The late Namibian president Sam Nujoma, who died last week aged 95, will be laid to rest in a state funeral in March, the government said on Friday.
Nujoma, a guerrilla leader, was the country’s first president after it won independence from South Africa in 1990.
He will be buried on Saturday March 1 at the National Heroes Acre in the capital Windhoek, President Nangolo Mbumba said in the official gazette.
The weeks of mourning will climax with the funeral on the Saturday, which has been declared a national holiday.
Nujoma’s body will be buried near former president Hage Geingob who died in office last year.
The eldest in a family of 10 children, Nujoma was in hospital for three weeks before he succumbed to an illness from which “he could not recover”, the government said.
His first job was as a railway sweeper in 1949 while he attended night classes that spurred his political awakening.
He banded with black workers in Windhoek who were resisting a government order to move to a new township in the late 1950s.
Nujoma began a life in exile in 1960, the same year he was elected to head the South West Peoples’ Organisation (SWAPO), which led the liberation struggle.
After independence, Nujoma became president in 1990 and led the country until 2005.
Over his three terms Nujoma presided over a period of relative economic prosperity and political stability.
His policy on AIDS earned some international praise.
But he came under fire for refusing to rehabilitate several hundred SWAPO members who were kept in prison in Angola as “spies for apartheid South Africa”.