Chakwera hails fallen Namibian leader
President Lazarus Chakwera has described the late president of Namibia Hage Gottfried Geingob as a true statesman and a great freedom fighter.
In his emotional eulogy to Geingob, who died on February 4 2024 at the age of 82, the President said the late Namibian leader went around the world to establish freedom, peace and prosperity for his country and Africa.
He said Malawi mourns with Namibia, President Nangolo Mbumba and former first lady Monica Geingob.
The President said, in his counterpart, he found a brave warrior and wise councillor during the three years that he knew Geingob.
Said Chakwera: “The late President Geingob was no ordinary man, and because he went all over the world sowing the seeds of freedom, peace, and prosperity for Namibia and Africa, we have come from all over the world to mourn the passing of this great man, whose gravitas in life can only be matched by our grief in his death.”
The deceased Namibia leader, who was a revered politician even before the country gained independence from South Africa in 1990, was buried yesterday at the Heroes Acre in that country’s capital, Windhoek.
He died after being diagnosed with cancer, but Geingob had announced in 2015 that he survived prostate cancer.
The successor, President Nangolo Mbumba, was sworn in hours after Geingob’s death was announced.
Presidential and parliamentary elections in Namibia are scheduled to take place towards the end of the year.
Leaders who attended the funeral ceremony included Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, Sahle-Work Zewdea of Eithiopia and Evariste Ndayishimiye from Burundi.
Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Emmerson Munangagwa of Zimbabwe, João Lourenço of Angola, Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana, Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique, Finland’s Sauli Niinistö and Madagascar’s Prime Minister Christian Louis Ntsay were also in attendance
Following the sixth national democratic elections in 2014, where Hage Geingob won the presidential vote by 87 percent, Geingob was sworn into office on 21 March 2015 as that country’s third president, according to The Namibian newspaper.
