Last year Lesotho celebrated 200 years since the founding of the nation by Moeshoeshoe I. This year the small country in southern Africa will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its independence from colonial Britain. As it does so, the number of Basotho people who personally saw colonialism end is rapidly diminishing.
Even smaller is the number of people who can claim to have built the institutions that mark post-colonial Lesotho, and post-colonial Africa more broadly. Professor Lehlohonolo Burns Banda Jiane Machobane, who died on 9 August 2025, was one such person.
