Namibia inaugurates first female president

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was inaugurated as president of Namibia on Friday, making history as the country’s first female head of state.

The 72-year-old former vice president, sworn in on the nation’s 35th Independence Day, joins an exclusive club: The only other serving female president on the continent is Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan. And Nandi-Ndaitwah is one of only five women in Africa that have risen to presidential power through direct election. A handful of others have served as acting or interim presidents during periods of transition.

Nandi-Ndaitwah is a “trusted leader” and “party stalwart,” noted the BBC. She joined the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party aged just 14, when it was still a liberation movement, undergoing arrest, detention, and later exile in the fight for independence, which Namibia finally won from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

“I am there to serve the people of Namibia,” she said on Wednesday, as reported in The Namibian. “I am prepared.”