One of Botswana’s great leaders Quett Masire was born July 23, 1925 in Kanye, Bechuanaland Protectorate. 

Quett Ketumile Joni Masire was Botswana’s second PM, from 1980 to 1998, when the country was hit by a long, devastating drought. Masire quietly led the fragile former colony to prosperity and stability through a policy of encouraging education, health care, and food programs enacted through a pro-active approach to economic policies benefiting the people.  

When he became president in 1980, Botswana was exceedingly poor with low levels of education and health provision. Much of it was bush. Cows were its livelihood. But Botswana survived its birth and was blessed with what many richer, more developed African countries lacked: good leadership.
Quett Masire (1925-2017), the great African leader you’ve never heard of | African Arguments

Quett Masire (1925-2017)
Issued by Botswanna 2018 
Quett Ketumile Joni Masire, 1st Death Anniversary 
Designed by Baboloki Somolekae

Masire’s final accomplishment is perhaps his simplest yet most profound: he retired from office at the end of his third elected term in 1998, thereby making him the country’s first President to resign voluntarily from office.  (Seretse Khama died of cancer in office in 1980.)  The peaceful and democratic transition to Festus Mogae’s presidency set the precedent for future peaceful transitions in Botswana, such as Mogae’s retirement in 2008 and the current President Ian Khama’s presumed retirement next year.  For a continent where too many Presidents too often overstay their term in office – including in Botswana’s troubled neighbour, Zimbabwe – Masire’s accomplishment in this regard should not go unnoted.
Former Botswana President Quett Masire deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest post-colonial African leaders – Africa at LSE

The 2024 Stamp of the Day was dedicated to Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Nikola Vaptsarov