News reaching ViewPointNigeria indicates that anti-apartheid icon Winnie Madikizela Mandela, ex-wife of Late Nelson Mandela is dead.
Ex wife of the Late Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 81 after a brief illness. Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela was born on the 26th of September 1936 into Xhosa family in Eastern Cape’s Bizana. Winnie moved to Johannesburg in 1953 to pursue studies in social work where she met Nelson Mandela. In 1958 at age 22 she married the anti-apartheid activist in Johannesburg. They remained married for 38 years and had two children together.
In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial she became his public face for the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. She was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, subjected to banning orders, banished to a rural town, and spent several months in solitary confinement.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalized in March 1996. They remained in contact, and she visited him when he was ill in later life. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, she was convicted of theft and fraud. She temporarily retreated from active political involvement, returning several years later.
Due to her political activities, Winnie was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was tortured, subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, held in solitary confinement for over a year and even banished to a remote town. She emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the later years of her husband’s imprisonment (August 1963 – February 1990).
For many of those years, she was exiled to the town of Brandfortt in the Orange Free State and confined to the area, except for when she was allowed to visit her husband at Robben Island. Beginning in 1969, she spent eighteen months in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison. It was at this time that Winnie Mandela became well known in the Western world. She organized local clinics, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid.
In 1985, Mrs. Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. In 1988, she received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzano Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018. Her death was confirmed by her personal assistant, Zodwa Zwane who also served as the family spokesman. The cause of her death was a “long-term illness”, according to her family. The USA Magazine reported: “Mandela was admitted to the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg over the weekend after complaining of the flu”.
Her spokesperson said in a statement to the state broadcaster revealed that the politician also suffered from diabetes, recently underwent several major surgeries and had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year. Mr. Zwane also said “she succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones”.
South African’s President Cyril Ramaphosa visited her home in Soweto to pay tribute to her. During his visit he said, “The death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a great loss in that she has been one of the strongest women in our struggle who suffered immensely under the apartheid regime. She remained strong, she remained determined, she was courageous, and in many ways she was also very stubborn. Stubborn on behalf of the people because she knew that out of stubborn disposition she would be able to inspire millions of South Africans. A memorial service will be held on April 14.”
Reacting to her death, the President of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu described the passing away of the South African anti-apartheid icon as a huge loss to Africa. He noted that Winnie Mandela was “a woman of uncommon determination, steadfastness and perseverance who held aloft the torch of the struggle against institutionalized discrimination even while her ex-husband, the late Mandiba, President Nelson Mandela was incarcerated.”

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Dies At 81; President Muhammadu Buhari Reacts