Reflecting on his close-knit friendship traversing four decades with the late Hage Geingob, defence minister Frans Kapofi says rekindling relations between Geingob and the late Hidipo Hamutenya and Theo-Ben Gurirab remains one of his proudest moments. 

Kapofi was speaking at Tuesday’s memorial service for former president Geingob at the Windhoek Showgrounds, where he fondly narrated how daunting a task it was when the late president Geingob asked him to reach out to both Hamutenya and Gurirab. 

Kapofi’s chief objective was to re-unite former allies who were now diametrically opposed, on political grounds. 

Geingob extended the olive branch, thereby setting Kapofi’s mission in motion. 

That was shortly after Geingob took the highest office in the land as the country’s third president in 2015. 

It was planned to be the first personal meeting between the three political stalwarts, who a few years earlier had their own political affrays. 

Geingob and Hamutenya had for many years remained at arm’s length politically, following Hamutenya’s decision to part ways with the ruling Swapo in 2007 to form the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP). 

The late Hamutenya’s fallout with Swapo started in 2004 when he declared his aspirations to run for the party’s presidency, a victory which would have catapulted him to the country’s presidency. 

Then Swapo president and Founding President Sam Nujoma did not support his nomination and on the eve of the extra-ordinary congress in 2004, sacked him as foreign affairs minister. At the time, Hamutenya called the 2004 party congress a sham and ill conceived.

Along with other former Swapo veterans such as Jesaya Nyamu, Kandy Nehova, Shapua Kaukungwa, Peter Naholo, Festus Naholo and many others, he later went on to form RDP, where he remained president until he rejoined Swapo in August 2015. 

Equally, a grumble also ensued between Geingob and Gurirab following a 2002 fallout between Geingob and then president Nujoma, who demoted the now demised head of State as prime minister and replaced him with Gurirab. 

As an alternative, Geingob was offered a ministerial position by Nujoma but declined the lesser position and subsequently resigned. Those developments would later leave a dent on Geingob and Gurirab’s relationship. 

But the historic grounds covered, and the immense political success achieved by the three, who were popularly known as the ‘Swapo Trio’ at global level during the liberation struggle in laying the foundation for Namibia’s independence on the diplomatic front, reuniting them appeared to be a mirage. 

It was against this subterranean background that Geingob as president in 2015 tasked then presidential affairs minister Kapofi to get hold of his lifetime friends and comrades Hamutenya and Gurirab and set up what would be their long-awaited personal meeting. 

“He [Geingob] wanted the meeting to happen but he was doubting if they would agree to it. But he said I should go ahead and do it anyway. It was one of the most difficult tasks that my president had ever assigned me to undertake and I could not refuse because I was given a job to do. So, I started by first reaching out to Gurirab and as you all would remember, Gurirab was a very smooth and easy-going guy; so, he openly agreed to the idea and that made my next step easy. He was eager and ready to meet with his friend Geingob,” narrated Kapofi.

He continued: “Next it was to meet with Hamutenya, who Geingob always fondly referred to as ‘HH’ and was also a lifetime friend of his. But I did not know how to talk or approach him because there were other times before that when I wanted to reach out to him, but Hamutenya was adamant he wanted nothing to do with Geingob back then. But this time around, I still proceeded and went to talk to Hamutenya and he surprisingly agreed and asked ‘why now?”

 He said it was a good thing and was looking forward to it. Thereafter, I organised the date, venue and time of their meeting. The three of them eventually met and the rest is history and I will never disclose what they discussed that day here.”  

They met on the night of 8 July 2015 for a light dinner at Geingob’s residence, an encounter that both Hamutenya and Gurirab at the time described as a “trip down memory lane, a profound moment of friendship and a restoration of a lifetime bond”. 

For Kapofi, he had done a remarkable job by fulfilling the wishes of his political mentor Geingob and proudly watched from the sidelines as history and grand political ties were reliving themselves when the moment and time so demanded. 

“As difficult as it was, it was and remains one of my proudest moments. In fact, in his last days, Hamutenya called me in and said I should convey a message to Geingob that he wanted to return to Swapo. I passed on the message to my president and he was very happy with Hamutenya’s decision to return home. He eventually returned to Swapo,” added a gratified Kapofi. 

Geingob will be laid to rest on 25 February at Heroes’ Acre. 

- ohembaou@nepc.com.na