President Bola Tinubu has been discovered to be one of the oldest presidents in Africa at the moment. This is because the continent produced the youngest president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the president of Senegal, who was sworn in on Tuesday, April 2.
There are other countries in Africa whose presidents are in their fifties and sixties. Still, the superpowers in the continents appear to be led by the people of the older generations, including Nigeria.
Aside from President Tinubu of Nigeria, other African countries whose presidents are 70 and above, as of March 2024, according to StatiSense in a tweet, are about 14.
These African presidents are listed below:
Paul Biya, 91
The Cameroonian president is the oldest president in Africa, presently at 91. He is the second president of the West African country, and no other president has come after him as he held on to power since 1982.
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How did Biya become Cameroonian president?
Cameroon had, in 1979, introduced a new law that designated the prime minister as the president’s constitutional successor.
The then President Ahidjo unexpectedly stepped down on November 4, 1982, and Biya succeeded him by virtue of the constitution. He was sworn in on November 6 of the same year. Since then, he has consistently been re-elected.
Alassane Dramane Ouattara, 82
The Ivory Coast president is the second oldest president in the African continent. He had been in power for the past 13 years since he was first elected in 2010. Ouattara has been re-elected for the second and third terms.
When he announced his plan to contest for the third term, his candidacy became controversial because the constitution only permitted a president to rule for two terms. However, a constitutional court ruled that his first term was under a different constitution and did not count for the new one.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 81
Mbasogo is another African leader in his early 80s. He is the current President of Equatorial Guinea. He had been in power since August 3 1979 and was the second president of the Gulf nation since its independence
The Equatoguinean politician and former military officer is the second-longest consecutive serving president in the world after Paul Biya of Cameroon.
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, 81
Mnangagwa is the president of Zimbabwe who came into power on November 24, 2017. He was a long-time ally and vice president of Robert Mugabe.
He emerged as president after Mugabe was removed as the president, and the party leader of ZANU–PF appointed Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s replacement.
Nana Akufo-Addo, 80
The Ghanaian president who came into power is currently 80. He was elected in 2017. He had served as the attorney general of the West African country from 2001 to 2003 and was the country’s foreign affairs minister between 2003 and 2007 under the Kufuor-led government
Akufo-Addo had contested for the presidency in 2008 and 2012 under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) but lost in the poll to the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Evans Atta Mills. He refused to concede defeat after the 2012 election, but the Supreme Court affirmed the victory of John Evans Atta Mills.
Other African presidents who are between 70 and 80 years old are listed below:
S/N | Name | Country | Age |
1 | Denis Sassou Nguesso | Republic of the Congo | 80 |
2 | Yoweri Museveni | Uganda | 79 |
3 | Isaias Afwerki | Eritrea | 78 |
4 | Abdelmadjid Tebboune | Algeria | 78 |
5 | Ismail Omar Guelleh | President of Djibouti | 77 |
6 | Sahle-Work Zewde | President of Ethiopia | 74 |
7 | Salva Kiir Mayardit | President of South Sudan | 72 |
8 | Cyril Ramaphosa | South Africa | 71 |
9 | João Lourenço | President of Angola | 70 |
See the tweet of StatiSense here:
African presidents removed via military coup
Legit.ng earlier reported that the renewal of a military coup to topple a democratically elected government had put the rule of law in a perishing line across Africa.
Gabon became the latest country to join the trend on Wednesday, August 30. In a live broadcast, some military men announced the taking over of the country’s government and nullified the recent election.
Source: Legit.ng