SWAKOPMUND - The Council of Traditional Leaders wants the government to make an example of Hennie Seibeb who recently uttered vulgar and distasteful statements against President Hage Geingob and First Lady Monica Geingos.
The council through its chair, Chief Immanuel Gâseb, issued a statement yesterday in which it asked the government to explore possible legal ways and means, within the constitution, against Seibeb and many others who regularly undermine Geingob.
The statement follows after Seibeb from the Landless People’s Movement publicly displayed a derogatory message during a protest against the second land conference that ended last Friday. Prior to that, Seibeb also posted a distasteful message about Geingob and the first lady, which also did not sit well with many Namibians at large.
Gâseb said such distasteful statements and discussions on social media platforms should also be investigated within the existing constitutional provisions, whether or not such discussions foment tribalism, are xenophobic, and promote racial hatred and propaganda among Namibian youth.
Gâseb said that Seibeb is neither a contemporary nor an equal in any way whatsoever of Geingob or the former president, Sam Nujoma, who he has also attacked on social media in the past.
“He has no justifiable basis on which he can engage these leaders in such a disrespectful, crude and rude manner. His behaviour in this regard is inexcusable on cultural, moral, religious and even on political grounds. If he believes that he has legitimate concerns to raise, he can do so just like any other Namibian to exercise his democratic right of expression within the considerations of politeness at whichever platform he so wishes, without resorting to indecencies against the leaders of this country,” Gâseb stated.
According to Gâseb, Seibeb, being a youth of Damara descent, was not born from a tree in the Namib or the Kalahari Desert, for him not to know the Damara people’s value systems and traditions.
“He was born within a Damaran community set-up and must have been taught the values, norms and traditions of the sub-Damaran tribe in which he was born, either by his parents or uncles and aunties. Clearly, he of own accord decided to throw away such cultural and religious values in exchange for crudeness and vulgarity.”
Gâseb said when a mere youth, one who is hardly wet behind his ears, stands up to express downright disrespectful insults, which are utterly contemptible, against a democratically elected president and his spouse, it becomes the business of the traditional leaders as the custodians of Namibia’s traditional values and customs to, in defence of these same values and customs, call such waywardness to order.
“Hence, we want the traditional jurisdiction in which Seibeb is under, parents and elders to school him as this is not the first time that this young man behaved in this manner.”
Seibeb was contacted yesterday with regard to the statement and referred New Era to Landless People’s Movement spokesperson, Uutaara Uit Mooti, who said they would respond in due course.