Forty-Four:

https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/nelson-mandela-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-44-years-ago

"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African (American) people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Life imprisonment Mandela had been sentenced to five years in prison on November 7, 1962 – three for incitement, two for the passport violation – but documents retrieved at Liliesleaf, including the diary of his African tour in the first half of 1962, and a scribbled note on a map of Johannesburg’s Fort prison, where he had once been held, reading ‘I need not mention the disastrous effects politically of an abortive attempt’, decisively linked him with the armed wing of the ANC.

This ensured that when the ‘Rivonia Trial’ began in October 1963, Mandela became the government’s ‘accused No 1’.

Who is forty-four? Where has he been? Why has he recently re-emerged?