberforce Academy in 1928. He worked as a Bantu language adviser at the University of Chicago until he earned a doctorate in 1931. He then entered Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and in 1937 received a doctorate of medicine. To qualify for practice in Great Britain, he went to Scotland and earned medical diplomas at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1941.

He also became an elder in the Church of Scotland. Banda first practiced at the Tyneside Mission for Colored Seamen (1944) and then in a London suburb from 1945 to 1953. His home was a gathering place for Nyasas and for early African nationalist leaders. In 1951 he published a paper criticizing racial policies in Southern Rhodesia, which was then pressing for a federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

When the federation was imposed in August 1953, Banda went to Ghana as a physician to the poor Zongo people and to campaign for the independence of his homeland.

Political Career

Banda agreed in 1958 to return home to lead Nyasaland out of the federation. However, he first headed a delegation to London to petition for a new constitution. He returned to Nyasaland on July 6, 1958. On August 1, 1958, he was elected president of the Congress party. Mounting anti-federation riots led to a state of emergency on March 3, 1959, and Banda was imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia for 13 months. Upon his release he assumed leadership of the Malawi Congress Party.

In June 1960 he accepted a new constitution from Britain which gave Africans a majority in the Legislative Council. On February 1, 1963, he became his country's first prime minister. Independence came on July 6, 1964, and on July 6, 1966--when Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth--Banda became Malawi's first president.

After independence and the creation of a one-party state, Banda had to reconcile the left-wing younger leadership with his own more conservative policies. His firm control--some called him dictatorial--was challenged by dissident ministers in an unsuccessful coup d'etat that lasted from 1964 to 1965. However, Banda's wide-based support among the people of Malawi was shown in 1967, when villagers directed police to conspirators plotting to kill him.

Opposition was based partly on Banda's retention of British civil servants as department heads and partly on his frank recognition of landlocked Malawi's economic dependence on nearby white-ruled South African countries. Banda deplored segregation, but he believed the country could secure badly needed development loans from Rhodesia and South Africa.

He maintained reasonable rapport with black African states while initiating trade, loan, and diplomatic relations with white African states.
Elected president for life in 1971, Banda maintained his leadership until economic issues associated with the loss of Western aid in 1992 and a serious illness in 1993 led to his defeat in Malawi's first multiparty elections, held in May 1994. He was succeeded in office by Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF).

Legal Difficulties in the Mid-1990s

In 1995 Banda and two others were charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the 1983 deaths of four political adversaries. Although the three were later acquitted, the scandal still raged in 1997 as the prosecution appealed a ruling made by the presiding judge in the case that blocked key evidence from the trial.

In addition, the UDF government began a thorough inquiry into Banda's financial affairs, especially concerning the personal wealth he amassed from business ventures believed to have been bankrolled by public funds.
In 1995 Banda was dispossessed of the Press Trust, a successful conglomerate, and charged with fraud in the misappropriation of funds intended for the construction of a school in his home district.

Banda was later pardoned in the fraud case due to his extreme age and ill health. In May 1997 the UDF Minister of Lands and Valuation directed the reallocation of 2,000 acres that Banda had illegally seized in 1978 and on which he had established a cattle ranch. Despite Banda's myriad legal woes, advanced age, and failing health, he remained a dominant force within the Malawi Congress Party, which in July 1997 was poised to merge with another opposition party, the Alliance for Democracy.

He died of respiratory failure on November 23, 1997 .

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FMEs!

Pres. Rawlings (Ghana) & Pres. Sankara (Burkina Faso)





.President.....Rawlings,.... to be continued.....

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FMEs!

FLT LT JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS
Former President of The Republic of Ghana
(1979, 1981-2001)

Mkuu kazi nzuri sana hii. Inatia moyo kutuelimisha!

Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume (1905&#8211;April 7 1972), was the first President of Zanzibar. He obtained this title as a result of a popular revolution which lead to the deposing of the last Sultan in Zanzibar during January 1964. Three months later, the United Republic of Tanzania was founded as Tanzania, prompting Karume to become the first vice-president of the United Republic along with Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika as president.
<table summary="Contents" class="toc" id="toc"> <tbody><tr> <td>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = &quot;show&quot;; var tocHideText = &quot;hide&quot;; showTocToggle(); } //]]> </script> Early career

Allegedly born at the village of Mwera in 1905, Karume had little formal education and worked as a seaman before entering politics. He left Zanzibar in the early years of his life, returning in early 1939 fearing the start of World War II. During his travels Karume acquired a great understanding of geopolitics and international affairs. Spending a number of years in London allowed him to gain exposure to the African problem at the same time as other African leaders, such as Kamuzu Banda of Malawi. Karume developed an apparatus of control through the expansion of the Afro Shirazi Party and its relations with Tanganyika's TANU party.

