Africa
Zambia’s first President Kenneth Kaunda dies at 97
Zambia’s former president, Kenneth Kaunda, the father of the country’s independence who ruled for 27 years has died.
He died at the age of 97 on Thursday. Kaunda had been admitted to the Maina Soko Medical Center, a military hospital in Lusaka, on Monday where authorities disclosed he was being treated for Pneumonia. But a Facebook post by his son Kambarage Kaunda, announced the Zambian founding president’s passage.
Kambarage asked for prayers for his father whom he called Mzee.
Rumors of COVID
“He is being treated for pneumonia but he does not have Covid,” his aide Rodrick Ngolo told AFP, denying rumors to that effect
“The problem of pneumonia comes up regularly (in the ex-president) and every time you hear that he is in hospital, it is because of pneumonia,” said Ngolo, adding that the health of the ex-president had “improved” since Monday.
Nicknamed the “African Gandhi” for his non-violent activism, Kaunda led the former British protectorate Northern Rhodesia to bloodless independence in October 1964.
A socialist, he ruled the country for 27 years, largely under a one-party regime, whose mismanagement led to a severe economic and social crisis. After violent riots, he accepted free elections in 1991 and was defeated.
While in power, it hosted many movements fighting for independence or black equality in other countries in the region, including the African National Congress (ANC) party of South Africa.
Also known as “KK,” he was the leader of the main nationalist party, the center-left UNIP. He also became an AIDS activist when he publicly announced that one of his sons had died of the disease.
Zambia’s independence hero
Kenneth Kaunda was one of the pioneer leaders of a new Africa, as countries threw off colonialism in favour of independent statehood.
A man of great personal charm, he was hailed as a modernising force in the continent despite his initial rejection of the concept of multiparty democracy.
As a committed pan-Africanist, he began the task of building a new Zambia, free to determine its own way in international affairs.
But poor economic management caused his popularity to plummet, and he was voted out of office when free elections were held in 1991.
Kenneth David Kaunda was born on 28 April 1924 at a mission station near the border between what was then Northern Rhodesia and the Congo.
Kaunda was strongly influenced by the policies of Martin Luther King
His father, an ordained Church of Scotland minister, died while he was still a child, leaving the family in straitened circumstances.
But the young Kaunda’s academic ability won him a place in the first secondary school to be formed in Northern Rhodesia, and he later became a teacher.
His work took him to the country’s Copperbelt region and to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where for the first time he experienced, and deeply resented, the full impact of white domination.
One of his first political acts was to become a vegetarian in protest at a policy that forced Africans to go to a separate window at butchers’ to buy meat.
In 1953 he became the general secretary of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress but the organisation failed to mobilise black Africans against the white-ruled Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Kaunda appearing on the BBC’s Brains Trust in 1960
Two years later he was imprisoned, with hard labour, for distributing leaflets that the authorities deemed subversive.
Disillusioned with what he saw as the failure of his party to take a stronger line on the rights of indigenous Africans, Kaunda set up his own party, the Zambian African National Congress.
Within a year it was banned and Kaunda was back in prison. His incarceration turned him into a radical.
By 1960 he had become the leader of the new United National Independence Party (Unip) and, fired with enthusiasm following a visit to Martin Luther King in the US, he began his own programme of civil disobedience which involved blocking roads and burning buildings.
Kaunda stood as a Unip candidate in the 1962 elections which saw an uneasy coalition with the African National Congress (ANC) take power in the legislature.
He became the first Prime Minister of the newly created Northern Rhodesia
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved at the end of 1963 and, a month later, Kaunda was elected prime minister of Northern Rhodesia. The country, renamed as Zambia, gained full independence in Oct 1964 with Kaunda as its first president.
Kaunda started with the great advantage of leading an African state with a stronger economic base than any of its neighbours but there was a shortage of native Zambians who had the skills and training to run the country.
His position was also gravely imperilled by Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence in Southern Rhodesia.
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Immediately after getting drafted, Maluach was asked: “So many people, when they think about Africa, think about strife, think about war, think about not so great things about the continent, let alone South Sudan. How much of a responsibility do you think you have in changing perceptions of what people think Africa is in terms of thinking more about the resources, thinking about the people of Africa and South Sudan, specifically?”
Maluach’s native country, South Sudan, is undergoing a humanitarian crisis. His family fled the country to a suburb of Kampala, Uganda, in search of safety and opportunity during the South Sudan crisis. He now hopes to change the narrative about the region by highlighting its good parts on the world stage.
