Nujoma hails Stanley

FOUNDING President Sam Nujoma has described the late Ludwig Kanduketu Stanley as a “revolutionary father.

Stanley, who was given the task for helping Nujoma skip the country en route to Zambia for the liberation struggle in 1960, died in Windhoek on Tuesday aged 85.

Joining Stanley’s family in mourning on Wednesday, Nujoma said he met the deceased on 29 February 1960, when he gave him a lift from Gobabis to the Botswana border.

“I jumped the fence into the then Bechuanaland and, because of his revolutionary role he played in assisting me to escape into exile, he was considered an enemy by the white apartheid regime of South Africa, which illegally occupied our county,” Nujoma said.

The former president further said Stanley’s contribution to Namibia’s struggle for independence will be remembered by the current and future generations.

“As you mourn the passing on of your beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, I, on behalf of the Nujoma family, wish to convey our deepest sympathy to the entire family for the irreparable loss of uncle Ludwig Kanduketu Stanley,” Nujoma said.

In August, government dispatched a plane and a doctor to airlift Stanely from Botswana, who, at the time, needed urgent medical attention after he had suffered a stroke. He was admitted at the Paramount Hospital in Windhoek, where he passed on.

Stanley was born to an English father and a Herero mother in 1928 in Windhoek and grew up in Onbujonumbonde in Okakarara.

When he was 15, he followed his father, who had left for Botswana, but returned to Namibia to join the late Chief Hosea Kutako’s council as a messenger or transport officer.