Life and Career
As a child, he was educated at an Anglican mission. At the age of 25, Pohamba was a founding member of SWAPO in 1960. He was arrested for his political activity but moved to Southern Rhodesia, whence he was deported soon afterwards. He then spent four months in prison in South West Africa before spending two years in Ovamboland under house arrest. In 1964, he went to Lusaka to set up SWAPO's Zambian office, and on his return, met the man who was later to become President, Sam Nujoma. Until the achievement of Namibian independence, Pohamba represented SWAPO across Africa, although he studied politics in the Soviet Union for a time in the early 1980s. He headed SWAPO's 1989 election campaign and was a SWAPO member of the Constituent Assembly, which was in place from November 1989 to March 1990, before becoming a member of the National Assembly at independence in March 1990. He was Minister of Home Affairs from March 1990 to 1995, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources from 1995 to 1997, and Minister without Portfolio from 1997 to March 2000. He was elected as Secretary-General of SWAPO in 1997 and as its Vice-President in 2002. On January 26, 2001, he was appointed Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, in which position he remained until becoming President in 2005.
Under Pohamba as Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Namibia initiated a policy of partial land expropriation from landed white farmers to landless black ones. This policy was introduced to supplement the existing one of "willing buyer-willing seller" to try speed up the process.
After becoming president, Pohamba also took over the chancellorship of the University of Namibia from Nujoma in November 2011.
Read more about this topic: Hifikepunye Pohamba
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