“I think about showing them the good parts of Africa,” Maluach said at the press conference after he was drafted. “I’m thinking about showing them the great places in Africa, like Kigali, whether it’s Senegal, whether it’s the safaris in Africa, and showing them the cultures we have and the people we have, which is different from the stuff they see on TV. I just want to change the narrative, the narrative of our people and how they see my continent.”
Maluach was born in Rumbek, once an important city in South Sudan that was ravaged by the country’s civil war. The 7’2″ center’s road to success was far from easy. The nearest basketball court to his house was nearly an hour’s walk away and usually packed. Moreover, he played his first game in Crocs, not basketball shoes. But his dedication was enough to catch the eye of local coaches Wal Deng and Aketch Garang.
Through the effort that he put in, Maluach made it to the NBA Academy Africa in Saly, Senegal, then to the Duke Blue Devils, and now the Suns. He hopes the moment inspires kids on the continent.
“Living in Africa, I had the whole continent on my back. Giving hope to young kids,” he said after the Suns selected him No. 10 overall.
Maluach considers basketball a gift God gave him, and hopes to finish off his NBA career as a Hall of Famer.
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After making history as Nigeria’s first female fighter pilot, Flt. Lt. Kafayat Sanni has emerged as the Best Allied Student and won the Best Assistant Commandant Paper award at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Accra, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
In a statement released on Saturday and cited by NAN, the Director of Public Relations and Information of the Nigerian Air Force, Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame, said the awards were presented on Friday during the College graduation ceremony which had in attendance top military personnel and dignitaries from across Africa.
Ejodame recalled how Sanni first made the news in 2019 after being decorated as the Nigerian Air Force’s first female fighter pilot following her pilot training in the U.S.
“Since then, she has flown the Alpha Jet as well as undertaken training sorties on the Super Mushshak as a prolific instructor pilot, producing and mentoring younger pilots for the NAF,” Ejodame said.
“Her outstanding performance at GAFCSC not only symbolises personal excellence and resilience but also underscores Nigeria’s growing leadership in regional defence and commitment to gender inclusion in the armed forces.
“This remarkable achievement further reflects the Nigerian Air Force’s strategic investment in human capital development under the visionary leadership of the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar,” he said.
In 2017, Sanni emerged as the overall best pilot at the Nigerian Air Force’s 401 training school before she moved to the United States to train at the U.S. Aviation Leadership program.
Upon completion, Sanni returned to Nigeria, where she, alongside 12 new fighter pilots, was decorated.
As Sanni became the first female fighter pilot in the 55-year history of the Nigerian Air Force, her colleague, Tolulope Arotile, also became the Force’s first female combat helicopter pilot.
“It is a privilege for me to be winged as the first female fighter pilot in the Nigerian Air Force,” Sanni said after being decorated.
Sanni said at the time she had always wanted to be a fighter pilot, and “I was just lucky to be chosen.”
“It was also my choice. It was what I wanted to do. And I felt that everyone is not supposed to fold their arms and watch what is happening in our country.
“Everyone could always play their part. So, I did not think there was any reason for me to think that it is not possible for me to actually fly the jet because there was no female that ever flew the jet. I believe I could achieve it and I did,” she said.
She then went on to advise younger girls to “never say no to opportunities.”
“They should always strive to be the best and put in their efforts. They should never look at anything that seems to want to overpower or overshadow them. For me, you can always attempt things and if they do not work out well; fine. But at every point in time, you just need to put in your best.”
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U.S. hotel chains Hilton and Marriott have announced African expansion drives to tap into the continent’s rapid tourism growth.
Rising business and leisure travel on the continent has made it increasingly attractive for multinational companies and Hilton said on Wednesday that it plans to more than triple its African portfolio to more than 160 hotels.
The company plans to enter Angola, Ghana and Benin for the first time while returning to Madagascar and Tanzania, its statement said without providing a specific time horizon for the expansion plans.
Marriott expects to add 50 properties by 2027, it said on Wednesday. Those will include entry into five new countries: Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Mauritania.
The group’s existing African portfolio encompasses nearly 150 properties and 26,000 rooms across 20 countries and 22 brands.
Airlines have also increased their African capacity.
Emirates now offers 161 weekly flights across Africa, recently adding daily services to Entebbe and Addis Ababa. United Airlines launched a direct Washington-Dakar route in May and Delta will begin a seasonal daily flight to Accra in December.
International arrivals to the continent rose 9% year on year in the first quarter of 2025, the United Nations World Tourism Organization says, 16% above the same period of pre-pandemic 2019.
That momentum is translating into economic impact. Tourism accounts for between 3% and 7% of gross domestic product in countries such as Kenya, Morocco and South Africa, and up to 15% in tourism-heavy economies such as Namibia, World Bank and national statistics show.
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