Younoussa Bamana

Who is Younoussa Bamana?

Younoussa Bamana was born on 1 April 1935 in Kani-Kéli in southern Mayotte, the son of modest farmers. Sent at age eight to Dzaoudzi on Petite-Terre for his primary schooling, he went on to the prestigious Gallieni lycée in Antananarivo, Madagascar, where he trained as a teacher. Returning to Mayotte as an educator, he began a quiet social change by opening schooling to girls, who had until then been largely excluded from formal education. Elected the youngest deputy of the Comoros territorial assembly in 1957 at age twenty-two, he was drawn increasingly into the political struggle over Mayotte's future as the wider Comoro archipelago moved toward independence from France. Around 1970 he founded the Mouvement Populaire Mahorais (MPM), the political movement that campaigned for Mayotte to remain French rather than join an independent Comoros, a position the island's voters endorsed in the 1974 and 1976 referendums. On 21 July 1975, shortly after the other three Comoro Islands declared independence, he was elected Prefect of Mayotte by the district council. In March 1977 he was elected deputy to the French National Assembly, and from July 1977 to April 2004 he served as president of Mayotte's General Council, becoming the island's dominant political figure for nearly three decades. He died in Mamoudzou on 22 June 2007 after a long illness; a high school in Mamoudzou was named in his honour in 2010.

Sources: La biographie de Younoussa Bamana, Département de Mayotte, mayotte.fr · Younoussa Bamana, Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younoussa_Bamana · Grandes figures des Outre-mer: Younoussa Bamana, Outremers360, outremers360.com