A man for all islands

by Royston Ellis

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom born December 29, 1937 was President of the Maldives from 1978 [to 2008]. After serving as Minister of Transport, he was elected as President by the Majlis and succeeded Ibrahim Nasir on November 11, 1978. He eventually became the longest-ruling head of government in Asia. The son of Abdul Gayoom (Maafaiygey Dhon Seedhi) and Khadheeja. His father had 25 children by 8 different wives and Gayoom is the 10th in his family. His mother died when he was studying in Cairo, Egypt. Gayoom's father, who died in 1982 at the age of 87, saw the first term of his son's presidency. His father was appointed the chief judge for some time. Much of Gayoom's early life was spent in Egypt. He was among the 15 students selected at the direction of the then-president Mohamed Amin Didi for special education overseas. At the age of 10, he left for Egypt on 15 September 1947, with a stopover in Sri Lanka for a few days. However, his departure from Sri Lanka was delayed for two and a half years because of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, during which he completed his secondary education at Royal College, Colombo. When the war ended, he left for Egypt in March 1950 along with other Maldivian students. Gayoom has been harshly criticized by many for his autocratic rule, and he is widely considered to be a dictator and has been accused of nepotism. This may be because he has several family members, in-laws and close relatives in high posts of his government and cabinet.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

aka Raynard Devine, Richard Tresillian.

Royston Ellis was educated at state school until he left , age 16, determined to be a writer. Two years later, his first book, a sequence of poems, was published and he perfomed his poetry on stage and TV to backing by Cliff Richard's original group. More info on: www.roystonellis.org