It is with profound sadness and heartache that we, the Gubagub Landless Community from the /Khomas region, wishes to pass-on our heartfelt condolences to our departed president. Words will never be enough and may not even mean much in also comforting the bereaved Geingob family, friends, colleagues and the Namibian nation at large. 

With that said, we simply want to cut a long story short and thank the departed head of State for being the true statesman he was until his untimely and unfortunate death. The word unfortunate in this instance may not be appropriate, considering the fact that the president passed away at age 82. 

A life well lived and as per our Christian faith according to the holy scriptures, the number of years given to mankind to live is 70 and if one is strong, you can reach the age of 80. Moreover, indeed, being the strong man he was, his Excellency president Hage Gottfried Geingob made it to 80+, the great statesman was 82 years old upon his death. 

However, for us the Gubagub Landless Community, the president’s untimely death is unfortunate. Unfortunate in the sense that our steering committee alongside the elders’ council wanted to pay a courtesy visit to the president regarding our landlessness issue. 

Already in the past, we wholeheartedly thanked the late president for convening Namibia’s national second land conference, which eventually led to our community also submitting our ancestral land right claim. It’s now almost six years since the claim submissions by various individuals and communities were made, but until now, we are in the dark about the implementation of the resolutions by the Namibian government. 

As a landless community with nowhere to go in our own region and country, we were looking forward in engaging the president knowing that he understood the plight of the landless especially farmland. 

The late president during his new year’s message said that the year 2024 is a year of expectations. Many Namibians have taken the new year’s message by heart including the Gubagub Landless Community and thus we are expecting progressive results from the Namibian government in terms of land re-distribution. In the meantime, we continue to say “ancestral land, our land, our heritage, our pride, our dignity and identity”. May the sole of the late president Hage G. Geingob rest in eternal peace.

* Gubagub Landless Community is a landless (farmland) community from south-east
Windhoek in the /Khomas region who lost vast tracks of land at the hands of the previous white minority administration/rule.