Nelson Mandela celebrates his 94th birthday

South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela, who has now retired to Qunu, turns 94 today and receives birthday wishes from across the country from its 12 million schoolchildren.

The schoolchildren sang happy birthday to Mandela to kick off events to honour him with a birthday song written for the day including the line ‘we love you father’.

Considered an important day, school principals told their students how Mandela liberated the South African people from apartheid and spent seven decades of his life in prison to improve the lives of other people.

Despite the celebrations, Mandela is unlikely to make a public appearance himself and his granddaughter said the family will be celebrating with a traditional meal of tripe and a corn dish called samp which is popular in Easter Cape, followed by cake.