Samuel Abraham Peyavali "Peya" Mushelenga (born September 1, 1975, in Oshigambo,

Ovamboland Ovamboland, also referred to as Owamboland, was a Bantustan and later a non-geographic ethnic-based second-tier authority, the Representative Authority of the Ovambos, in South West Africa (present-day Namibia). The apartheid government stat ...

) is a

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

n politician and poet. He is broadly educated, holding fourteen academic qualifications from seven different universities. A member of

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...

, Mushelenga was a member of the

National Assembly of Namibia The National Assembly is the lower chamber of Namibia's bicameral Parliament. Its laws must be approved by the National Council, the upper house. Since 2014, it has a total of 104 members. 96 members are directly elected through a system of cl ...

from 2005 to 20 March 2025. He has served cabinet in several ministerial roles and last served as a Minister of International Relations and Cooperation from 9 February 2024 to 21 March 2025.

Early life and education

Peya Mushelenga was born at Oshigambo in the

Oshikoto Region Oshikoto is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, named after Lake Otjikoto. Its capital is Omuthiya. Further major settlements in the region are Tsumeb, Otjikoto's capital until 2008, and Oniipa. , Oshikoto had 112,170 registered voters. Ge ...

of northern Namibia. He attended Oluno Senior Secondary School until 1992 and then entered the

University of Namibia The University of Namibia (UNAM) is a multi-campus public research university in Namibia, and the largest university in the country. It was established by an act of Parliament on 31 August 1992. Background UNAM comprises the following fac ...

(UNAM). Mushelenga has accumulated fourteen university degrees in his career; the '' New Era'' daily called him "Namibia's most avid scholar". He graduated with: * BA in History and Political Studies,

(UNAM), Namibia, 1995 * BA Honours in International Politics,

University of South Africa The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...

(UNISA), 1997 * MA in International Politics, UNISA, 2009 * B Juris, UNAM, 2011 * LLB (Honours), UNAM, 2014 * D Litt et Phil in International Politics, UNISA, 2015 * BA in economics,

Open University of Tanzania The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) () is a distance learning public university in Tanzania and the largest by the number of students. It was established by an Act of Parliament No. 17 of 1992. It is a single mode institution offering cert ...

(OUT), 2017 *

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

, UNAM, 2017 *

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

, Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI), 2018 * BEd (OUT), 2019 * MSc in Finance,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, 2020 *

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Criminal Justice Law,

University of the Western Cape The University of the Western Cape (UWC; ) is a Public university, public research university in Bellville, South Africa, Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the Politics of South Africa, South ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, 2022 * BTh, UNISA, 2022 * MEd (English), Great Zimbabwe University, 2023 Mushelenga is an admitted legal practitioner (attorney) of the High Court of Namibia.

Career

After his first degree at UNAM Mushelenga worked as a teacher at Nehale Senior Secondary School in 1996. He then worked for Government until 1998, and thereafter joined

NamPower Namibia Power Corporation, commonly known as NamPower, is the national electric power utility company of Namibia. The company is responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the country. Its activities are l ...

. He became active in the Namibia National Students Organisation in the 1980s and eventually became a high-level organizer for the

SWAPO Party Youth League The SWAPO Party Youth League (SPYL), formerly known as the SWAPO Youth League (SYL), is the youth wing of the SWAPO Party, the ruling party of Namibia since 1990.Swapo party constitution It shares the same principles as those of the SWAPO Party. ...

, being elected to the Central Committee and National Executive of the SPYL in 1997 and 2002. He had recently led the big delegation of 250 SWAPO Party Youth League leaders to Sochi Russia, to attend the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students, the event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth WFDY and the Russian government. Also in 2002, he was elected to the SWAPO Central Committee as its youngest member (re-elected in 2007 and 2012). Mushelenga became a member of

Parliament of Namibia The Parliament of Namibia is the national legislature of Namibia. It is a bicameral legislature consists of two houses: the National Council of Namibia, National Council (upper house) and the National Assembly of Namibia, National Assembly (lowe ...

in 2005. In 2010, he was appointed deputy

minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

. In a major cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to minister of Urban and Rural Development on 8 February 2018. On 21 March 2020, Mushelenga was appointed minister of Information and Communication Technology.

Personal life

In 1980, South African security forces killed Mushelenga's sister and injured other relatives during a raid on their family home in the former

bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...

. A book of poetry entitled ''Nando Na Li Toke'', written in the Ovambo dialect of Ndonga, was published by Gamsberg MacMillan in 1996.Peya Mushelenga
Namibia Institute for Democracy, 2007

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mushelenga, Peya Living people 1975 births Members of the National Assembly (Namibia) Namibian poets Politicians from Oshikoto Region University of Namibia alumni Open University of Tanzania alumni Eastern and Southern African Management Institute alumni Alumni of the University of London University of South Africa alumni University of the Western Cape alumni SWAPO politicians Information ministers of Namibia Urban and rural development ministers of Namibia 20th-century Namibian writers 21st-century Namibian writers