US President Barack Obama eulogized Nelson Mandela as "the last great liberator of the 20th Century'' as tens of thousands of South Africans, joyously cheering and singing despite a cold rain, mourned the passing and celebrated the life of the father of their modern nation, USA Today reported. Obama, speaking in an open soccer stadium and before a gathering of global leaders, likened Mandela to historic giants of the past century, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and said that like them Mandela willingly "suffered the consequences of his actions'' in standing up to powerful oppressors. He likened him as well to Abraham Lincoln. "We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again,'' said Obama, who has long regarded Mandela as an inspiration. "Nothing he achieved was inevitable," Obama said. "In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, persistence and faith. He tells us what's possible not just in the pages of dusty history books, but in our own lives as well." Before addressing the large but not full stadium crowd, Obama paused to shake hands with Cuban President Raul Castro, whose nation has long been at odds with the United States. He also shook hands with F.W. de Klerk, the last president of South Africa under the minority white apartheid government who shared in the Nobel Prize with Mandela for negotiating a peaceful transition to democracy. Extreme levels of security were in place at FNB Stadium on the edge of the black township of Soweto for the memorial ceremony for the nation's first black president, Nobel Prize winner and leader of his nation's struggle to establish democracy.