Revolution in Zanzibar

On December 10, 1963, the United Kingdom granted full independence to Zanzibar after the ZNP/ZPPP parties won the democratic elections. The Sultan was a constitutional monarch. Initial elections gave government control to the Zanzibar National Party, despite Karume's Afro Shirazi Party having won a slight majority of the popular vote. Karume was willing to work within the electoral framework of the new government, and actually informed a British police officer of the revolutionary plot set to take place in January.

Karume was in Zanzibar on January 12, 1964 - the night of the revolution but taken to Dar-es-Salaam by Okello's men for safety the next day. It is now widely believed that the instigator of the rebellion was a previously unknown Ugandan, John Okello. The revolution was violent, short, and the revolutionaries prevailed. Thousands of Zanzibaris, mostly Zanzibari Arabs, were killed, and women raped with relatively few casualties on the revolutionary side.

Power Struggle

Having taken control of the island, John Okello invited Abeid Karume back to the island to assume the title of President. Other Zanzibaris in foreign territorry were also invited back, most notably the marxist politician Abdulrahman Mohammad Babu, who was appointed to the Revolutionary Council. John Okello reserved for himself the title of "Field Marshal", a position with undefined power.

What followed was a three month long internal struggle for power.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2">[3]</sup> Karume used his political skills to align the leaders of neighboring African countries against Okello, and invited Tanganyikan police officers intoZanzibar to maintain order. As soon as Okello took a trip out of the country, Karume declared him an enemy of the state and did not allow him to return.

GIven the presence of Tanganyikan police and the absence of their leader, Okello's gangs of followers did not offer any resistance. Karume's second stroke of political genius came when he agreed to form a union with Tanganyikan president Julius Nyerere in April 1964. The union ensured that the new country, to be called Tanzania, would not align itself with the Soviet Union and communist bloc, as A.M. Babu had advocated.

Given the new legitimacy of Karume's government (now solidly backed up by mainland Tanganyika,) Karume marginalized Babu to the point of irrelevance. The Marxist leader was eventually forced to flee Tanzania after being charged with masterminding the assassination of Karume in 1972.

Record as President

Karume is often criticized for the atrocities that were carried out against Zanzibari Arabs and Asians after the revolution, and later against anyone he suspected of endangering his position. It is hard to ascertain the role Karume played personally, but the numbers are bleak. The American diplomat toZanzibar, Donald Petterson, estimated "that by the end of summer of 1965, Zanzibar's prerevolution Arab population of 50,000 had been halved".

<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4">http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Abeid_Karume#cite_note-4</sup> Karume remained President of Zanzibar until his assassination. Reprisals followed against people suspected to have been opposed to Karume's regime.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6">http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Abeid_Karume#cite_note-6</sup> Amani Abeid Karume, Sheikh Abeid's son, is the current president of Zanzibar, having been elected in 2000 and 2005 by a popular majority This was due primarily to emigration - both forced and willingly - but also to massacres and executions.

Zanzibar Arab businesses and clove plantations were nationalized and redistributed to black Africans. "I still find hard to reconcile the man who had showed me many kindnesses and courtesies while I was inZanzibar with the sometimes cruel despot who emerged during his eight-year reign," Donald Petterson wrote of Karume. .

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Huyu alikuwa kiongozi shupavu lakini siasa za vita baridi vilisabaisha auawe kikatili.
Mungu amrehemu

Ndahani said:

Sankara was also a great man, ahead of his time. Nataka kujua kitu. Huyu Bwana Sankara aliwahi kuja TZ na kuonana na mwalimu. Was was mwalimu's take on this guy maana aliingia madarakani kwa kupindua serikali na hilo lisingekuwa jambo la kukubalika
sana

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Sankara is among Top African leaders who meant to develop and Improve people's live in the their country and aAfrica in general.

Actually, todate I hate President Campaore of Burkina Faso who killed him while he was his best friend and very close ally.

Am surprise Campaore to preach peace is against coup and currently negotiating Guinnea's peace.

LONG LIVE THOMAS SANKARA