Ismail Guelleh

His political involvement and influence in the East African region and the continent as a whole is not secret. Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, the President of Djibouti, was born on November 27, 1947, in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia to Omar Guelleh and Moumina Rirache into the Mamassans clan of the Issa. Upon completing a traditional Islamic secondary school in 1968, he worked as a civil servant with the French colonial administration of the Republic of Djibouti, and two years later, he became a police inspector.

Guelleh was installed as president of Djibouti, a strategically located nation on the coast of East Africa, in 1999, following the political footsteps of his uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who had led the country since independence 22 years earlier. Since then, he led the country winning consecutive elections in 2005, 2011, 2016 and again in 2021 where he received 97.44% of the vote, making him the 8th longest-serving ruler in Africa. In 2019, Guelleh received “The Padma Vibhushan” decorative award (Lotus Decoration), India’s second-highest civilian award, for his accomplishment in safely removing Indian citizens from neighboring war-torn Yemen. Guelleh’s country currently hosts Chinese and Japanese military bases that are vital in combatting piracy in the Western part of the Indian Ocean region.

Under his leadership, The Republic of Djibouti made the headlines in 2023 after launching its first satellite, Djibouti 1A. It took off in early Novermber from the Vandenberg Space Force Base onboard the SpaceX Transporter-9, a dedicated SSO rideshare mission carrying a variety of payloads into sun-synchronous orbit. Djibouti 1A was developed via a joint capacity building programme between Djibouti and its technical partner, France’s Centre Spatial Universitaire de Montpellier (CSUM). Djiboutian engineers and technicians in France designed, constructed and tested the satellite. Djibouti 1A is a nanosatellite – a small satellite, typically weighing between one and ten kilograms, used for space research and communication purposes. It will collect national, real-time data from climatological and seismic stations, including temperature, rainfall, river depth, and hydrometry, to help boost agricultural production and monitor environmental changes. This satellite first for an African country and that made Djibouti’s head of state as the biggest talking point in November and December of 2023.