About
Dr Panduleni Itula
President of the Independent Patriots for Change and Leader of the Official Opposition in Namibia
Dr Panduleni Filemon Bango Itula is President of the Independent Patriots for Change and Leader of the Official Opposition in Namibia.
A dentist and oral surgeon, he was born in Windhoek on 2 August 1957. He trained in the United Kingdom, returned home in December 2013, and founded the Independent Patriots for Change on 2 August 2020.
In 2019 he received 242,657 votes as an independent presidential candidate. In 2024 he received 284,106 votes as the IPC presidential candidate.
Early life
Dr Itula was born in Windhoek Old Location on 2 August 1957. He attended Onyaanya Primary School, Mandume Lower Primary School, Namutuni Primary School, and Augustineum Secondary School.
As a student he distributed boycott leaflets in the 1971/72 national workers’ strike, served in the Namibian Black Students Organisation and in SWAPO student and youth structures, and worked in SWAPO’s Windhoek information and publicity department, including on Ombuze ya Namibia.
In April 1979 he was arrested for political activism. He was held at Uis Prison and thereafter under Proclamation AG 26 of 1978, then placed under house arrest, before leaving Namibia for medical training.
Profession
He continued his education in the United Kingdom, including work with the SWAPO Students Section from 1981 to 1988. He holds a BTEC National Diploma in Dental Technology, trained at the University of Bristol Dental School from 1989 to 1993, and was awarded the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in March 1994.
He later completed a Master’s of Medical Science in Oral Surgery at the University of Sheffield and was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in dentistry from the University of the Western Cape and an LLM in Medical Law from Northumbria University.
His United Kingdom practice included posts in Angus, Sheffield, Seaton Delaval, and Dumfries and Galloway. He has been registered as a dentist in Namibia since 20 June 2003. From 2007 he provided visiting and voluntary oral and maxillofacial surgery at Katutura State Hospital while based in the United Kingdom.
In December 2013 he returned permanently to Namibia and established the Scottish Health Centre in Windhoek, where he served as director and consultant. He practised clinical dentistry in Namibia from 2013 to 2019. He is also registered as a dental technician with the Allied Health Professions Council of Namibia.
Public life
Dr Itula founded the Independent Patriots for Change on 2 August 2020 and serves as its President and Chief Patriot.
In the 2019 presidential election he received 242,657 votes (29.4%) as an independent. In 2024 he received 284,106 votes as the IPC presidential candidate. He did not join the National Assembly list in 2024.
The Independent Patriots for Change is the official opposition in the National Assembly, with 20 seats. After the 2020 regional and local authority elections the party became Namibia’s second-largest, with 5 regional council seats and 66 local council seats.