Gaafar Nimeiry

Gaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiry (otherwise spelled in English as Jaafar Nimeiry, Gaafar Nimeiry or Ga'far Muhammad Numayri; Arabic: جعفر محمد نميري‎; 1 January 1930 – 30 May 2009) was the President of Sudan from 1969 to 1985.

A military officer, he came to power after a military coup in 1969. With his party, the Sudanese Socialist Union, he initially pursued socialist and Pan-Arabist policies. In 1972 he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement, ending the First Sudanese Civil War. He later became an ally of the United States. In the late 1970s he moved towards Islamism, and in 1983 he imposed Sharia law throughout the country, precipitating the Second Sudanese Civil War. He was ousted from power in 1985 and went into exile in Egypt. He returned in 1999 and ran in the Presidential elections in 2000, but did poorly.

Early life and education

He was born in Cairo in Egypt, at a time when Sudan was ruled by Great Britain. He was the son of a postman and the great grandson of a local tribal monarch from the Wad Nimeiry region in Dongola, in the Northern State.