5 Pounds 25th Anniversary of Independence

Sudan's 1956 independence from Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule — a dual sovereignty arrangement that had left both Britain and Egypt nominally in charge since 1899 — was itself a product of Egyptian political instability following the 1952 revolution that deposed King Farouk. The new Egyptian government under Naguib and later Nasser dropped Cairo's longstanding claim to unity with Sudan, clearing the path for a Sudanese declaration that surprised even some of its architects by coming as early as it did.

By 1981, the country marking that anniversary was ruled by Jaafar Nimeiry, who had seized power in a 1969 coup and was then in the process of imposing sharia law nationwide — an irony not lost on Sudan's substantial non-Muslim south.