Hastings Kamuzu Banda

Hastings Kamuzu Banda was the first President of Malawi, from 6 July 1966 to 24 May 1994. He was Prime Minister from independence on 6 July 1964, then became President when Malawi became a republic in 1966.

He was born near Kasungu. His birth date is unknown: he often gave 14 May 1906, but later accepted evidence that it was around 1898. As a young man he left home on foot for Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, then studied in the United States at Indiana University, the University of Chicago and Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, where he qualified as a doctor. He later trained at the University of Edinburgh and practised medicine abroad.

He returned to lead the campaign against colonial rule in Nyasaland and was jailed in Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia, in 1959. After independence he made Malawi a one-party state under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and was declared President for Life in 1971. He founded Kamuzu Academy, a school modelled on Eton.

His rule was one of the most repressive in Africa. Opponents were jailed without trial, tortured and killed; human rights groups estimate at least 6,000 people were killed, tortured or jailed without trial.

Under growing pressure he agreed to a 1993 referendum that ended one-party rule. He lost the first multiparty election in 1994 to Bakili Muluzi and died in South Africa on 25 November 1997.