The world mourns Madiba as Mandela dies at 95

Mandela

Finally, former South African President and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela died yesterday night at his Johannesburg home after a prolonged lung infection, President Jacob Zuma said.

Mr. Mandela, 95, known by his clan name Madiba was South Africa’s first black president.

He emerged from 27 years in apartheid prisons to help guide South Africa through bloodshed and turmoil to democracy.

His death was announced by President Zuma in a nationally televised address. President Zuma said Mandela would have a full state funeral. He ordered flags to be flown at half mast.

He said: “Fellow South Africans, our beloved Nelson Rohlihla Mandela, the founding president of our democratic nation, has departed.

“Our nation has lost its greatest son.He passed on peacefully in the comfort of his home.

“What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves,” Mr. Zuma said.

“Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.”

Mandela had been receiving intense homebased medical care for a lung infection after three months in hospital.

The anti-apartheid icon rose from rural obscurity to challenge the might of white minority government – a struggle that gave the 20th century one of its most respected and loved figures.

He was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid in 1960, but was quick to preach reconciliation and forgiveness when the country’s white minority began easing its grip on power 30 years later.

Mandela, imprisoned for nearly three decades, was elected president in landmark all-race elections in 1994 and retired in 1999.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, an honor he shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner leader who released from jail arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner.

As president, Mandela faced the monumental task of forging a new nation from the deep racial injustices left over from the apartheid era, making reconciliation the theme of his time in office.

The hallmark of Mandela’s mission was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which probed apartheid crimes on both sides of the struggle and tried to heal the country’s wounds. It also provided a model for other countries torn by civil strife.

In 1999, Mandela handed over power to younger leaders better equipped to manage a modern economy – a rare voluntary departure from power cited as an example to African leaders.

In retirement, he shifted his energies to battling South Africa’s AIDS crisis and the struggle became personal when he lost his only surviving son to the disease in 2005.

Mandela’s last major appearance on the global stage came in 2010 when he attended the championship match of the soccer World Cup, where he received a thunderous ovation from the 90,000 at the stadium in Soweto, the neighborhood in which he cut his teeth as a resistance leader.

Charged with capital offences in the infamous 1963 Rivonia Trial, his statement from the dock was his political testimony.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.

President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed sadness over the death of former South African President, Dr. Nelson Mandela.

In a condolence message to President Zuma, President Jonathan conveyed the sympathy and solidarity of the Federal Government and people of Nigeria to him and all South Africans as they mourn Dr. Mandela.

“I write to commiserate with you, the Government and people of South Africa and the family of Dr. Nelson Mandela on the death of one of the greatest sons of Africa.

“Although it has come at the advanced age of 95, Madiba’s death will create a huge vacuum that will be difficult to fill in our continent. He will be sorely missed by all who cherish love, peace and freedom the world over and will be eternally honoured for his immense contribution to the dismantling of the apartheid policy, one of the world’s most obnoxious systems whose under-pining philosophy was the deg