Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia’s President-elect, became the second woman in the history modern Africa to win a presidential election by universal adult suffrage, walking in the footsteps of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Johnson, who led Liberia from 2006 to 2018.
In practice, though, Nandi-Ndaitwah will be the fourth woman president on the continent, after Tanzania’s Suluhu Samia and Sahle-Work Zewde, who was Ethiopia’s president from October 2018 to October 2024.
Although African and world history is replete with heroines who pulled off great feats leading empires and resisting aggression and domination, the rise of women to the top still inspires a sense of great expectations, not only here in Africa but the world generally.
This is partly because of the long period during which women have been subordinated to men. But it is also because of the way women have been sold over the past half century as the antidote to the impunity, corruption and mismanagement of social affairs by men.
This places a great burden of expectations on any woman who becomes a leader. In Liberia, Sirleaf managed to set the country on a path of economic and political reconstruction, whose results largely vindicate her tenure.
In Tanzania, the jury is still out on Samia, who inherited a repressive system, and her legacy will largely be determined by the extent to which she will succeed in disassembling decades-long tyranny and corruption by her predecessors.
Coming in on the back of the most disputed election in Namibia’s post-liberation history, Nandi-Ndaitwah’s first task will be to sanitise and restore faith in her country’s electoral system.
Her victory is not just for Africa’s women, but she has the opportunity to impact Africa’s destiny. The continent needs new thinking and she can provide thought leadership.
Africa is severely short of good stories. She must preserve the good that is in place in Namibia and also launch those policy initiatives that will define her tenure.
She should look at her mission in very broad terms and figure out how she can impact the political culture beyond Namibia. Africa has fallen into a spiral of retrogression as misgovernance becomes normalised, previously promising democracies sink deeper into parochialism, and corruption becomes entrenched.
She should first draw a mental and virtual boundary against these failings and ensure they don’t cross borders and infect Namibia. She should also a forceful advocate and not fear to speak out against the failings of her peers.
Even if she does not succeed in changing their old habits, she will at least not be faulted for not trying. Many times, as a leader, Nandi-Ndaitwah will also need the courage to make hard but necessary decisions. In this, she has a long list of luminaries to look to.
In the 17th century, Queen Nzinga Mbande combined diplomacy, military strategy to successfully lead her Mbundu people in present-day Angola, against Portuguese invaders and hostile, neighbouring tribes for decades.
In Jamaica, Queen Nanny led the Jamaican Maroons, a community of rebel slaves in a military campaign against the British, culminating in the 1740 treaty that guaranteed the Maroons freedom.
By looking to these African heroines of the Middle Ages, Nandi-Ndaitwah and other African women presidents can draw valuable lessons to navigate the challenges of their time and rally their people around shared goals.
