President Uhuru Kenyatta has ordered that the Kenyan flag be flown half-mast in honour of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The flag will fly at half-mast from dawn of Saturday to sunset of Monday. Mugabe passed on in Singapore aged 95.
“On behalf of the Government and the people of the Republic of Kenya and on my own behalf, I wish to convey our deepest sympathies and condolences to the Government and the people of the Republic of Zimbabwe following the death of former president Robert Gabriel Mugabe,” he said.
“In this moment of sorrow, my thoughts and prayers go out to his family, relatives and the people of Zimbabwe who, for many years, he served with commitment and dedication,” Uhuru added.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born in then Rhodesia on 21st February, 1924. He was the son of a carpenter and from the majority Shona-speaking people. He was educated at Catholic mission schools. He later qualified as a teacher.
He won a scholarship to Fort Hare University in South Africa where he did his first academic degree before teaching in Ghana. It is also here that he got into the whole Pan African movement and met his first wife, Sally. In 1960, he returned to Rhodesia where he worked for the African nationalist cause with Joshua Nkomo, and later broke away to become a founder member of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
He was then actively involved in the guerrilla movement to liberate Zimbabwe. He then became Prime Minister before becoming President in 1987. He ruled until his ouster in November 2017, ending his three-decade reign.