Our generation has been blessed to have seen and experienced the enigma that is Sam Nujoma, the quintessential iconic leader. The one who taught us that we rebel not out of choice, but because we refuse to be a leaf in the centre of the whirlwind. 

I remember the excitement and curiosity when we were told that the one who took us to the streets in 1988 in solidarity with the Ponhofi Secondary School was to come back home with an apparent animal-like tail. 

Despite not having seen him due to the size of the crowd, we felt at ease and excited having ‘seen him’, for having to have felt his enigmatic spirit was to have “seen” him indeed. 

After our independence, Yours Truly once again rushed to Omatjete in 1991, a tiny village in the now Daures constituency, where we were told that President Sam Nujoma was coming. 

He became the only black person I saw coming in a helicopter and the only president to date to have visited Omatjete, part of his drive to know every single grass on his land and feed his improbable vision of a land and its people that have risen beyond the wildest imagination, and ensure every ancestral timbre rise in unison.

During my high school years, the late John Pandeni as governor, would always invite me to recite my poem on President Nujoma’s birthday in exchange for N$350. 

When Nahas Angula became my friend, he persuaded me to lead him and two others to the old State House to seek Nujoma’s blessings and support for our conference The African Origin of Civilisation and the Destiny of Africa Conference held in Windhoek 24-25 May 1999. I was also tasked with requesting and pleading that he be the patron of the Pan Afrikan Centre of Namibia, PACON, we envisaged to establish. 

He committed himself on condition that we prove our worth with the conference. After the conference he had no choice but to accept.

When he retired, I requested an interview on his farm to introduce my first born to the worth of ‘this man’. During the interview, which turned into lunch, the late president came forth as the only president who displayed a complete understanding of the historical evolution of our country. 

After informing him of our origin, we were shocked to know that he also knew that “Tjiriange ouotjiMaruru”. Such knowledge can only come from a person who made it his point to not only understand his role as a president, but the cultural fibre of its inhabitants too. Looking for special features that must have pointed to his greatness, I would ask him how he was born, whether he was born with teeth, “ueja nombunda” (did he come with his head or feet) or whether his strength was in his beard like Samson’s hair, The only answer he gave us that day while laughing was, “when children are born in the African culture, only women are present, and he would not know as he was just a baby.” Typical of great people who refuse to admit their greatness.

We discussed why was he chosen by Hosea Kutako, why did he not abandon the struggle like others and how he convinced an intellectual such as Kwame Nkrumah of the tenor of the Namibian cause when he had no formal education? 

How did he rise from being essentially stateless to being a statesman, standing shoulder to shoulder in the Patheon of African heads of states, alongside those whose governments preceded his by decades?

I left Etunda Farm knowing that men like Sam Nujoma come by in a thousand years. They are born simple yet rise above the wildest imaginations of their family. They tower above their own pain and suffering and suffer for others they have not seen or may not meet during their lifetime. 

“Omwambo korujezu, komajo omaapa”, who despite the attempt by the colonialists to paint him as the phantasmagorical terrorist, brought assurance across colour and ethnic spectrum. 

I asked him how he feels when Ndilimani sings at the top of their lungs: “Sema ulipeni?”. With a smile of modesty, he said his answer is always “I am right here, where Kutako left me to lead the foot soldiers of our struggle”. 

At independence my country needed Sam Nujoma at that time, thorn in the flesh of the brutal colonialists or a fly in their soup, the man who would wag the finger when needed and would make decisions for “My government and I”.

Sam Nujoma represents not only our quest for identity but also the will to constantly define and redefine that identity. The ability to make mistakes and resolve same on our own and for ourselves. He comes from a class whose life has been purposefully lived. 

He taught us that when you are on the side of history, you do not need to speak English or have degrees to have others support your cause and that to lead is a calling greater than one’s comfort and either conquer or die for the collective. 

As we walked through his garden on that day, I realised Nujoma was born to be a gardener of dreams, aspirations and visions of both flora and humans. 

As we bade him farewell, and after his warning my brother not to eat too much meat, I asked how he wanted to be remembered when he was no more, and without hesitation, he remarked “As a citizen of this country”. 

In 2023, his Foundation asked me to be their lawyer, even though I had no law firm and experienced a Gordian knot at the Swapo Congress. This was a true reflection of its founder, who was magnanimous and graceful, a consistent principle in his life, that no matter where you stood on any given issue you dare not waver. 

When I asked the Founding Father, how he felt when they called him “Dai Vambu”, his answer on that day was “it did not bother me”. 

Nujoma taught us that the intention ought to be to get to the peak as a collective and that leadership is to assemble the best among all of us for that task. 

Kutako did with Nujoma, Nujoma did with the best among us of yesteryears. It is for Nandi-Ndaitwah to do same in an age of all knowing it all. 

The best remains those who can turn dreams into tangible policies, those gifted to be part of the collective and rise above the temptation of seeing leadership as a means. As I bear witness to our founding citizen blending with the night, I will once again recite my poem to myself that there goes: “ependa romapenda, ondjerera moutuku, otjiku tjo hanganeno, Sam Shafishuna Nujoma, you sacrificed, you survived for Namibia my land, your eternal bed”. 

Father of my nation, unrivalled freedom fighter, leader par excellence, the quintessential, the myth, the man may you graciously disembark on the day you left the country and kiss the tarmac of the eternal home to the applause of the Source. Nandaku ouete omakura etjetja kaende naua Muatje Omuzandu. Opuwo tokuhona ukavaze Muhona. 

*An edited version first published in 2016 in New Era